Carrying Out My GAME Plan

I apologize to my group about not doing any postings. I was out of town without access to the Internet and then when I returned home, we had a power outage that damaged my computer and left me without access for another week. I am now trying to catch up and become a contributing group member.

Beginning this fall, I will be a new Special Education Teacher. This is my first full-time job, so my goals that I chose are about assessment and differentiation.

RESOURCES

The resources that will be needed in order to carry out my GAME plan for both of my goals will be the expertise or advice from my colleagues and mentor. I believe this will be one of the greatest sources of feedback that I will have close at hand. Aside from this, reading journals about assessment and differentiating lessons, and the knowledge I receive from classes I am taking to get my endorsement (I was hired with an emergency licenses which is dependent on my obtaining an endorsement for an Instructional Strategist with focus on Mental Disabilities.)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

I am not sure what other additional information I need at this time. This will be my first year teaching and I am not sure what to expect yet. I think that one thing I need to understand is about how students grades will be reported: Will they receive a report card or are their learning achievements only reported through their IEPs?

STEPS TAKEN SO FAR

I have done a small amount of research through blogs about differentiating lessons with special needs students. I have also done some running records and letter/number identification as sort of a pre-assessment because I have a few students in my Summer School class that will be in my classroom in the fall. This gives me an idea of where they are at coming to me and where I will need to go with them throughout the year. Summer school is done the first week of August and between the time I finish with the class and I can move into my room for this fall, I plan to look in our library to find some journal articles related to assessment and differentiation of special need students.