1. Our Journal Our story of creating Inclusive Spaces. Chapter Three–Tools for Communication
2. Dear Journal, We are well aware of the importance of monitoring any students progress throughout the school year. There is an added importance when a child is moving from classroom to classroom and has more than one teacher responsible for their learning. As we worked more and more on our project we realized that one of our overall goals was to improve communication in our school among all members of the community, the child, the teachers, administration, and the parents. One way we thought we could promote communication was to create surveys and feedback forms to get insights from the student, parent, and teacher about their class. Initially we created the surveys only for students who move from class to class for different subject areas. In thinking about education, however, it became apparent that it wasn’t only these students who should be sharing their thoughts about their classes but every student. Why can’t all students and parents let us teachers know how the class is going for them and what they would like to see change?
3. This form has been updated to remove the word “mainstreaming” because we believe that “mainstreaming” paints a picture of a child earning a spot in a “normal” classroom. This, in fact, is not the idea behind Inclusion. We have changed this form several times, as some of the students seemed offended by the wording. Here are some examples of our the surveys and feedback forms we created. They have been changed and reworded and simplified over time according to ideas that students and teachers communicated to us.
4. Dear Journal, After my one on one time with “Johnny”, he was very excited to join our “class family”. He was joining the class for mathematics eight periods a week. At first, he was prepared with pencils and mathematics books. But soon, he started to forget his materials and would want to leave the classroom to go to his “home” classroom. This started to become a daily problem. In order to support his behaviors and learning, we created a Student Daily Self-Assessment. One of they best ways we found to foster this responsibility was to have students self check themselves throughout a period or a full day. The Student Daily Self-Assessment could be taped to child’s desk or kept in a folder to help them monitor their work within the class. Our current checklists are designed for students who transition between classes, however we have used similar checklists for students who do not transition to different classes. We got some ideas to differentiate our Student Daily Self-Assessment after showing it to fellow teachers. We decided as a group that the younger grades may benefit from a more simplified approach. Hence the pictures and fewer choices in the key. This tool can be used as a form of communication between the child, their teachers, and their parents.
5. Student Accountability Checklist Dear Journal, We thought that maybe it would be helpful for students to have a folder in which they could keep all of their assessments. This folder could serve as a tool for teachers to communicate to one another as well as to the student. Some examples of what you may put in a folder include… Subject Area Checklist Attendance Page
