The Special Needs Brain: Helping it Learn
|
Course Name: The Special Needs Brain: Helping it Learn |
|
|
Course Number: EDUC 718B |
Semester Credits: 3 |
Course Description
Author David Sousa states that “In 2012-2013, 13 percent of the total public school population was classified as having specific learning disabilities and speech or language impairments as opposed to 8.3 percent 10 years earlier.” Many of these students are placed in general education classes, forcing teachers to devise ways to help them learn.
This course provides knowledge of possible causes of special needs, an understanding of brain systems that have gone awry, diagnostic issues and criteria, research on practical approaches to helping special needs students learn, and a variety of strategies to consider when planning lessons. This course addresses essential background information, ADD/ADHD, autism, disabilities in speech, writing, and mathematics, and emotional and behavioral disorders. Upon completion of this course, the student will demonstrate an understanding that special needs students are in a precarious motivational state, and will become familiar with a rich array of strategies the special needs student requires.
Goals
- Understand how the normal brain learns in children at different ages.
- Understand what can go wrong in the brains of children with a variety of special needs.
- Value the struggles, efforts, and attitudes of special needs children.
- Differentiate between temporary and chronic learning difficulties.
- Be able to communicate effectively with professionals trained in Special Education in order to design and execute plans for remediation.
- Develop specific strategies for teaching children with ADHD, speech difficulties, reading disabilities, writing disabilities, mathematical disabilities, emotional and behavioral disorders, and autism spectrum disorder.
- Know and be able to use objective criteria for tracking progress.
- Be able to calibrate the difficulty of assignments to motivate the special needs students, while avoiding being too easy or too difficult.
- Be able to locate, evaluate, and utilize multiple teaching strategies when faced with teaching students with special needs.
- Know sources of practical and research information to consult when in need of additional help.
Course Contents
- The Brain and learning: exterior and interior parts of the brain
- Learning and retention
- Difficulties with sleep
- Possible causes of learning difficulties
- Response to intervention
- Speech difficulties
- Reading disabilities
- Writing disabilities
- Mathematical disabilities
- Emotional and behavioral disabilities
- Autism spectrum
- What educators need to consider: bullying and school-wide positive behavior interventions
- Helping students with learning disabilities
- Communicating with Parents
Evidence of Learning Outcomes
Upon completing The Special Needs Brain: Helping it Learn, primary evidence that the student has achieved these goals will be presented through reading, answering extensive questions, writing an essay, completing a detailed project, and preparing a lesson plan, which should illustrate assimilation of major points made within this course.
How to Register
The Special Needs Brain: Helping it Learn can be completed in either an online or via emailed PDF format. It is open for anyone to register at any time during an open semester. After completion, students receive graduate, non-degree semester credit on official transcripts from the University of La Verne, an accredited university in La Verne, California.
Registration is fast and straightforward and can be done online or over the phone. Courses are offered on a rolling basis during three standard semesters, and you can begin whenever you are ready! The registration dates are:
- Fall: September 1 - January 31
- Spring: February 1 - May 31
- Summer: June 1 - August 31