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Teacher Interview

As soon as you enter the school doors, you can see students walking in line or a

few students moving from one class to another, always accompanied by an adult. The few

students most probably walk purposefully to the resource classroom to receive modified

services accommodated to their IEPs. Any visitor has to stop at the front desk to sign in.

If you ask where is Mrs. Smith’s room, you will be directed to take a right off the main

hallway and look for Mrs. Smith’s name on the left hand. Mrs. Smith teaches first grade,

an inclusive classroom with 21 students, 7 of which receive special education services.

One student has been identified with speech and language disorders, 2 with emotional

and behavioral disorders (EBD), and four students are served under the Autism Spectrum

Disorders umbrella (1 student with Aspergers Syndrome, 1 with PDD, and 2 with classic

autism). Only one student is instructed in a special education classroom during morning

and is mainstreamed in the afternoon in Mrs. Smith’s classroom. Mrs. Smith is the

teacher of the classroom and she receives help in working with the children from one

paraprofessional that works with all the children, a second paraprofessional that is

assigned to one particular student, and the resource special education teacher.

As you enter the classroom, you can see two rows of desks in the middle of the

classroom. The desks on each row face each other. Each student has his/her own desk.

The students identified with EBD have their own desks, separate from the others, one in

front of the classroom, near the whiteboard and the teacher, and the other one at the back

of the classroom, near the paraprofessional’s desk. On the left hand of the classroom,

there is one TV set, VCR and video instructional materials, one desk used during centers,

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two computers for students’ use, and teacher’s laptop. Against the back wall of the

classroom, there are student cabinets where they put their worksheets and homework, one

student’s desk, the paraprofessional’s desk, teacher’s plank with classroom materials, and

shelves with grade level books. On the right handside of the student desk rows there is

teacher’s desk at the back of the room, a rather large space – delimitated by a colorful

carpet - assigned for small group activities, centers, and play/leisure during breaks,

shelves with classroom materials (games, letters, flash cards, etc.), a sink and an exit door

towards the playground.

Words starting with each letter of the alphabet are posted on the wall on the left

hand of the classroom. The classroom behavioral rules are posted near the whiteboard, in

front of the classroom, above the schedule. The classroom schedule includes the

following activities from 7.30 am to 2.30 pm, in chronological order: manipulatives,

School Elementary TV (skill builders), calendar, phonics, reading, small group work,

snack break, word wall practice, writing, recess, lunch, break, social studies, math,

special program (drawing, story telling, etc.), pack up, and dismissal. Students’ names are

arranged under the types of centers and other small group activities, so that every student

knows what activity they are assigned to each day.

Mrs. Smith uses effective behavioral management strategies with her students,

such as token economy and group contingency. Each student is given 5 cubes upon

arrival at school in the morning. During the day the students may loose cubes is they

misbehave, for example do not follow classroom rules, teacher directions, etc. They may

also earn them back if they follow teacher directions or if they help other students. The

number of cubes is monitored on a chart posted on the whiteboard, and on each Friday

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they receive “turtle dollars” in exchange for the number of cubes earned during the week.

Individual students may also receive turtle dollars on any time of the school day if their

behavior was exceptionally good (for example finish work sheets and read quietly from a

book). The teacher also gives turtle bucks to an entire row of students that display a very

good behavior. If the entire class follows rules, the teacher puts a blue glass rock in a jar

on her desk and praises the students for their nice behavior. If the students misbehave, a

rock is removed from the jar. However, turtle dollars are never taken back from the

students. Before Friday dismissal, the teacher calls the students and gives the students

choices to “buy” small objects (candies, crayons, stickers, toys, games, etc.) for their

turtle dollars earned during that week. The objects are arranged into 1 dollar, 3 dollars,

and 5 dollars categories. The students may also keep their dollars for the next week, for

example if a student has two dollars, he can wait until he can earn one more dollar so that

he can exchange them for a three turtle dollars prize. If the students misbehave, the

teacher can remove from their cubes one by one. If the students have no more cubes and

they still misbehave, their name is moved down on a behavioral scale posted near the

whiteboard, close to the list with number of cubes.

Each day the teacher assigns a student, in alphabetical order, to be the leader of

the class. The leader of the class has various responsibilities, such as leading the students’

line in the hallway, aligning a small green card with the type of activity that follows,

putting soap in students’ hands prior to washing hands, distributing napkins after washing

hands, and setting the clock for small group activities so that when the running clock

matches the clock the leader arranged, it is time to clean up and move to the next activity.

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Mrs. Smith uses direct instruction for part of classroom instructional time, for

example for math, spelling, writing, and social science. She also uses small group

instruction, three to five students at a time, with clusters of students that have similar

needs in a certain area, mostly math and reading. During centers, students work in groups

of three for their projects, such as writing and illustrating their own story, taking turns

reading, spelling words with a dry erase marker and projecting them on the whiteboard,

and reading wall words. Three students with a lower level of academic performance are

pulled out from the classroom. The special education teacher works with them in her

room attending to their individual needs. Multisensory modalities are embedded

throughout most of the activities. Auditory, kinesthetic, and visual intermixed stimuli are

used in songs with rhymes, nonsense but fun words in songs, snapping fingers 1,2, and 3

times, clapping hands one to five times, jumping and singing rhymes simultaneously,

holding nose and spelling words in the same time, moving around the classroom for

measuring in inches and centimeters different objects, etc.

I think that the daily schedule reflects age and development appropriate balance

between work and play, with averaged blocks of time among activities. Sensory

accommodations would be needed for the students with ASD, for example an allotted

period of time in a sensory room would be beneficial. The behavioral management

strategies and types of instruction Mrs. Smith uses maintain a motivational environment.