Daniel Bell's Professional Portfolio

Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium
The teacher understands how students differ in their approaches to learning and creates instructional opportunities that are adapted to diverse learners.

CEC Content Standards for All Beginning Special Education Teachers
Special educators understand the effects that an exceptional condition can have on an individual’s learning in school and throughout life. Special educators understand that the beliefs, traditions, and values across and within cultures can affect relationships among and between students, their families, and the school community. Moreover, special educators are active and resourceful in seeking to understand how primary language, culture, and familial backgrounds interact with the individual’s exceptional condition to impact the individual’s academic and social abilities, attitudes, values, interests, and career options. The understanding of these learning differences and their possible interactions provide the foundation upon which special educators individualize instruction to provide meaningful and challenging learning for individuals with ELN.

Artifact

Position on Individual Needs

Rationale

This paper on my beliefs and practices dealing with individual needs was written for my EDTE 689: Advanced Seminar in Teaching class. In this paper I discuss how important it is that I, as a special education teacher, always keep the individual needs of my students on the forefront of how I approach lesson planning, classroom strategies, and how I interact with my students on a day to day basis. I discuss how I must find ways to get to know my students for who they are as individuals and use all resources I can to cater to their individual needs. I feel that this artifact represents my knowledge of this standard because I show how I understand that every student is different with a different background and how they often have a unique cultural and belief perspective that I must continue to respect, address, and individualize instruction to provide meaningful and challenging learning.

Classroom Observation

With a classmate, I completed this classroom observation for my EDTE 634: Teaching Students with Mental Retardation class. The class was a self-contained 4th and 5th grade mental retardation class. I included this artifact because it is further exploration of my understandings of ELN students and their individual learning differences. In this field experience paper, I discuss the entire observation experience including the teacher, her methods, practices, strategies, and the observation of the behaviors and learning style of a specific student. My partner and I also conducted an interview with the teacher and learned of her educational philosophies and the theories that she bases her methods off of. This artifact conveys how I am active and resourceful in seeking to understand how primary language and culture interact with the individual’s exceptional condition to impact the individual’s academic and social abilities. I will continue to observe classrooms of all age groups, cultures, disabilities, and learning differences to make sure I prepare myself with all the tools I can to teach any student I encounter in my educational career.

Intervention Plan
- video portion

This artifact is an Arts-Infused Intervention Plan for a troubled student that was part of my EDTE 636: Psychology of Exceptional Children and Youth course. The idea behind the project was to find a child that was experiencing an acute emotional or social issue and, as an adult mentor, I had to intervene in this child’s life with a method that could help alleviate their issue with little to no monetary resources available. It was quite a challenge having previously been used to intervening with children in my school with a plethora of resources available to me. This was a very helpful project because it forced me to look at the situation from a wholly different perspective than I had been used to. It also helped me gain a better understanding of an individual and their beliefs, traditions, and values. The issue that I was targeting was anger after having been robbed at gunpoint and the nature of this child’s problem very much helped me understand how something so apart from an educational environment can nevertheless affect relationships among and between students, their families, and the school community. Indeed, this student’s issue was having a serious effect on his attitude at school and how he interacted with others. I looked at this child as a unique individual and, knowing that he was interested in percussion, I had us vent some of his frustrations by playing the drums on overturned trashcans. We videotaped the intervention for documentation of the event and to use for reflection. This was a very rewarding experience and really allowed me to understand the whole child, his unique perspective, and individualize how I planned to intervene with him to help his situation. This is something I will always continue to do inside and outside of the classroom as an educator and a mentor.

Media Productions Lesson Plan
- video portion

As a teacher of special education, I have to take individual learning differences into account everyday. This lesson is an example of my understanding of this standard. The artifact was completed for my EDTE 629: Teaching Students with LD & ED class and was implemented in my TV Productions class at Chelsea School. The lesson plan centers around teaching the technical skills of visual orientation in narrative production. From getting to know my learning disabled students and reading their IEPs I was well aware of their individual learning differences and that they were all coming at this lesson from various backgrounds, cultures, beliefs, and learning styles. To start planning for these aspects, I created a needs assessment before writing the actual lesson so I could have a grasp on where my students were coming from before I tried to teach them. Then I created and conducted the lesson, videotaped it for reflective purposes, and reflected on the experience. The lesson includes the specific accommodations and adaptations I implemented to meet my students’ unique learning abilities. This lesson exemplifies my understanding of my students’ learning differences and the foundation upon which I individualize instruction to provide meaningful and challenging learning for individuals with ELN, which I will continue to implement and reflect upon.



Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium The teacher understands how students differ in their approaches to learning and creates instructional opportunities that are adapted to diverse learners. CEC Content Standards for All Beginning Special Education Teachers Special educators understand the effects that an exceptional condition can have on an individual’s learning in school and throughout life. Special educators understand that the beliefs, traditions, and values across and within cultures can affect relationships among and between students, their families, and the school community. Moreover, special educators are active and resourceful in seeking to understand how primary language, culture, and familial backgrounds interact with the individual’s exceptional condition to impact the individual’s academic and social abilities, attitudes, values, interests, and career options. The understanding of these learning differences and their possible interactions provide the foundation upon which special educators individualize instruction to provide meaningful and challenging learning for individuals with ELN.
Artifact Position on Individual Needs	Rationale This paper on my beliefs and practices dealing with individual needs was written for my EDTE 689: Advanced Seminar in Teaching class. In this paper I discuss how important it is that I, as a special education teacher, always keep the individual needs of my students on the forefront of how I approach lesson planning, classroom strategies, and how I interact with my students on a day to day basis. I discuss how I must find ways to get to know my students for who they are as individuals and use all resources I can to cater to their individual needs. I feel that this artifact represents my knowledge of this standard because I show how I understand that every student is different with a different background and how they often have a unique cultural and belief perspective that I must continue to respect, address, and individualize instruction to provide meaningful and challenging learning.

Classroom Observation	With a classmate, I completed this classroom observation for my EDTE 634: Teaching Students with Mental Retardation class. The class was a self-contained 4th and 5th grade mental retardation class. I included this artifact because it is further exploration of my understandings of ELN students and their individual learning differences. In this field experience paper, I discuss the entire observation experience including the teacher, her methods, practices, strategies, and the observation of the behaviors and learning style of a specific student. My partner and I also conducted an interview with the teacher and learned of her educational philosophies and the theories that she bases her methods off of. This artifact conveys how I am active and resourceful in seeking to understand how primary language and culture interact with the individual’s exceptional condition to impact the individual’s academic and social abilities. I will continue to observe classrooms of all age groups, cultures, disabilities, and learning differences to make sure I prepare myself with all the tools I can to teach any student I encounter in my educational career.

Intervention Plan - video portion	This artifact is an Arts-Infused Intervention Plan for a troubled student that was part of my EDTE 636: Psychology of Exceptional Children and Youth course. The idea behind the project was to find a child that was experiencing an acute emotional or social issue and, as an adult mentor, I had to intervene in this child’s life with a method that could help alleviate their issue with little to no monetary resources available. It was quite a challenge having previously been used to intervening with children in my school with a plethora of resources available to me. This was a very helpful project because it forced me to look at the situation from a wholly different perspective than I had been used to. It also helped me gain a better understanding of an individual and their beliefs, traditions, and values. The issue that I was targeting was anger after having been robbed at gunpoint and the nature of this child’s problem very much helped me understand how something so apart from an educational environment can nevertheless affect relationships among and between students, their families, and the school community. Indeed, this student’s issue was having a serious effect on his attitude at school and how he interacted with others. I looked at this child as a unique individual and, knowing that he was interested in percussion, I had us vent some of his frustrations by playing the drums on overturned trashcans. We videotaped the intervention for documentation of the event and to use for reflection. This was a very rewarding experience and really allowed me to understand the whole child, his unique perspective, and individualize how I planned to intervene with him to help his situation. This is something I will always continue to do inside and outside of the classroom as an educator and a mentor.

Media Productions Lesson Plan - video portion	As a teacher of special education, I have to take individual learning differences into account everyday. This lesson is an example of my understanding of this standard. The artifact was completed for my EDTE 629: Teaching Students with LD & ED class and was implemented in my TV Productions class at Chelsea School. The lesson plan centers around teaching the technical skills of visual orientation in narrative production. From getting to know my learning disabled students and reading their IEPs I was well aware of their individual learning differences and that they were all coming at this lesson from various backgrounds, cultures, beliefs, and learning styles. To start planning for these aspects, I created a needs assessment before writing the actual lesson so I could have a grasp on where my students were coming from before I tried to teach them. Then I created and conducted the lesson, videotaped it for reflective purposes, and reflected on the experience. The lesson includes the specific accommodations and adaptations I implemented to meet my students’ unique learning abilities. This lesson exemplifies my understanding of my students’ learning differences and the foundation upon which I individualize instruction to provide meaningful and challenging learning for individuals with ELN, which I will continue to implement and reflect upon.