Competency Three

This competency is about the special education process, State and Federal special education laws and regulations and Response to Intervention (RTI). 

Prezi: Timeline of Special Education Laws and Court Cases

Reflection: I created this Prezi timeline for this portfolio. It is a timeline of the major Federal special education laws, regulations, and court cases that impact the rights of students with disabilities and the responsibilities of the government, schools, and educators. The intention behind this artifact is to show how rights have changed over time. 

Before pursuing teaching I was a lawyer. During law school I had the opportunity to work for Advocates for Children of New York, a Special Education advocacy group, representing students with disabilities and their families. As such, I think it is very important that teachers understand their legal obligations to students.

While preparing this artifact I learned a lot more about how the different laws interact. I learned about connections between the laws I had never known about. This was a useful, if very time-consuming, exercise that forced me to read through the case law and the statutes. I needed to understand the material so I could accurately summarize the information into such a small space on the Prezi slides. 

Pyramid: Response to Intervention

Reflection: This is a supplemental artifact I included from www.gadoe.org about Response to Intervention (RTI). I think this is the best way to think about RTI, like a pyramid. The bottom layer includes the most students and is the first level that as teachers we would try. As we move up the pyramid it gets smaller. This means the first intervention reached most students. As we move up the pyramid the interventions become more complex until we reach the top tier. Once we reach tier III we are using intensive individualized interventions to see whether the student needs Special Education services. 

The benefit of RTI is that teachers can identify whether a student has a disability earlier. The parents and the school can also identify whether the student is suffering because of their teacher's instruction or whether they do actually have a disability. All of this information is useful for identifying disabilities and helping students. 

Source: [Response to Intervention Pyramid]. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.gadoe.org/Curriculum-Instruction-and-Assessment/Curriculum-and-Instruction/Pages/Response-to-Intervention.aspx