Lift Off

Am I caught up yet??!! SMILE

About the students:

* Who are they?

Parents, Parent Information Specialists and service providers of children with disabilities

* What do they know coming in?

Skill level and experience will vary, however, they will have knowledge and experience in the special education system

* What should they know when they’re done?

Participants will have an increased knowledge of effective advocacy teaching models and strategies for the empowerement of parents to fulfill their role as their childrens lifelong advocates

How will they talk to each other? To you?

Via listserve, email, and blogs

* How will they talk to you?

I will be available via email, instant messaging and by phone

Course description

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (2004) states, “Policies and procedures will be implemented to ensure the right of all parents to full participation and equal partnership in the educational process” (Corn & Huebner, 1998, p. 12). Although the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) provides a legal foundation supporting equal parent participation and partnership, the consistency of this practice has not been fully realized. Therefore strategies to address barriers that hinder parents from full participation and partnership must continue to be explored.

In order to determine the effectiveness of systematic advocacy approaches, more attention needs to be given to the definition of appropriate advocacy so we can individualize strategies to enable parents to acquire effective advocacy skills regardless of their life circumstances.

This course will explore: 1) what definitions are currently available regarding appropriate assertiveness? 2) what parent advocacy skills are currently recognized and taught by parent training and support models? 3) is there agreement or mutual respect among professionals and parents regarding the nature of appropriate assertiveness and what skills the current parent support and training models offer? 3) Do the skills identified by current parent support and training models address cultural diversity, education level, and socioeconomic status? 4) what life circumstances hinder or promote parents’ success in advocating for their children, and 5) what holistic strategies can be employed to ensure that parents become successful participants and partners in their children’s education?

* How did you approach the task of site evaluation?

I approached the task of the site evaluation by identifying websites that have been valuable resources in my work. I revisited these websites and considered what I would want other people to know about their utility, organization, if they are updated frequently, etc.

* How did your approach differ from others in the class?

I think my approach was similar to the others in the class. Some individuals selected new websites or unfamiliar websites.

* Where did you find the sites you looked at?

The sites I reviewed were sites that I was introduced to in graduate school and have continued to use for work. I have never previously “evaluated” the sites however. I found it useful to go back and review the websites beyond their content.

* What makes a site “educational”?

I think a site is educational when it provides updated and useful information. I love to find a site and think…”this is exactly what I need!”

* How do you think this applies to creating your own class?

Offering web resources that lead to ideas for searches and locate valuable resources is useful. It is like leaping into a sea of information. However, if you know the originating site and you trust the information it provides, there is more security regarding the accuracy of the information. This is more valuable than random keyword searches.

Honestly, I feel tormented between my growing interest towards this class and trying to stay afloat with all of my other courses which I am equally engaged. I am still struggling with devoting the time to connect with my peers in this course by reading and responding to their comments. It has been so much easier to connect with peers in my other classes because they are in person and we can chat before class, after class or during break. Though one positive feature of this course is that it provides more access to everyone at all times of the day. Yet accessibility doesn’t help with my availability. Therefore, I feel the biggest connection with my peers has been commiserating over being overwhelmed by this class.

To my excitement, this weekend I created a new blog with more options, I created a blogroll, edited the Wiki class list and added both an RSS feed for my site and one for comments and I downloaded Sage in order to have a live bookmark for all of your sites. The best part is that I think I knew what I was doing. Now I am ready to set up a blog for my husband so he has one on music. There is no question I have learned in this course.

According to the article we read by Daithí Ó Murchú and Brent Muirhead, critical thinking requires learners to be proactive, tenacious towards problem-solving and flexible to new ideas and solutions. Nathan, are these the unspoken objectives of the course?

Difficulties I see with this course so far are high amounts of stress and discomfort with novel technology.

I wonder about possible conflict with an auditory learning style? I am not an auditory learner, but I have more than once wondered about how an auditory learner experiences such a visual course.

Equivalency Theory can be considered as an information exchanges for the purpose of learning between a teacher and a student, a student and a student or a student and some vehicle of content presentation. In the case of this online class, Nathan has designed a balance between all three of these exchanges. Compared to a classroom which typically relies on teacher to student interaction, this course offers opportunity across all three types of information exchange. Returning to the principles presented within the the article on critical thinking, one could say that employing all three dyads of information exhange under the Equivalency Theory is an effective strategy to get your students thinking on a more critical level.