Ashford 5: – Week 4 – Discussion 1

Your initial discussion thread is due on Day 3 (Thursday) and you have until Day 7 (Monday) to respond to your classmates. Your grade will reflect both the quality of your initial post and the depth of your responses.

Chapter 7 of our text discusses the characteristics of gifted children and a variety of effective instructional methods. For this discussion, read the article Teaching young gifted children in the regular classroom. Next, respond to the following scenario:

Imagine you spent the day observing either a preschool, elementary, or secondary classroom.  During your observation, one child exhibits behaviors typical of gifted children.  

For your post, write a vignette that describes the child and explains why you believe this child may be gifted. Your vignette should include:

1. The child’s name, age, and grade level 
2. A brief description of the learning environment 
3. At least three academic and/or and social characteristics the child displayed during your observation that makes you believe he/she may be gifted.  Be sure to support your description with information from the “Characteristics of Gifted and Talented” section of Chapter 7 of your text as well as at least one outside scholarly resource. 

Guided Response: Respond to at least two of your peers. Discuss which of the traditional teaching strategies mentioned in the text (accelerated, compacting, enrichment, independent studies) you would use with that child.  Be sure to justify your choice of strategy by using evidence from your peer’s initial response that leads you to believe this would be the best strategy for this child.  In addition, discuss what the positive outcomes of using this strategy with this child would be.

Ashford 5: – Week 4 – Discussion 2

Your initial discussion thread is due on Day 3 (Thursday) and you have until Day 7 (Monday) to respond to your classmates. Your grade will reflect both the quality of your initial post and the depth of your responses.

An important part of your job when working with children with intellectual disabilities is the ability to modify instruction in order to best meet their educational needs.  Chapter 8 of our textbook offers many teaching ideas and strategies for meeting the academic and social needs of students with a variety of intellectual disabilities. For this discussion you will have the opportunity to put those ideas into practice.

Step One: You will research one of the following intellectual disabilities according to your last name.

Last name is Arterberry so it will need to be about Down Syndrome.

Step Two: Choose one of the following grade levels and one of the following academic skills. Then, find a lesson plan for the grade level and academic skill you’ve chosen. Some lesson plan resources are listed, but feel free to use other sources. 

Step Three: Write a brief description of the intellectual disability that you have been assigned including typical classroom behaviors. Then, review the lesson plan you have chosen and share at least two modifications you would make to the lesson plan in order to better meet the academic needs of students with your assigned intellectual disability. In addition, discuss at least two modifications you would make to the lesson in order to include adaptive skills (social and life skills) as a part of the lesson. Your modifications should be supported by ideas from the text and one scholarly resource. Make sure to include the original lesson plan as either a link or an attachment in your initial post. 

Guided Response: Respond to at least two of your peers who were assigned a different intellectual disability than you. In your peer responses, evaluate whether or not the academic and adaptive modifications your peers made to their lesson plan will be effective. Make sure to justify your thoughts with evidence. Provide at least one other academic and adaptive modification for their lesson.

Carefully review the Discussion Forum Grading Rubric for the criteria that will be used to evaluate this Discussion Thread.