Judith A. Puglisi
My chemistry unit is being written for high school special education students. The students placed in my classroom will have a wide variety of disabilities, mild mental retardation, social and emotional problems, as well multiple learning disabilities. There are at least 109 specific learning disabilities. Students can possess one or many of these identified disabilities.(1)
The average class size is 16 students with one teacher and no teaching assistants. I highly recommend collaborating with volunteer groups and Universities to recruit adult volunteers to help students work with group problem solving activities. I have done these activities in my classroom both with and without adult volunteers. I have found students produce much better work when more adults are available to give the students encouragement and feedback on the progress of their projects.
This unit will introduce basic concepts in the properties of matter, the periodic table, and atomic structure. The students will engage in hands-on activities to help develop an understanding of abstract concepts. Students will be asked to explain changes in matter using scientific vocabulary learned during the unit.
It is important to remember that students with severe disabilities often do not believe their ideas are worth testing. For the majority of their school career they have watched their peers master subject matter which seemed beyond their capabilities. We must be careful not to make “mastering the content material” more important than “belief in one’s ability to make sense of one’s world”.
