Rebecca Odden

Video Teaching Reflective Paper

June 13, 2015

When working with my Learning Disability (LD) students I find that 50%
entering special education in second or third grade that have qualified in one area
first such as math or reading end up needing services in both areas by the end of
elementary school. In my mind that is due to the curriculum changes which now
show a deficit. An example of this would be Everyday Math and the amount of
language that is needed to work through the math. Math is no longer just math
problems you also need language skills to complete the problems. Currently, I am
teaching fifth and sixth grade special education with 5 out of 7 groups being math
groups. When I was presented with quizlet at my technology class and told about of
the vocabulary possibilities. . I knew that this was a great learning tool that I could
use to help this students in both areas of their learning deficits. Quizlet is an
interactive vocabulary website that is linked to web portfolio. Students can chose
different games to learn the vocabulary. Being linked to my weebly allows the
students to go home and practice the games. The students that I chose were three
LD students in both reading and math. Two out of the three were also ELL. The
subject I chose was basic math vocabulary because these students score below the
15th percentile in math in Star testing during each window. All of their math three
teachers agreed with me that the basic vocabulary math words would be the best
place to start.
All three students were given a pre-assessment that contained ten math
vocabulary words ranging from a first and second grade level. The students were
tested in a small group environment with the test read aloud. The results were as

followed Student1 the LD Learner earned 60%, Student 2, the boy ELL learner
earned 60% and Student3, the girl ELL earned 60%. After the pre-assessment I
explained that the goal of the week was to increase the knowledge of the
vocabulary from their current level. Then I worked 1:1 with each student explaining
all the games of quizlet and answering any questions they had. For the remainder of
the week the students would work on quizlet for 15 minutes of their lessons in the
special education room. The students were also provided with a handout with my
weebly that allowed them to practice the quizlet at home. An interesting
observation that I made was that both boy really enjoyed working on the computers
and strived to improve their time. Whereas the girl did not. She needed the verbally
praise and reinforcement to stay on task.
At the end of the week, Friday, the students were given the same assessment
from Monday. They were assessed in the same environment and the test was read
orally. Student 1 increased to 80%, Student 2 increased to 80% and Student 3
remained the same. Overall, I think that quizlet is a very positive tool that I will
continue to use in the future. 2 out of 3 students were highly motivated and are
students who are struggling in 70% of their classes due deficit in language. This is a
tool that would allow me to increase their vocabulary.