Kaila discusses several important aspects she learned from her course that will help her as a teacher, including effective communication, the seven principles of trust, understanding historical events that have affected students with disabilities, including families as partners in evaluations and IEPs/IFSPs, understanding basic family needs and resources, using assistive technology, and collaborating with communities. She believes these concepts will help her become the best teacher possible for students, regardless of whether she teaches in general or special education. Her dream is to become a teacher to help students succeed.

1. 

By Kaila Barrett

2. What stood out the
most during this
course?
Go to next page to find out!

3. One of the most important aspects that I will take
from this course is how to effectively
communicate. I believe that the key to success in
ANY situation is communication. This will help me
know how to communicate not only with the
parents but the students, administrators, fellow
colleagues, etc.
Being a teacher is about much more than just
teaching there are so many different aspects to
take into consideration and communication is one
of them. There is NO school where you can work
alone and not have to communicate with anyone.

4. Another important aspect that I learned was the 7
principles of trust. I honestly didn’t put much consideration
into trust when becoming a teacher, I never really thought
about it and what it would entail. Now that this course is
almost complete it has really made me spread my outlook
on situations especially in partnerships. Now don’t get me
wrong I knew that there would have to be partnerships but
I guess I never really thought about what they would
include or how to maintain them. I believe that all the
principles will help me maintain and gain partnerships with
parents, colleagues, and students.
As I was doing the assignment for the 7 principles of trust
I gained a whole new perspective. This will help me
become a better teacher knowing the characteristic's and
what each one entails because I will know how to maintain
and fix situations. I believe that each principle is just as
important as all the others.

5. I really enjoyed doing the assignment timeline on the
historical events that have affected students with disabilities.
I have don’t assignments like this before but this book
provided more acts that I have seen and more information
along with those acts. I believe that this will help me as a
teacher because I will have an understanding of the past
and how much better the present is. It will also allow me to
advocate for the future of special education.
I love to excel and succeed at what I do because it makes
me feel that I have a sense of understanding and that I tried
my best. To some people they may not care about the past
and what happened back then. They like to focus on the
present and future but in my opinion how do you know what
to work towards if you don’t know what has happened
previously. The past may give you better ideas of how to
handle a situation.

6. Families are
Partners!!!!!!

7. This was important to me because I basically learned how to
include the family when evaluating a student, obtaining
consent, and how to read the results.
In my opinion the most important part was how to include the
parents and how to read the results to them because as I have
mentioned before it can be an extremely scary situation for
some parents and it is important to know how to read the
results and include the parents as much as they want to be
included.
This will make me a better teacher because I wont be the main
decision maker, as it was in the past, the families will be
involved as much as they want to be and I will know how to
handle those situations and what may come from them as well.
I really enjoyed learning about how to take into consideration
the families perspective because each family is different and
they have different needs and practices. This helps me know
how to grasp on to the new concept.

9. IEP’s are one of the main aspects in special education and it is
important to know what they entail and I have learned SO much
about this. This will extremely help when I become a teacher
because I will know what is in an IEP and an IFSP. I have also
learned about who can be involved in each of these plans.
I already knew a lot about IEP’s and have even helped to create
one in one of Dr. Moeller’s classes but I don’t have much
experience on the IFSP and I believe that when a student will be
transitioning into elementary school and the IFSP will provide great
insight into the student and what they are working on/towards and
an IEP will be created to continue this.
This will help me as a teacher because I will actually understand
what people are talking about and be able to interpret what these
plans are and what they entail. I cannot express how important
knowing these plans are to a future teacher. The plans will help you
to understand some of your students and what they have troubles
with or what they are very good at.

10. It is important to help families as best as you can and I
believe that the chapter on meeting families basic needs
helped me to know what resources are available for
families who need the extra help and support. As a
teacher my job is to help the families as best as I can
and I have confidence that I have learned a great deal
about this subject.
I really took into consideration the needs for emotional
and informational use just because, I feel those are very
important to families. This will help me to provide
adequate help and support to families that need more
than I can provide.
It is important to have empathy and put yourself in their
shoes, it can be a very scary situation and they may
need somebody to talk to who KNOWS and
UNDERSTANDS what they’re going through.

11. I continued to read the book because outcomes are a huge part
of special education. I also learned about partnerships in
homework, sharing information about students progress, using
assistive technology, friendships and community, as well as
positive feedback.
One of the most important aspects I took was assistive
technology and how it can help students. In another class I
actually made a “tool kit” of different technology resources for
students with disabilities. This will help me because I will know
what can help and what cant with different disabilities.
I also think it is important for the school or even the special
educator to be involved with the community because it will help
when the students are ready to transition into adulthood or
postsecondary education. Collaboration will go a long way in
communities and schools.
This will help me become a better teacher because I will know
how to assist students will different technology and I will know
how to collaborate with different people such as parents,
educators, communities, etc. This will help the student become
more successful and that is the key!

12. My life revolves around becoming a
teacher, without that I would have nothing to strive
for. I truly believe that I will be a great teacher but
like others, I still need help to become the best
applicant for students. I do not know if I will be in a
special education classroom or a general
education classroom but I do know that no matter
where I go there will always be students who need
extra help and knowing this information I will be
able to do my best. All of the concepts that I talked
about will help me be the best that I can be and
that is because I have an understanding of what
needs to be done and what I can do. Teaching is
my dream and knowing how families are affected
by me and the decisions we make only makes my
decision for becoming a teacher much more real.