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Seager B Sped854 m1 Discussion Replies Final Draft
Seager B Sped854 m1 Discussion Replies Final Draft
University of Kansas
Brent Seager
Winston,
I also strive to put collaboration first as an educator, as I believe that using collaboration
will reduce inconsistencies and provide a better educational environment for all general and
special education students. I have also found that with having fewer teachers and less time to
meet throughout the school day and year, that being flexible and using email, facetime, and other
technology to collaborate with parents/guardians and other staff members is essential. While I
still use traditional means of phone calls and mailing items home to collaborate with parents and
other staff members, I believe that using the latest technology to collaborate will ensure that
collaboration can occur and more people are willing to buy into collaboration when given
different options and features to collaborate. I would like to continue learning about refining my
methods on collaborating, as I believe that keeping my collaboration skills up to date will help to
ensure that I have the necessary resources to support my students and work with others.
Brent
Deborah Parker:
Deborah,
While I do not have much experience working with ELL or ESL students, I have noticed
that schools are more diverse today than they have been in the past. The trend of diversified
schools will continue to increase into the future, and it is imperative that measures be adopted to
suit the educational needs and goals of all students. There is not an easy answer to ensure that
cultural groups of students are over or under represented in special education, however, careful
monitoring and consistent practice will ensure that each student has the necessary supports and
placement in the educational environment. I also agree that collaboration was one of the big
topics in the readings this week. In my current position, teachers do collaborate, but many of the
collaboration relationships are dominated by one person or a small group of people; thus making
WEEK ONE REPLIES 3
collaboration in my building less effective than it could be. The readings on collaboration this
week allowed me to see how an effective collaboration relationship entails, and I will use this
results from the collaboration mentioned above stemmed from good collaboration. I have found
that collaboration with IEP team members does help the team to make informed decisions to
ensure that each student has the necessary supports and services in place. I have also found that
many parents and guardians are hesitant to place their children in special education programs or
have them receive special education services, however, a pre-meeting can help resolve many pre-
conceived notions about special education programs. In the pre-meeting, parents/guardians and
other IEP team members will collaborate and address concerns and options, and using
collaboration in these meetings does help to ensure that all options are considered and the student