The document discusses strategies for supporting students with disabilities in general education classrooms. It addresses student motivation, functional behavior assessments, executive functioning, effective teaching strategies, activating prior knowledge, and self-monitoring. Student motivation comes from various sources and effective teachers identify each student's motivators. Functional behavior assessments explore the triggers and functions of off-task behaviors to develop positive behavior plans. Executive functioning skills involve self-regulation and students with limitations benefit from structured supports. Effective teaching incorporates collaboration, classroom management techniques, differentiated lessons, and Universal Design for Learning principles. Activating prior knowledge involves cues, questions, and graphic organizers. Self-monitoring teaches students to recognize and track their own behaviors.

1. SUPPORTING OUR YOUNG
PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES IN
THE
GENERAL EDUCATION
CLASSROOM
Matthew Richard Johnston, Boston Green Academy
Pathways Cohort 36
May 28, 2014

2. STUDENT MOTIVATION
 All human behavior is motivated, therefore the notion
that a student is “never motivated” is a myth.
 “Feeling states” like hunger, tiredness, thirst, and
stress have an impact on the child’s ability to stay
motivated.
 Eight motivators affect student performance:
 Status, inquisitiveness, affiliation, power, aggression,
autonomy, achievement, and gregariousness
 Effective teachers will identify and utilize each
student’s motivator patterns in the classroom.

3. FUNCTIONAL BEHAVIOR
ASSESSMENT
 FBAs have furthered the understanding of
how to modify student behavior deemed
“off-task”
 FBAs address the “triggers” rather than the nature
of the problem, with set steps to explore the function,
or purpose, of the behavior and the conditions for the
recurrence.
 Examples of functions are attention-seeking or
avoidance behaviors.
 FBAs allow teachers to develop and encourage positive
behavior through positive behavior plans.

4. EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING
 This term refers to all skills involved in mental and
self regulation.
 Executive functioning serves to command and control
all cognitive skills in order to manage all life tasks.
 Executive functions are: inhibition, shift, emotional
control, initiation, working memory,
planning/organization, organization of materials, self-
monitoring.
 Students will limited executive functioning skills can
benefit from strategies and supports such as a clearly
outlined daily agenda/objectives, graphic organizers
and evaluation rubrics.

5. STRATEGIES FOR
EFFECTIVE TEACHING
 Planning:
 collaborate with special education teachers, service
providers and paraprofessionals. Integrate family members
into discourse, identify motivators and triggers for
individual students.
 Classroom Management:
 designate areas of the room for specific tasks or activities;
allow for purposeful movement, plan for mindful transition
times, monitor student activity.
 Lesson Structuring:
 differentiation through deliberate grouping to support
learning styles; modeling “I do, we do, you do”; “think-pair-
share” and UDL strategies (multiple entry-points and
means of representing content, as well as multiple means of
student expression of that content.

6. ACTIVATING PRIOR KNOWLEDGE
 Strategies to help students access what they already
know about a given theme. Common strategies
include cues, questions and advance organizers
 Cues serve to give an impulse to the students’
thinking, examples include providing background
information and drawing connections to other themes.
 Questions allow students to gain more information
in order to fill in the gaps, as well as to apply critical
and analytical skills.
 Advance organizers include expository (to expose
information, especially info that may be difficult),
narrative (a story-like device to connect to prior
knowledge), and graphic (nonlinguistic, visual
representations of information).

7. SELF MONITORING
 A behavior management strategy to improve academic
performance and attention behaviors.
 Student-centered, allows students with limited self-
awareness to recognize and keep track of their
behavior.
 Steps to follow: identify the behavior, collect baseline
data, teach replacement behavior, design a self-
monitoring chart, teach chart use, reinforce positive
behavior, monitor student progress, fade the role of the
adult, and teach maintenance.

8. SOURCES
 Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University
(2011). Building the Brain’s “Air Traffic Control” System: How Early
Experiences Shape the Development of Executive Function: Working
Paper No. 11
 "Effective Teaching Practices for Students in Inclusive
Classrooms." W&M School of Education - . N.p., n.d. Web. 28 May
2014.
 "InBrief: Executive Function: Skills for Life and Learning." InBrief:
Executive Function: Skills for Life and Learning. N.p., n.d. Web. 25
May 2014.
 Off-Task Behavior in the Classroom Applying FBA and CBM (n.d.): n.
pag. Web.
 "RickLavoie.com - Batteries NOT Included "I Can't" vs. "He
Won't""RickLavoie.com - Batteries NOT Included "I Can't" vs. "He
Won't"N.p., n.d. Web. 28 May 2014.
 Whiffin, Jean. "Chapter 10." The Serials Librarian 8.1 (1983): 83-86.
Web.
 "Why Mixing Students With and Without Special Needs Is a Good
Idea."TakePart. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 May 2014.