Extremes of Intellectual Functioning and Creativity

A. Students with learning challenges: implications for teaching

a.1. Mainstreaming and Full Inclusion

As educators realized that segregated classes and services were not meeting the needs of students with exceptionalities, they wrestled with alternatives. One of the first was, mainstreaming, the practice of moving students with exceptionalities from segregated settings into regular classrooms. Popular in the 1970s, mainstreaming had advantages and disadvantages. It began the move way segregated services and allowed students with exceptionalities and other students to interact. Unfortunately, however, student with exceptionalities were often placed into classrooms without necessary support and services. And second is inclusion, a comprehensive approach to educating students with exceptionalities that advocates a total, systematic, and coordinated web of services. Inclusion has three components:

1. Include students with special needs in a regular school campus.2. Place students with special need in age-and grade-appropriate classrooms.3. Provide special education support within the regular classroom.

Arguments for Full-Inclusion and Mainstreaming the Continuum of Services

Arguments for Full-Inclusion

Students with disabilities should be educated in general education classes all of the time.

Students with disabilities should not be pulled out of the general education classroom to receive specialized education.

Benefits of placing students with disabilities in specialized classes, either for their academic or social growth, have not been demonstrated.

Comprehensive, professional development that prepares teachers to meet the educational and social needs of all students is required

All students with disabilities have the right to education in the most normalized setting, the general education classroom.

Arguments for Maintaining the Continuum of Services

Students with disabilities should be educated in general education classes to the extent it meets their educational and behavioural needs.

Some students with disabilities need to have their educational needs met outside of the general education classroom for part or all of the school day. A continuum of services to meet the needs of students with disabilities is required.

Benefits and pitfall of full-inclusion models for all students with disabilities have not been empirically documented.

General education teachers are inadequately prepared to meet the specialized needs of all students with disabilities.

Inclusion is a philosophy, not a place; students have the right to receive the appropriate educational services to meet their learning needs in the site that is most suitable to do so.

a.2. the individualized education

What is an IEP?

An IEP or Individual Education Plan is a plan or programme designed for children with SEN to help them to get the most out of their education. An IEP builds on the curriculum that a child with learning difficulties or disabilities is following and sets out the strategies being used to meet that child’s specific needs.

An IEP is a teaching and learning plan and should set out targets and actions for the child that are different from or additional to those that are in place for the rest of the class. The IEP is not a legal document, which means that the LEA does not have to produce a plan or make sure that a child receives any support that is outlined in the plan.

What is the Purpose of an IEP?

The purpose of an IEP is to inform the teacher and others working with the child of specific targets for the child and how these will be reached. The IEP allows schools and staff to plan for progression, monitor the effectiveness of teaching, monitor the provision for additional support needs within the school, collaborate with parents and other members of staff and help the child become more involved in their own learning and work towards specific targets.

What is an IEP?

An IEP should contain "targets", "provisions" and "outcomes". It should note 3 or 4 short-term targets set for or by the child, the teaching strategies to be used to achieve those targets, the provision that will be put in place, say when the plan is to be reviewed and identify outcomes which show the child’s progress against his/her previous targets.

Information that may be contained in an IEP may include:

Any likes, dislikes or anxieties that the child may haveAssessment informationDetails of any other educational plans the child may have.Details of how the IEP will be co-ordinatedDetails of the child’s additional support needsDetails of who will be providing the support.Home-based tasks and the parents’ and child’s commentsInformation and timescales for reviewing the IEP.Targets that the child is expected to achieve within a specified period of time.Parents and child’s detailsTargets set in the IEP should be "SMART", which stands for: Specific, so that it is clear what the child should be working towards Measurable, so that it is clear when the target has been achieved Achievable, for the individual child Relevant, to the child’s needs and circumstances Time-bound, so that the targets are to be achieved by a specified time

Reviewing an IEP?

The IEP is a working document and should be reviewed regularly (usually two or three times a year) to ensure that it continues to meet the child’s needs. When reviewing IEPs

teachers need to consider both the parents' and the child’s views, the progress made by the pupil, the effectiveness of the IEP, any specific issues that impact on the child’s progress and any changes to targets or strategies. After considering the child’s current progress, new targets

should be set to be

achieved by the next IEP

review.

B. Giftedness and Creativity: implications for teaching

Gifted and talented students

Students who are gifted and talented are those at the upper end of the ability continuum who need supplemental help to realize their full potential. At one time, the term gifted was used to identify these students, but the category has been enlarged to include both students who do well on IQ tests (typically 130 and above) and those who demonstrate above-average talents in such diverse areas as math, creative writing, and music.

Creativity: What Is It?

Creativity is the ability to identify or prepare original and divergent solutions to problems. Creativity and IQ are related but not identical; intellectual ability that is at least average is a necessary, but not sufficient, component of creativity. People who score low on IQ test typically don’t score high on measures of creativity; people who score high on IQ tests may or may not score high on measures of creativity. Like intelligence, it is probably influenced by both genetics and the environment.

Research suggests that creativity uses three kinds of intelligence: Synthetic intelligence, which helps a creative person to see a problem in a new way; analytic intelligence, which allows a person to recognize productive ideas and allocate resources to solve problems; and practical intelligence, which helps a creative person use feedback to promote ideas. In all three, the emphasis is on problem solving in real-world settings.

Divergent thinking, or the ability to generate a variety of original answers to questions or problems, is a central component in many definitions of creativity. Divergent thinking has three dimensions:

Fluency – the ability to produce many ideas relevant to a problemFlexibility – being able to break from an established set to generate new

perspectivesOriginality- the facility for generating new and different ideas

* Identifying Students Who are Gifted and Talented