Hannah Ellison

Assessment 2

Question 1:

An IEP stands for an Individualized Education Program. This is a plan that is put together by the

parents of the student and the teacher, to determine the services that will be given to the student

to be able to provide him or her a proper education. The IEP is written by a team of educators

that consists of the student’ teacher, the students parents or guardian, a special education teacher,

a representative of the school district, and a school psychologist. Together they interpret what the

student will need. Students with disabilities are protected under IDEA (Individuals With

Disabilities Education Act). This protects students rights by having to provide a proper and

appropriate education for students with disabilities. Lucas’s IEP will have all of his goals, his

level of academic performance, achievements, and the list of services he will be provided with.

For Lucas and his mom, I would start by explaining to her that she will be sitting in on the

meetings and will be able to give her input and opinion about Lucas’s education and how the

school will help him work with his disability. She will always be informed and have access to his

IEP and will have direct communication with his teachers.

Question 3:

It is important that Josh should continue to speak his heritage and learn more about his culture

because it could really help Josh in the future, and his culture should be celebrated. I would tell

Josh’s parents that in this classroom, we celebrate our different cultures and background and are

encouraged to practice speaking our first and second languages. This can help Josh eventually
with job opportunities, communication skills, and will help him teach the Choctaw heritage to his

kids someday. Diversity is very important, as well as cultural awareness in the classroom. It

make students feel special and unique to know a second language or to have a culture to

celebrate that is not just American like a lot of his classmates. As Josh’s teacher, I would do

whatever is appropriate of course, but I think it will impact Josh’s future a lot to learn his

heritage and to keep practicing his Choctaw language for future networking. I think Josh should

know its okay and an amazing opportunity to be able to celebrate his culture.

Question 5:

By Jerrod making funny faces, noises, and a witty comment it invokes different responses from

his classmates. There are two types of consequences when Jerrod makes these noises, the

students will either laugh at him, or ignore him. The first consequence of the students laughing at

him is a positive reinforcement for Jerrod. He likes when his peers laugh at him because he then

thinks he is being funny and wants to continue to do so, which is very distracting to his peers.

The second consequence of his peers ignoring him, is a negative reinforcement. By his

classmates choosing to ignore him, they are taking away the positive stimuli that Jerrod got from

his peers laughing at him in the beginning, which could possibly lead to acting out or bad

behavior. I believe this happening would be similar to a punishment to Jerrod because it was a

bad reaction from his classmates. This could possibly lead to him not distracting his classmates

again because he does not want negative reinforcement again.

Question 9:

According to the book, autonomy is defined as independence. What Ms. Rios is struggling with,

is how to stop her controlling ways with her 4th grade class and learn to give them some

independence to make their learning experience better. She believes that by giving her students

autonomy, this will increase their motivation for learning as well. What I would suggest to Ms.

Rios, is to put them into groups, which is allowing them to be social and independent. This way

the students can work together, build ideas off of one another, but their activity is still guided by

the teacher. Ms. Rios should also allow and encourage the students to make their own choices.

Whether that is a design for a project, art work, etc. Allowing the students to create self-selected

goals, will then allow them to reach those goals throughout the year and furthermore have this

reflect on their education. Holding the students accountable for the consequences of their choices

is another way to encourage independence in the classroom, because this way students can

reflect on the choices they made, and learn from it. Finally, Ms. Rios can use non-controlling,

positive feedback for the students. This way her students don’t feel like they are being criticized

and this will make them feel a sense of praise and capability.

Question 10:

1. Exercise boots brain power

Exercising releases endorphins in the brain, allowing people to be happy and alert. It also

stimulates a protein that is good for the neurons in our brain, and if we exercise enough on a

weekly basis it can decrease peoples chance of getting diseases from the brain.

2. The human brain evolved, too.

Over time, just like everything on earth has evolved, our brain has as well. The brain is capable

of amazing things and it has been able to evolve over time to keep up with our surroundings.

3. Every brain is wired differently

Our brain re-wires itself according to what is around us and what we are doing. The human brain

develops differently in each person at different rates. Each brain has its own unique way of

learning, and showing intelligence which doesn't always show up on IQ tests.

4. People don’t pay attention to boring things

The brain is incapable of multitasking, and our attention is drawn to to patterns and abstract

detail to we get distracted very easily, so make sure every 10 minutes to intrigue your audience.

5. Repeat to remember

The brain has many different ways of remembering things and information comes into the brain

and is split up into four different cortex’s. The more elaborate we encode information, we will

remember it better.

6. Remember to repeat.

Long term and short term memory are developed in two different parts of the brain, and the way

we intake memories will effect the way we remember it later on.

7. Sleep well, think well

Sleep is very important in order to be able to keep attention, function properly, use logic and

skills, and reasoning.

8. Stressed brains don’t learn the same way

Feeling stressed or overly emotionally has a huge impact on your brain and the ability to learn

new information and can create a lot of hostility.

9. Stimulate more of the senses at the same time

Our senses are supposed to be used together, and can be very powerful if we take advantage of

that.

10. Vision trumps all other senses

Vision is our most powerful sense and should be used at al times because this helps us remember

things best through pictures, not through written items.

11. Male and female brains are different

Men and women brains work completely differently, and we respond differently to stress due to

what hemisphere of the brain are activated.

12. We are powerful and natural explorers.

Adults learn sort of like how babies do, because we like to experiment and question a lot of

things, creating reasoning and thoughts.