Week 6 Discussion 2 Final thoughts

After watching the video, Creating Your Teacher Interview Portfolio (Links to an external site.) , create an initial response that defines how this course has helped you determine your professional interests in the field of special education. Additionally, state specifically how having an electronic Resource Manual will help you in your career. What knowledge have you gained in compiling the information and related artifacts? How will you maintain and update your portfolio? What are new ideas and topics in which you’d like to learn more? With each question, provide an example and include support from the readings and Instructor Guidance from the various weeks within the entire course.

Guided Response: Review the posts of your classmates. Respond to at least two peers by adding value to their ideas and suggestions regarding how having an electronic manual will assist you in your coursework and career. Be sure to comment on how this activity has complimented or supported your current professional work.

Though two replies are the basic expectation, for deeper engagement and application of the material, you are encouraged to provide responses to any comments or questions others have made (including your Instructor) before the last day of the discussion period. This will extend the conversation while providing opportunities to demonstrate your content expertise, critical thinking, and real work experiences with this topic.

Instructor Guidance

Week Six

Introduction

The Council for Exceptional Children (CEC), comprised of international education professionals, is a like-minded community who share the common goal of improving educational practices for students with disabilities. The video Celebrate Exceptional (Links to an external site.) explains how this organization celebrates exceptionality, diversity, and individuality.

The Council for Exceptional Children is a premier education organization, internationally renowned for its expertise and leadership, working collaboratively with strategic partners to ensure that children and youth with exceptionalities are valued and full participating members of society. As a diverse and vibrant professional community, CEC is a trusted voice in shaping education practice and policy. (CEC, vision, 2015).

The CEC standardized a guide of ethical principles and practices for special educators to meet the needs of students with disabilities, respect the rights of the families they support, create a learning environment founded on respect and acceptance and commit to lifelong learning and professional growth. In addition to professional and ethical safeguards outlined by the CEC, the federal law, Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), was designed to ensure that the privacy of student records (FERPA, n.d.). For students with a disability covered under IDEA, there are additional provisions provided to children and their families that include education records, personal identifying information and dispute resolution outcome (IDEA and FERPA, 2014). The Law of Student Records or…FERPA Guy Explains It All to You! (Links to an external site.) provides an authentic example of how teachers may unintentionally violate a student’s right to privacy.

In Practice

Along with Henry, you have six other students identified as having specialized academic and behavioral needs. Some of these students may be falling behind in their academics. Others may not appear engaged in the classwork or homework activities. Yet others may appear to have a negative attitude. You work hard to focus on creating a proactive positive classroom environment, where every student feels safe and embraced for their unique characteristics. During your lunch break, you go to the teacher’s lounge where you overhear some teachers talking about some of the other students with disabilities in your class. One of the teachers is warning the next grade’s successor of future students, their behavior problems, IEP goals, and issues with the families during team meetings. Being a new teacher, you tend to avoid conflict; but, in this instance, you know that the student’s privacy rights are being violated, and that if a visiting parent overheard this conversation the school could be held liable for violating FERPA laws.

Week Six Discussion

Children with disabilities are protected by various laws, agencies, and organizations that are all aligned with the common goal of respecting the rights and privacy of students and their families. FERPA, CEC Ethical Principles and Professional Standards, and the National Association of Special Education Teachers (NASET) Code of Ethics are recognized as the national guideline standards. During the Week Six discussion board, you will explain how FERPA relates directly to the CEC and NASET standard of ethics for special educators and what characteristics and behaviors will make you stand out as an ethical teacher. First, you will review the Code of Ethics published by the CEC and by the NASET in the weekly required reading. Then you will watch the Voicethread video posted in the discussion board prompt. After watching the video, you will create an initial response that answers how FERPA relate directly to the CEC and NASET standard of ethics for special educators and what characteristics and behaviors will make you stand out as an ethical teacher? For the second discussion board post this week you will watch the video Creating Your Teacher Interview Portfolio (Links to an external site.) and then reflect on how this course has helped you determine your professional interests in the field of special education. Think about how an online portfolio will give you a competitive edge in the 21st-century job market. Consider new ideas and topics you would like to learn more about and why. For each discussion board post, make sure to use the Grading Rubric as a self-checklist before submitting the final copy of your assignment to confirm you have met or exceeded each required expectation. The highest level of achievement on the rubric is distinguished, which is only earned through exceeding posted expectations at the proficiency level. Please remember you are in a masters-level program. Therefore, your writing, research, and content are held to graduate-level expectations.

Week Six Final Paper Guidance

As you complete your first year of teaching, you think about the process of creating a partnership of respect, mutual understanding, and professional comradery. You decide to end the school year by creating a user-friendly guide with relevant resources, special education terms and definitions, real-world examples, and family-based privacy information specific to students with disabilities for Mr. Franklin and other general educators. For the final summative assignment, you will design a resource manual of up-to-date information in the field of special education. It can also be a rich source of documentation of your work in this program as you consider entering the field of special education and in preparation for the Capstone course, the final class required to complete the Masters of Arts in Special Education program. The MASE program provides the opportunity to create an online portfolio that can be used in your professional practice and also in the final Capstone course, ESE699. You may select this assignment and subsequent coursework to include as artifacts. Therefore, it is strongly encouraged that you save your coursework on a flash-drive (e.g., a USB removable drive) or store in a cloud-based option such as Dropbox, GoogleDrive, or other similar applications.

References

CEC. (2014). Mission & vision (Links to an external site.) . Retrieved from http://www.cec.sped.org/About-Us/Mission-and-Vision

Classroom Caboodle. (2014, September 4). Creating your teacher interview portfolio (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.) [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/5GRQlfYACkY

Council for Exceptional Children. (2014, July 20). Celebrate exceptional (Links to an external site.) [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/0f4o5KNO6-4

legaldigest. (2010, June 4). The law of student records or … FERPA guy explains it all to you! (Links to an external site.) [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/2HdyItsQK-Q

Surprenant, K., Miller, F., & Pasternak, S. (2014, June). IDEA and FERPA confidentiality provisions (Links to an external site.) . Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/ptac/pdf/idea-ferpa.pdf

U.S. Department of Education. (n.d.). Family educational rights and privacy act (FERPA) (Links to an external site.) . Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html

Required Resources

Text

Henley, M., Ramsey, R. S., & Algozzine, R. (2009). Characteristics of and strategies for teaching students with mild disabilities . Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson

· Chapter 11: Building Family Partnerships

Multimedia

Classroom Caboodle. (2013, September 4). Creating Your Teacher Interview Portfolio (Links to an external site.) [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GRQlfYACkY

· This brief video outlines the importance and usefulness of creating an online teacher interview portfolio. Included is information on choosing appropriate artifacts and documents. Accessibility Statement (Links to an external site.) Privacy Policy (Links to an external site.)

Phillips, M. (2014, December 4). Ethics and Responsibilities (Links to an external site.) [Presentation]. Retrieved from https://voicethread.com/new/myvoice/#thread/6362620/32875161

· This is the prompt for the web-based application required for the this week’s discussion board. Accessibility Statement (Links to an external site.) Privacy Policy

Websites

National Association of Special Education Teachers: Code of ethics (Links to an external site.) . (2007). Retrieved from https://www.naset.org/2444.0.html

· Then National Association of Special Educators (NASET) has published a code of ethics for all special educators to establish a level of professional excellence. Accessibility Statement does not exist. Privacy Policy

Special education professional ethical principles and practice standards (Links to an external site.) . (2014). Retrieved from http://www.cec.sped.org/Standards/Ethical-Principles-and-Practice-Standards

· Special education teachers use the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) as the ‘gold star’ standard for ethical principles and practices standards. The Special Education Professional Ethical Principals outline the commitment to children and their families required by all special educators. Accessibility Statement does not exist. Privacy Policy

Recommended Resource

Multimedia

Usedgov. (2013, November 7). Student Privacy 101: FERPA for Parents and Students (Links to an external site.) [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhlDkS8hvMU

· This is the video used in Voicethread which includes closed captions for those who require additional supports. Accessibility Statement (Links to an external site.) Privacy Policy