Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Date: February 18, 2013 Journal One: Section

One Self-Reflection Assignment At SS Elementary school the special education teacher, along with the administration and staffs have a strict collaboration schedule that the teachers and other staff follow. For this specific Monday, I had special education collaboration with kindergarten through third grade special education staff and special education paraprofessionals that began at 8:15 a.m. This collaboration meeting had a specific outline to be followed that began with successes from the last week, then it would be followed up by any issues that need to be addressed regarding the students, and then any issues that needed to be addressed regarding staff, scheduling, etc. We met in room 19 which is the kindergarten through third grade resource room where pull out instruction for our students takes place. There was the special educator, two paraprofessionals and myself. The successes from the previous week were talked about first and all of the teachers had information to bring to the table. I did not have any major successes to discuss so I did not participate much in this section. The next topics that needed to be discussed were any issues regarding the students. Both of the paraprofessionals had issues and C.G., the special educator would ask them what she could do to help. I do not work with these students much, so for this section I also did not participate much. However, I brought to the table an behavior issue that needed to be addressed for a student that we all worked with. C.G. asked what she thought I could do to help the behavior, and told me to brainstorm some ideas. For any issues that needed to be discussed fin regards of scheduling, staff

members, etc. I also did not participate in because there were no changes in my schedule that needed to be addressed. Reflecting upon my behavior during this special education teacher collaboration, I determined that I did not speak very much or add a lot of information to the table. Given, the previous week was not a very hectic week, I still feel as if I should have spoke up more than I did. I perhaps could have really thought about some successes my students had the week before and participated in that section or gave some input to the paraprofessionals that were having a difficult time with some students. Reflection upon my behavior, I determined that I took a very passive approach during this meeting and allowed my cooperating teacher to take the main role during this collaboration time.

Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Date: February 19, 2013 Journal Two: Section One Self-Reflection Assignment Special education collaboration begins bright and early on Tuesday mornings. The administration holds weekly special education collaboration for all special educators and related services staff members to participate in. This meeting begins at 8 a.m. in the vice principals office and continued until 8:45 a.m. To begin the meeting, the administration opening right up with Okay, who has something that they would like to discuss? Right away the special education teacher for students in the fourth and fifth grade began to discuss a problem that she was having with one of her students. The social worker stepped in and began to suggest solutions that would maybe be able to help this teacher to diminish her students problem behavior. All of the professionals, with the exception of the vice principal continued to talk about this students problem behavior and why they believed that this problem behavior was occurring. Some of the teachers had very different viewpoints and began to argue a bit with why her behavior was occurring. A few teachers began to feel overwhelmed and did not speak a lot after this conversation. This conversation continued on for thirty-five minutes. When there was ten minutes left in the collaboration meeting, the vice principal asked if there was anything else that needed to be discussed today. All of the teachers, related services, and staff looked overwhelmed and did not speak up. The meeting was then closed. Reflecting on my behavior during this meeting, I determined that, once again, I assumed a passive approach during this meeting. I did not speak up much during

this meeting, but I contribute this to be because we only spoke about one student during the meeting and I had never met or worked with this student before in my time at SS Elementary. However, I have worked with students that have had similar problem behavior and have completed Functional Behavior Analyses on them, so I probably could have contributed some useful information to this meeting. Overall, I believe that I did not contribute as much as I would have liked to contribute during this meeting.

Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Date: February 20, 2013 Journal Three: Section One Self-Reflection Assignment On Wednesdays at SS Elementary School there is not a specific meeting held with administration or teams, however, the special educator collaborates with two different teachers during this day. During the time that we are working on reading with our third grade students on Wednesdays they leave thirty minutes early in order to attend art with their class. Since the third grade teacher also has this time free we begin by collaborating with her during this time. We co-teach for three periods out of the day with this teacher so we are in constant communication with her, however, this is a more formal discussion where we can address any issues with students. We began by opening the meeting by asking if there were any issues that needed to be addressed. All three of us decided that we did not have specific issues, and so we decided to continue on to collaborate about what we would be teaching to our students the next week of school. Next week is ISAT week, so this was a relatively easy topic to discuss this next week. We chatted about schedule changes during ISAT week and discussed all academic classes that we would still be teaching that next week, which was a total of two. We decided that I would prepare materials for these two academic classes and then she had to go and get her students from art, so the meeting was adjourned. The next collaboration meeting that we held began at 3:15 at the end of the day and continued on until 3:30. This meeting was with one of the two paraprofessionals that work with our students every day. During this collaboration

time, we usually discuss any topics that have come up since Monday, or that are more private so they did not want to discuss them during the main team meeting on Monday. During this meeting the paraprofessional talked about her day and a few ideas she had in regards to teaching second grade math class. During this discussion, I chimed in when she began talking about using the iPad and math and volunteered to look up some applications that would be appropriate for their skill level. This meeting was very informal and brief. Reflecting on these collaboration meetings I determined that I participated more than I have in the past meetings. I think I contribute speaking out more during these meetings because I was extremely comfortable with the people I was meeting with. I work extremely closely with the third grade general education teacher and co-teach with her multiple periods a day. Also, I share a room with this paraprofessional and see her often. I felt very comfortable and I think that is why I spoke up more during these meetings.

Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Date: February 21, 2013 Journal Four: Section One Self-Reflection Assignment On Thursdays during at SS Elementary for special education teams, there are not any specific meetings once again. However, the special educator and the second grade teacher have a thirty-minute time frame that they are both free and this has been designated to be their collaboration time. When the second grade students are in art class, we meet with the second grade teacher because she teaches three of our students with disabilities that we teach. The meeting began by the special education teacher asking how everything was going in class. This immediately led into a discussion about one of our students with challenging problem behavior and how she believed that her behavior was beginning to get worse. They then began to talk about a behavior plan that was implemented then phased out during the past semester. After discussing her problem behaviors, we decided to talk about how they were doing academically and if there was anything we could do to help. She explained that the students needed some modified work during writing class, and explained to us that they were talking about fairy tales currently and that the fairy tales they were reading and writing about were too complex for them to follow. We decided that I would adapt the fairy tales that they would be reading in class and adapt them so they were at their reading levels. Reflecting on my behavior during this meeting, I believe that I contributed as much as I possibly could. I did not know this student before this semester, and I did

not know what behavior programs they had in place in order to help her behavior. However, I did agree when the teacher was discussing how she believes her behavior is getting worse, because I work with this student a great deal and I am observing the same behaviors. Also, I agreed to adapted the fairy tales so I contributed to that conversation by asking questions about what exactly I should do.

Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Date: February 22, 2013 Journal Five: Section One Self-Reflection Assignment On Fridays, I only have two short collaboration meetings. The first meeting of the day is between the special education teacher and myself and takes place from 10:30 a.m. to 10:50 a.m. During this collaboration meeting we decided to discuss a behavior plan that I introduced to my group of students during general education math class. She asked if she could view my data and we had a conversation where she asked how I felt about this program, how I thought it was working and if there was anything she could do to help. Reflecting on my behavior during this collaboration meeting I was very responsive because it was just a meeting between my cooperating teacher and myself. I feel very comfortable around her and we always have frequent communication so I did not feel overwhelmed at all. At 3:15-3:30 we also have a collaboration meeting with the second paraprofessional that works with our students on a daily basis. Ms. B, the paraprofessional mainly stays in one kindergarten classroom all day working with a specific student. Due to this, I do not work with her very closely. Although this meeting was brief and informal, they chatted about how the student was doing, if they needed to adapt any work and the special educator asked if there was anything she could do to help. Reflecting on my behavior during the second collaboration meeting, I decided that once again I took a passive approach. I believe that I did not talk much during this meeting because I did not necessarily know this

paraprofessional very well. However, I believe that I did have some useful information that I could have contributed to this conversation.

Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Date: February 22, 2013 Section Two: Behavior One Self-Reflection Assignment Behavior: Category- Interactive Communication, Problem solving when conflict arises Communicate effectively in oral form The first behavior that I believe I need to focus on is to contribute more during collaboration meetings. The reason why I believe that this is a weakness for me is because after I reflected on my past week of collaborative meetings, I discovered that unless the meeting is just between another teacher and myself, I do not contribute as much as I should be. I reflected on approximately nine collaboration meetings and the only one I believed that I contributed as much as I should have was a meeting between only my cooperating teacher and myself. Also, I believe this is a weakness for me because after reflecting on these meetings, I believed that I held knowledgeable insight on some of the topics that these individuals were talking about and instead of speaking up, I decided to sit back and simply listen to them brainstorm ideas. Contributing is also important when it comes to problem solving conflict that arises. Many times in collaborative meetings I will often not say how I am feeling when conflicts arise. This will lead me to often take a role in which my concerns are not being met, only those of the other teachers. This skill needs to become a strength for me because very soon I will have to be advocating for my own students on my caseload and I cannot simply sit back and not contribute to the conversation when conflict arises. Contributing ideas, thoughts and opinions is a main reason that collaboration meetings are held, so since I am

taking a passive approach during collaboration meetings, I believe that participating and speaking up more during meetings will be one behavior that I would directly like to change through intervention. As discussed in class, one of the main qualities of effective team communication is shared perception and without me contributing to the collaborative communication I will never have effective team communication. I believe that I often do not participate in these collaboration meetings because I often feel like I do not have as much experience as the other individuals present and at times I feel intimidated. For example, when I am meeting with multiple special educators, related staff, and the principals I often question myself when I am trying to decide if they would like to hear my ideas and thoughts. Also, although I may have specific experience related to what they are talking about, I often fear that I may be wrong or that people will not agree with what I have to say. When other individuals say ideas, thoughts, or opinions I often just nod my head and agree with what they are saying instead of inserting some of my own ideas and thoughts.

Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Date: February 22, 2013 Section Two: Behavior Two Self-Reflection Assignment Behavior: Category- Personal Characteristics Demonstrate willingness to learn from others throughout the collaborative process After reflecting on my past week of collaborative meetings, I discovered that although I do not often verbally speak out during these meetings, I am finding myself to not be very open minded in my thoughts. For example, when we were meeting with the whole special education team, a special educator brought up that a student was beginning to portray problem behaviors. During the time that the staff was talking about why the behavior was occurring and I often found myself thinking in my head that they were incorrect and that she was probably performing these behaviors for other reasons. I refused to change my way of thinking and therefore, I discarded what all of the other teachers were thinking. This is just one example of when I was not being very open-minded in my thoughts. The collaboration process is all about being open minded to hear others thoughts, ideas, and opinions so you can gain knowledge and helpful insight to how to become the best teacher you can be. I believe that this is a weakness for me because I often am very stubborn in my way of thinking. Although I may not verbally express this, I often believe that what I am thinking is correct. This is a weakness because if I do not change my behavior then I will never gain anything from the collaborative process within my school system.

I am not completely sure why I react the way I do when I believe that only the information that I hold is the correct information. As we discussed in class, I believe that my communicative climate is a defensive climate. I feel as though I always attempt to evaluate others ideas in a judgmental manner even though I often do not verbally communicate this. I believe that a reason why I may react the way that I do is because I may have learned this information at some point in time and I believe that I am correct. However, I know that many of these teachers, paraprofessionals, related staff, and principals all have great experiences and a lot of professional experience so I believe that if I become more open minded that I could learn a mass amount of information from these professionals.

Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Date: February 25, 2013 Section Three: Baseline Data, Day One Self-Reflection Assignment Situation Encountered: The first situation that I encountered was during kindergarten through third grade collaboration. One of the paraprofessionals began speaking about why one of our third grade students was acting out during adapted reading class. She believes that she was acting out and portraying challenging behaviors because the other students were reading too quickly for her. I am the main teacher for this reading group so I have been having some other ideas on why she may be acting out during that class. My Reaction: After reflecting on this collaboration meeting, I discovered that both of the behaviors that I want to directly change through intervention were present during this meeting. Although I am the main teacher for this reading group and I had a very strong idea on why the student was performing challenging behaviors, I discovered that I did not verbally speak up during this meeting. I kept listening to the other staff and teachers all brainstorm why this was happening, yet I did not speak up. Also, as I listened to the other teachers and professionals brainstorm about why she may be acting out, I found myself being very close-minded. I listened to what the other teachers were suggesting, however in my mind I kept always going back to believing that the student was just portraying these behaviors to gain teacher attention. Other professionals spoke one idea after another idea of why she

was performing these behaviors and I still believed that my explanation for her behavior was the correct explanation.

Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Date: February 26, 2013 Section Three: Baseline Data, Day Two Self-Reflection Assignment Situation Encountered: During special education collaboration with the whole special education team (principals, two special education teachers, related services and paraprofessionals) a discussion was being held about a meeting that we had previously held the week before. This meeting was a Response to Intervention meeting for a student that was struggling in math. In this meeting, we were trying to show the parents all of the data that has been collected while we were providing this student Tier Three Response to Intervention services. During this meeting, there was a lot of off topic chit chat and the students father kept saying that he just believed that his daughter was being lazy and that she did not need special education services. This process continued until the mother said that she had to leave for work and the topic of providing special education services in math for his daughter. During collaboration, many people were brainstorming ways that this meeting could have gone better. My Reaction: During this meeting, I found myself constantly thinking that an outline for Response to Intervention meetings needs to be designed and implemented. As other teachers were suggesting reasons why the meeting went the way it had, I just kept being close-minded and believed that there was not a specific reason why the meeting had gone the way it had, but I just kept thinking that if there was an outline

the meeting would have gone more smooth and all topics would have been addressed. Also, during this meeting, I found myself once again not speaking up. Although I had an idea of how the meeting could have gone smoother, I did not speak up and voice my opinion. I believe that during this meeting I was very intimidated by the principals and other professionals that were present and therefore I did not bring up my idea. However, because the meeting did not go as planned, a student did not get qualified for special education services in math. If I would have voiced my opinion for an outline for Response to Intervention meetings, maybe someone would have liked my idea and it could have helped other Response to Intervention meetings.

Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Date: February 28, 2013 Section Three: Baseline Data, Day Three Self-Reflection Assignment Situation Encountered: During collaboration with the second grade teacher, the main topic of our conversation was the adapted fairy tales that we had previously spoke about the week before. Over the weekend I adapted about seven of the fairy tales that the class would be reading for our students for their reading and writing assignments. The teacher believed that the adapted fairy tales were still too complex for our students and that she was having to spend too much time working with our individual students during this writing time and she was not having enough time to work with other students. My Reaction: Once again during this collaboration meeting I found myself being closeminded while she was telling me how she was feeling. I felt like we adapted the work, and addressed the students behavior problems so she should have been good to go. However the teacher was saying that she still felt like she was spending too much time with this single student and that it was taking away from her instruction to the other students. After reflecting on this collaboration meeting I feel like I truly need to work on being very open minded to how others are feeling even if their feelings are different than my own. Also, during this meeting I once again did not voice my opinion. Although I spoke to Ms. H, the second grade teacher, I never verbalized my feelings even though she was telling me how I felt. I took a very passive approach during this

meeting. I would simply listen to what she was saying and then nod my head and let the special education teacher go ahead and respond to the issue at hand. I feel as though for the collaboration process to be successful there needs to be a sharing of feelings, ideas, and thoughts and if I cannot learn how to share my feelings, collaboration will not be useful for me.

Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Section 4 Intervention One Behavior: Category- Interactive Communication, Problem solving when conflict arises Communicate effectively in oral form The intervention that I will put in place in order to become more verbal during collaboration time, especially when conflict arises, is to do a self-reflection and a self-evaluation after each of my collaboration meetings. The manner in which I will do this will be to fill out a pre-made self-evaluation form after my collaboration meeting so I can keep data on my progress. The self-evaluation will be ranking myself to see how much I contributed to the conversation, if I stated my opinions, and whether we were able to come to a decision via consensus on the issue at hand. When there is not a decision to be made, I will just rank how well I thought I communicated and contributed to the conversation as well as if I stated my personal opinions/thoughts/ideas. I chose this type of intervention because I believe that self-evaluation is one of the best ways to improve your own teaching. You need to be able to self-evaluate yourself and keep data in order to see if your behavior is increasing. Keeping data charts and self-evaluating yourself are one of the only ways that you can show whether you are making progress in meeting your goal or not. Rating scales have been shown to improve collaborative efforts and I believe they would be extremely effective for my to use personally as well.

In case this intervention does not work, I have a contingency plan in place. If this does not work due to the time restraints of being a teacher and me not always having time to self-reflect after every collaboration meeting I will then fill out a collaboration self-evaluation at the end of every week. I will log how much I thought I participated and whether or not I stated my personal opinions and ideas. This is the contingency plan because I would like to be able to reflect shortly after every collaboration meeting, however sometimes I know that this could be difficult with the time restraints.

Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Section 4 Intervention Two Behavior: Category- Personal Characteristics Demonstrate willingness to learn from others throughout the collaborative process The intervention that I will put into place in order to demonstrate willingness to learn from others throughout the collaborative process and not be closed off to hearing others ideas, I will use a mental strategy. The mental strategy that I am going to use will be to stop when I hear an opinion that I do not necessarily agree with. Then I will be sure not to close off my though process. Many times I observed myself closing off my though process therefore I do not hear their ideas and thoughts behind their opinion. Due to this I could be missing out on vital information that these individuals could be telling me about my students. Once I completely listen to the other individual and the collaboration meeting is over, I will then reflect on the statement and take the time to discover how I truly feel about their opinion. I believe that taking this time to think about what they said and being sure to hear out their entire opinion will help my collaboration process greatly. In case this contingency plan does not work out and I do not follow through with this plan because it is a mental strategy, I will then have to implement a more concrete method in order to change my way of thinking during my collaboration meetings. If this mental strategy does not work out I will reflect after all of my collaboration meetings and write down how I think I did on being more open

minded. I will rate myself on a scale and therefore I will be able to concretely see my progress.

Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Section 5 Behavior: Category- Interactive Communication, Problem solving when conflict arises Communicate effectively in oral form -Intervention: Fill out self-evaluation form A. Today my opportunity to engage in collaboration and incorporate my intervention was after a collaboration meeting between my third grade general education teacher, the special education teacher and myself. During these past meetings, I observed that I would not communicate verbally often because I felt intimidated by these veteran teachers. On my self-evaluation before my intervention I concluded that I was only contributing zero to one times each collaboration meeting that I was in, I set my new goal to contribute at least three times during this collaboration meeting. During these meetings although I thought I had several good ideas, I would not contribute them. Today in collaboration we were discussing new math rotations. During this time I suggested that we could implement an iPad station since we had just gained new iPads. They thought it was a great idea and then asked if the third graders could be trusted to stay on math iPad applications. After this I then explained to them an application that was able to lock the students in to certain applications. When we were done discussing the stations they moved on to other topics. I found that I had not contributed during the other topics.

B.

After my meeting I went back to my classroom and decided to spend a few

minutes filling out my self-evaluation form. My goal that I had set before my meeting was to contribute three times. While reflecting I decided that I had only contributed two times during this meeting, but that was still a successful gain in my eyes. My cooperating teacher also commented on my idea and how it was nice to have fresh new ideas presented for them. I also logged that in my self-evaluation. I think that this intervention really helped my collaboration skills because I set a goal for myself and I knew that I wanted to follow through with this goal, so I made sure to contribute to the conversation.

Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Section 5 Behavior: Category- Interactive Communication, Problem solving when conflict arises Communicate effectively in oral form -Intervention: Fill out self-evaluation form A. Today I had a new opportunity to contribute to the meeting when conflict arose during a collaboration meeting between the second grade general education teacher, the special education teacher, the paraprofessional and myself. During this collaboration meeting, one students problem behavior was brought up. During this discussion the second grade teacher asked that the student with problem behaviors to leave the class during writing time. However this student does not qualify for writing services, as mentioned in a prior journal we have been modifying this students work in writing class because they are often reading books and poetry that she cannot read during writing class. We began to explain to the second grade teacher that she could not legally be pulled for writing. The second grade teacher began to interrupt us and say that this student was too much trouble to keep in her classroom during writing time and that something had to be done. When the special education teacher was done speaking, I then decided to talk to her about not just removing the student from the class in general because she needed that instruction, but that maybe we could work together to form a Behavior Intervention plan that would begin to address these issues we were seeing with her.

We discussed and set a time to meet further to discuss this students Behavior Intervention Plan. B. I believe my intervention was extremely helpful during this collaboration time because conflict arose. Whenever conflict arose before I would simply not address the issues and therefore they would often go unsolved or the general education teachers concerns would be taken on instead of my own. Since I was able to verbally communicate to this teacher, the student will now be staying in the general education classroom instead of being pulled out and I believe that we will be able to collaboratively work together to come up with a Behavior Intervention Plan.

Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Section 5 Behavior: Category- Personal Characteristics Demonstrate willingness to learn from others throughout the collaborative process Intervention- mentally stop and listen to everything the individual has to say before jumping to my own conclusions A. As mentioned earlier, today I had my first opportunity to use my intervention for becoming more open to others opinions when conflict arose during a collaboration meeting between the second grade general education teacher, the special education teacher, the paraprofessional and myself. During this collaboration meeting, one students problem behavior was brought up. During this discussion the second grade teacher asked that the student with problem behaviors to leave the class during writing time. However this student does not qualify for writing services, as mentioned in a prior journal we have been modifying this students work in writing class because they are often reading books and poetry that she cannot read during writing class. We began to explain to the second grade teacher that she could not legally be pulled for writing. The second grade teacher began to interrupt us and say that this student was too much trouble to keep in her classroom during writing time and that something had to be done. She continued to tell us all about how her behavior was causing her to spend too much time focused on her instead of focusing on her other twenty three kids in her classroom, how she knew the other children werent getting the instruction they deserved, and how D.J. was just too far behind in writing to be in her class. Before I began my instruction, I would have mentally cut

off this teacher as soon as she said that the student needed to leave the classroom and I would have been thinking how it is illegal, and it would never work with our schedule, etc. Instead, I mentally stopped myself and made myself listen to her whole entire side of the story and decided I would reflect on this as soon as she was finished. B. Reflecting on the effectiveness of this intervention I found it to be extremely effective. Normally I would have mentally cut off anything else the teacher had to say while thinking about my own thoughts. I believe that this intervention was effective because it was truly great to listen to what the other teacher had to say. Now, I completely understand what is exactly going on in the classroom during writing time and I can now take her feelings into consideration when I plan an intervention to fix the problem that is at hand.

Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Section 5 Behavior: Category- Interactive Communication, Problem solving when conflict arises Communicate effectively in oral form -Intervention: Fill out self-evaluation form A. The opportunity that arose for me to engage in another collaborative meeting presented itself today when a conflict arose between the paraprofessional, the general and special education teachers and myself. During this meeting, the paraprofessional decided to state that she thought that she should be in the second grade classroom during writing time instead of the other paraprofessional. As soon as she mentioned this, the second grade teacher agreed with her immediately. Since I was in full take over, my cooperating teacher decided to leave to give me an opportunity to improve my collaboration skills by myself. When this occurred I informed both of the teachers that I thought we should meet separately and set up times now so it happened. I also contributed to the conversation to say that I understood both of their feelings and I would take them into consideration while planning for these next two meetings. B. After this meeting I went back into my classroom to evaluate myself after reflecting on this conversation and my communication skills during the meeting. I discovered that I contributed to this conversation many times and I averaged it to

about five times during this meeting. I also made sure to state my opinion and tell them each that I would meet with them separately to discuss the problems on hand. This self-evaluation really helped my to see my progression on communicating during these meetings when conflict arose. I stated my opinion and told them that after I came up with a solution I would meet with both of them to discuss it. I believe that the self-evaluation is really helping me throughout this process.

Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Section 5 Behavior: Category- Personal Characteristics Demonstrate willingness to learn from others throughout the collaborative process Intervention- mentally stop and listen to everything the individual has to say before jumping to my own conclusions A. An opportunity that arose today for me to use my intervention was during the weekly special education collaboration with the assistance principal and all related services. While discussing a student that was on my caseload, the school social worker said that most of her inappropriateness at school is directly related to her home life and that is why she is portraying problem behaviors. When she said that sentence I began to feel my mind race around to what I believed was causing her problem behaviors. As soon as this began to happen, I remembered to stop and listen to everything that the social worker had to say about the student before I decided to close off my mind. I found out many interesting facts about the students home life that I had not known before hand. This really opened my mind about this student and made me view her and her actions in a different light. Normally I would have just closed my mind off to hearing what the social worker said, because I had a different opinion but because I continued to listen to what she had said I gained extremely valuable information for a teacher to know about her student. B.

After stopping my brain and listening to the social worker I learned vital information that had not been shared with me yet. This would help me with working with this student on a daily basis. I believe that this intervention is working extremely well for me. After self-reflecting after this meeting I am extremely grateful that I decided to stop and listen to everything she had to say otherwise, I would not have any knowledge of this

Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Section 5 Behavior: Category- Personal Characteristics Demonstrate willingness to learn from others throughout the collaborative process Intervention- mentally stop and listen to everything the individual has to say before jumping to my own conclusions A. Today during third grade collaboration with the special education teacher we were discussing problems that we were having with our third grade girls. These girls have been constantly arguing, saying mean things to each other, and are just not being nice in general. During our collaboration meeting I asked if we could discuss this problem because it was impacting my instruction time with my students because I was spending a great amount of time providing instruction on how to be nice to one another. During collaboration the third grade teacher said that she already had an idea for how to stop the arguing. Usually when someone would tell me his or her ideas without even listening to mine I would shut off my brain and tend to think about my own plan in my head. Instead, today I made sure not to do that and completely open myself up to hear her plan. Since I did this, I was able to listen to her plan completely and understand why she thought that this plan would work. Then we brainstormed together on some ways to improve the intervention by using some of my ideas. B.

After this collaboration meeting I self-reflected to see how I think that this collaboration meeting went. Since I stopped and made sure to listen to everything she had to say before tuning out of the conversation, I was able to hear her ideas and opinions for how she thought the intervention should go. Also, after I listened to everything she had to say I believed that she had some great ideas and we were able to collaborate together to include some of my ideas. Overall, I think that this intervention really helped me because it allowed me to gain some insight into what she was thinking and together we thought up a great intervention. The intervention we created was better than mine or hers alone, and that can be directly related to me listening to her and us working together to come up with a great intervention.

Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Section 5 Behavior: Category- Interactive Communication, Problem solving when conflict arises Communicate effectively in oral form -Intervention: Fill out self-evaluation form A. Today when I was collaborating with the special education teacher, the paraprofessional and myself a conflict arose. Normally, in the past, I would have shied away from the conflict and not contributed to the conversation at all. The conflict that was presented was that the paraprofessional felt like she did not have enough time to collaborate with the special education teacher and she felt like they never had a chance to talk to one another. During this collaboration meeting I had a goal of contributing to the conversation at least four times. Throughout this meeting I believe that I contributed a great amount. When the conflict arose I made sure that I repeated what she was saying in order to show that I understood what she was trying to explain to the teacher and myself. Then I made sure that I understood exactly why she felt this way when we had time dedicated directly to collaborating with her every week. Then I decided that we would brainstorm together to come up with a solution to this problem. Overall, the three of us together decided to switch some schedule changes to come up with a solution to how we could collaborate more with the paraprofessional. We decided to switch the schedule to increase the time of her collaboration with us and everyone was happy!

B. I believe that this intervention was helpful to me because it allowed me to contribute to this conversation when a conflict arose. In the past I normally would have not contributed to the conversation because I was scared of how something I would say would affect the person I was speaking with. I knew that when conflict arose and I was the head teacher that I would not just be able to shy away from the conflict, so that is why this was so important for me. After self-reflecting on this collaboration meeting, I decided that I contributed way more than my goal that I had even set for myself. Also, the conflict was settled in a great manner and everyone was happy. I am thankful for this intervention because without it I most likely would have not contributed to this conversation at all.

Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Section 5 Behavior: Category- Interactive Communication, Problem solving when conflict arises Communicate effectively in oral form -Intervention: Fill out self-evaluation form A. Today another conflict arose between the social worker and the special education department. When we were at the whole school faculty meeting, the social worker stated several students names which was confidential in front of many people that were not authorized to know this information. Since I was in full take-over, I decided that I needed to confront the social worker to discuss this problem since the information presented was confidential and I knew that it was it was my job to advocate for my students. After the meeting, I asked the social worker if we could chat for a few minutes to discuss the topic. We then went to her office and politely discussed the conflict at hand and she told me that she did not know that this information was confidential and that she would be sure not to discuss this to anyone that wasnt authorized again. B. After this meeting, I self-reflected and decided that this intervention had worked wonders for me today. I believe that if I did not have this meeting I might have just decided that the social worker did not mean to do this and I would have forgot that it happened. However, due to this intervention I decided that I needed to resolve the

conflict at hand and because of that the students on my caseload were able to stay confidential, along with their personal information.

Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Section 5 Behavior: Category- Personal Characteristics Demonstrate willingness to learn from others throughout the collaborative process Intervention- mentally stop and listen to everything the individual has to say before jumping to my own conclusions A. Today in our collaboration with our paraprofessional she presented a problem that was on her mind lately. This specific paraprofessional pushes into the second grade classroom to assist with three specific students. Instead of pushing in lately, she has been pulling students out one by one for about twenty minutes each. Normally, I would have just told the paraprofessional that this is not what the students needed and that she needed to push into the classroom in order to aide all of the students in that classroom. Before I began thinking this way, I decided to stop and listen to what the paraprofessional had to say. She said that she was overwhelmed in the classroom and that she could not handle all of the three students at the same time in the classroom. Listening to the paraprofessional really helped me understand where she was coming from and it helped me to understand some of the issues that were occurring in the second grade classroom during writing. B. Although, I had to stick with my opinion to make the parprofessional push into the second grade classroom for legal reasons due to the students IEPs, I am glad that I did not cut the paraprofessional off. Because I listened to this paraprofessional, I

know understand her feelings towards the second grade writing class. I understand that some changes need to be made to make sure that everyone is receiving the instruction they deserve and that no one is stressed out being in that classroom.

Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Section 5 Behavior: Category- Interactive Communication, Problem solving when conflict arises Communicate effectively in oral form -Intervention: Fill out self-evaluation form A. Today we had special education collaboration and K.C. the school psychologist was present. We began to discuss a certain student who we believed would be eligible for special education services. The school psychologist was quick to jump to a conclusion and say that she would not qualify for services although he has not yet worked or tested this student to see if she would receive services. Suspecting that this student may fall far enough behind in math this semester, I have been progress monitoring her weekly in math. Because I used to be timid, I most likely would not have spoke up and let the issue pass, or tell my cooperating teacher about the conflict at hand. However, instead I decided to take initiative. I then began to explain to the school psychologist that I had been progress monitoring this student and presented the data to him. It showed that the student was at least a year and a half behind in math which would allow her to at least be considered for special education services. B. After this collaboration I decided to self-reflect on the meeting and how I believe it went. Because of this intervention, and I knew I needed to advocate for my student

myself, I believe that it benefitted the student very much. She will now be at least considered for testing to see if she will receive special education services. In the long run, I believe that the student would have received special education services because I most likely would have brought it up to the school psychologist once we were alone, but I also think it was a huge step for me to talk about a conflict in front of a group of people.

Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Section 5 Behavior: Category- Personal Characteristics Demonstrate willingness to learn from others throughout the collaborative process Intervention- mentally stop and listen to everything the individual has to say before jumping to my own conclusions A. One of the students on my caseload today was given a detention by a paraprofessional that did not work with my specific caseload of students. When he was telling me the story, he described what exactly had happened. Before I began this intervention, I most likely would have told the student that his actions had consequences and that there was nothing I could do. However, I did believe the student and I decided that I needed to get the other side of the story from the paraprofessional in order to advocate for my student. I decided that I would ask the paraprofessional about what had happened in order to listen to everything she had said. When she was describing the situation I decided to tell her about my student and why her behavior may not have been the right course of action and instead sitting with the student and working the problem out might be more effective in this case. Because I was able to hear the paraprofessionals story I understood where she was coming and therefore I could tailor some instruction for my student on how to prevent future problems like these. B.

I believe that this intervention really helped me today in making the decision to talk to the paraprofessional to get her side of the story. Normally, I would have just listened to my student and said that I would not be able to help him because I was not present during this conflict. However, by being open minded and listening to the paraprofessional I was able to understand why the detention was given and I was able to fix the problem more efficiently than making the student serve detention.

Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Section 5 Behavior: Category- Personal Characteristics Demonstrate willingness to learn from others throughout the collaborative process Intervention- mentally stop and listen to everything the individual has to say before jumping to my own conclusions A. Today presented another opportunity for me to demonstrate willingness to learn from others throughout the collaborative process by having an open mind. The opportunity presented itself during our collaboration with the Kindergarten teacher, the Autism itinerant, the special education teacher and myself. There are two kindergarten students who have autism that will be moving on to the first grade next year. I am in charge of their IEPs and had begun making plans for their schedules for next year. During this meeting, Mrs. R. began to say how she believed that the students would not benefit from Mr. Cs classroom and she believed they should go in Mrs. Ls classroom instead. Immediately I began to think about how I thought the opposite however, I was able to mentally stop and listen to everything Mrs. R had to say before I began to think about my own reasoning. B. Today I believe this intervention was very helpful. I do not work with these kindergarten students often, however, I know that students with autism often benefit from having a lot of structure in their environment. Therefore, after observing the two first grade rooms, I decided which room I thought would fit them

best. While listening to Mrs. R. she gave great insight to these two students. She knows a mass amount of information about these two that would be extremely beneficial for me to hear. After talking to her I completely understood why she believed each child should be in the classroom that she suggested, and I even took her advice over my own opinions.

Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Section 5 Behavior: Category- Personal Characteristics Demonstrate willingness to learn from others throughout the collaborative process Intervention- mentally stop and listen to everything the individual has to say before jumping to my own conclusions A. Today I had another opportunity to learn from others throughout the collaborative process. My paraprofessional came to me today after one of my studentss IEPs and suggested some activities that she believed that we should begin with her. Although I mentally began to think about all of the reasons why we should not be doing this, I decided to mentally stop and listen to everything that she had to say before I jumped to my own conclusions. B. Although I ultimately decided to stick with my own course of action, I am glad that I listened to everything the paraprofessional had to say. I told her that what she was doing was great, however, it would not benefit this specific student to switch curriculums at the current moment. I explained that I believe that her inquiries were very worthwhile and that she should discuss them with the classroom teacher at the beginning of next year. I am glad that I listened to this paraprofessional because she also gave me insight to what the students family would like to see. This helped me because I then understood what I should begin with this student and how I should plan her time for the next year because I am in charge of that as well.

Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Section 5 Behavior: Category- Interactive Communication, Problem solving when conflict arises Communicate effectively in oral form -Intervention: Fill out self-evaluation form A. In our classroom today another opportunity presented itself for me to practice my communication when conflict arose. During our passing period, one of the paraprofessionals just happened to mention that she gave another student of mine a detention. Since this student has a Behavior Intervention Plan, the paraprofessionals are not supposed to hand out detentions unless there is a team meeting before hand. I made sure to listen to her whole story before I decided to speak. However, I knew that I had to advocate for my student and say something about her giving the detention. I decided to remind this paraprofessional about the students BIP and how she had to have a team meeting before giving the student a detention. Although this was an uncomfortable position, I am glad that I was able to say something when the opportunity presented itself. B. After the school day ended, I reflected on this meeting with my paraprofessional. Although I was very glad that I was able to say something I also noted that I should probably speak with the paraprofessional again to tell her that I understood why she gave out the detention. However, I believe this intervention helped me today

because I know that I needed to advocate for my student and hold a team meeting before the student had to be reprimanded.

Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Section 5 Behavior: Category- Interactive Communication, Problem solving when conflict arises Communicate effectively in oral form -Intervention: Fill out self-evaluation form A. Today I experienced another opportunity to problem solve when a conflict arose in the third grade general education classroom. For science, the third grade general education teacher does not believe that one student with a disability was not getting the important instruction that she should be receiving since she was in science and social studies for our class. When she brought this conflict to my attention I believed that it was my responsibility to advocate for my student. I had to tell the teacher that although she may not have believed that it was the best situation for her to be in, her parents strongly wanted her in class, the class was being modified for her and she was learning by being around her same aged peers. B. After this meeting, I filled out my self-evaluation form and I was very happy that I had this intervention in place. I understood where the third grade general education teacher was coming from, however, I had to explain why the student was in the general education class. I understand that sometimes teachers feel as if the students are not getting the instruction that is best for them but it is our job as a special

education teacher to advocate for our students and for what the special educators and the parents feel like is right for them.

Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Section 5 Behavior: Category- Personal Characteristics Demonstrate willingness to learn from others throughout the collaborative process Intervention- mentally stop and listen to everything the individual has to say before jumping to my own conclusions A. To go along with the previous journal, today I experienced another opportunity to mentally stop and listen to everything a teacher had to say when a conflict arose in the third grade general education classroom. For science, the third grade general education teacher does not believe that one student with a disability was not getting the important instruction that she should be receiving since she was in science and social studies for our class. When she brought this conflict to my attention I believed that it was my responsibility to advocate for my student. I had to tell the teacher that although she may not have believed that it was the best situation for her to be in, her parents strongly wanted her in class, the class was being modified for her and she was learning by being around her same aged peers. However, I knew that I had to also listen to everything the teacher had to say. I listened to the teachers concerns and I am very glad that I did that because I found out how exactly she was feeling and I knew I could change some instruction in order to make her instruction become more meaningful. B. I am glad that I listened to what the teacher had to say. Even though I knew the student had to stay in science and social studies class, I am glad that I did not just

dismiss this conversation as soon as it was brought up. The teacher brought up very valid points and I believe that my student will be receiving better instruction due to this conversation.

Kaitlyn Osborne Professor: Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky Class: SPED 426 Section 6 Personal Reflection I believe that these interventions have helped me tremendously throughout my student teaching experiences. I never knew how great of a deal collaboration is and how much could change when I decided to open up and listen to others ideas and opinions and by contributing to the conversation. I believe since starting these interventions I have come a very far way as a professional and I believe that others in this school environment have begun to respect me more. Besides myself gaining professional development, I believe that my students have also benefitted from these interventions. I find myself advocating for my students more often and I am sticking up for what I believe is correct. For example, a student has now been tested to qualify for special education services and my student in my third grade general education classroom for science and social studies is now receiving more diverse instruction but she can still remain in the general education classroom with her same aged peers which will allow her to grow tremendously at this crucial part of her schooling. Personally, I really enjoyed this assignment. I believe that the writing portion was a little difficult for me to reflect right after a collaboration meeting had occurred but I knew that if I did not I would not have remembered specifically what had happened. Besides fitting this assignment into my daily schedule, I believe it was very useful and I believe that these interventions helped me immensely.