How did the pedagogical and instructional decisions you made during the lesson align with your planning?
What specific approaches, strategies, techniques, or activities did you use to promote student engagement in the lesson? Cite specific examples from the video recording.
In order to engage Diego during the lesson, I moved quickly from one activity to the next. Diego is very distractible and seeks sensory input so I was able to keep him focused on the activities by always having physical activities for example the cards, the marker and the smart board. I knew that reading and writing the sentences would be a more challenging activity for Diego and when he is challenged he will try to avoid the task. Therefore, I asked him questions to help me choose words that would hold his interest. I asked if he had a cat and since he did not, I did not use the cat word card instead I used ball…
He is also upset by change so we followed a familiar routine and used familiar materials which also help him feel safe. Since Diego is so overwhelmed in his current general classroom placement, is unable to learn all of the content with his peers, therefore it is most fair for him to be able to have this opportunity in small groups or 1:1 to relearn the skills. Diego is comfortable working on the word level of reading and writing so in order to challenge him the second activity we do uses complete sentences. It is challenging for Diego to read words together and to repeat them together in a sentence structure. Writing them is even more challenging for him because he is just beginning to learn the structure of writing such as spacing and punctuation. Again his class learned this at a time when he was not developmentally able to learn with them and so we practice it in a smaller and safer environment with the goal being that he will transfer the skills to other settings…
