Being Sensitive
Giving students with disablilities personal attention is a must. As instructors we must be sensitive to their specific needs. This is very important to ensure that they get everything they need while going through their educational experience.
KARINA,
you are right that we need to monitor to ensure that our students are not taking advantage of us or accomodations.
Dr. Ryan Meers
Being sensitive for any one of my students who needs extra time but there is a very fine line before it can turn to a brutal use of instructor as well
Always demonstrate care and concerrn for the students.
Raquel,
This is very true & the more we can demonstrate that concern & care for our students, the more likely they are to ask for help when they need it.
Dr. Ryan Meers
I have learned from exprience that being sensitive to the needs and concerns of your students will help your students succeed in the classroom. Most of the students will have personal problems and learning problems and will need to know that you care and this is usually enough to cary them through.
I absolutely agree. A disability is not only a reason to be sensitive to their needs but also to grow as instructors and expand upon our methods of teaching. I find that students with disabilities push us to become better instructors.
When I am notified of a student with a disability in my online class, I immediately reach out to them and ask them to meet with me at least once a week via email, chat room or phone to discuss upcoming assignments, answer questions and clear any confusion they may be experiencing. This has worked well for me as it gives the one-on-one attention the student needs and is another avenue to set them up for success.
I am an instructor and my English is ESL I have a students in the clas 80% ESL in my lovely city New York we understand each other and enjoying our classes!
Thank you!
Can we be over sensitive, to the point that we discourage students from coping with their learning disability. The students at my school often come in and tell me that they had an IEP in high school and expect the same accommodations at the Career School and the school is complying. From waht I learned in this module IEP are for high school students and those under 21, are we doing these students justice"
I agree that giving students with learning disabilities personal attention is a must for an instructor because by doing that the instrutor demonstrates that he or she is not only interested in teaching them the course content but also demonstrates that the instructor is very interested in them as individuals. Students with disabilities who have this type of instructor as their teacher not only learn more of the course content but also learn how they too should treat their fellow students who may have similar disabilities- with respect and being sensitive to their classmates' difficulties. If the instructor approaches his or her students with this mind frame, the students, in turn, will treat each other in a more professional manner.
As most career schools get a good number of 'non traditional' students which means we must use 'non traditional' ways of connecting with them. In kitchen/labs these frequently means spending some time prior to or before a class period to provide additional training and support.
How true as everyone knows in post secondary education career schools our students are our customers. All customers deserve the best customer service as that is what they are paying for and their tuition is paying for our customer service. All customers are not the same just like all students are not the same but they chose us to help them get better so we should do our best to help them achieve.
I think it is important to give a person with disabilities the extra help without making it obvious to that person's classmayes
The school I taught in Miami had a lot of students from South America as well as recent immigrants who spoke little English. I don't know where this comment originated by anything I said. I enjoyed these students and learned as much from them as they from me.
I've worked in Miami and the South Florida area my entire career and while teaching a class, often 90% or more being ESL students, I have not had to speak to them in Spanish. It was common knowledge that the courses were taught in English. There were and are many challenges associated with this but the keys, I believe, are flexibility, understanding, and sensitivity. This does not mean changing the rules or policies of the course, however. The students often studied the concepts in groups in their native or first language and most of them grasped the concepts quite well. The challenge was preparing them for board examinations in English so reminding them that although they studied in their native language, they still need to be able to understand and test as proficient in the English language. From a fairness perspective (and my perspective I must add), I do not think that in the class setting I would address students in any other language other than that which they were told the course would be taught in. This is a very touchy area since all it takes is one student to be offended (by not understanding something that was spoken in a language other than English)- unless of course, they were advised that this may happen from time to time in advance.
The geographic area where I am an instructor has a lot of students with English as a second language. I make it a point to learn words from their language to make them feel more comfortable, while at the same time it helps fellow students see the stress they are working under by having to learn a whole new language.
