The Road to Self-Advocacy: What is it and How do I get there?
I am Tonya Moore,a Special Education major at Appalachian State. I am planning on teaching middle school or high school. The self-advocacy lessons on this website are specially designed for 9th grade students with learning disabilities who are being served special education services. The lessons will teach students self-advocacy skills through the use of media, technology, research, and writing. The media used in these lessons will help students to make the connection of how self-advocacy skills will help them to succeed in real life situations. Students will be introduced to the topic with a clip of a short cartoon which tells the true story of a girl's struggle with school and how understanding more about her learning disability helped her to succeed. Students will be asked to research their own learning disabilities to better understand their strengths and weaknesses and their learning needs. They will also be creating a Power-Point presentation which will descibe what they think are the most important aspects of themselves which they will then share with their general education instructors.
The lessons on this website meet many North Carolina Common Core and Essential Standards in Language Arts, Guidance, and Information Technology. Students will use appropriate technology tools and other resources to design products to share information with others and to access information for research. They will understand the meaning and importance of personal responsibility and self-awareness. Students will conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
Self-advocacy is one of the most important tools for a student with a learning disability to acquire. They know best what they need to be successful. Students know better than anyone else what their academic life is like. They know which tasks are a little difficult and which tasks feel impossible. Because learning disabilities can be well hidden, people will not always know what a student may need unless he or she tells them. By making themselves heard, learning how to problem solve, and asking for help students will learn how to advocate. They will begin to directly affect the decisions that are part of their daily life. Students learning to speak up about what they need to succeed can cut down miscommunication, confusion, and frustration that can happen when someone else is speaking for them. Teaching students self-advocacy skills is teaching them how to be independent and successful.
The lessons on this website meet many North Carolina Common Core and Essential Standards in Language Arts, Guidance, and Information Technology. Students will use appropriate technology tools and other resources to design products to share information with others and to access information for research. They will understand the meaning and importance of personal responsibility and self-awareness. Students will conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
Self-advocacy is one of the most important tools for a student with a learning disability to acquire. They know best what they need to be successful. Students know better than anyone else what their academic life is like. They know which tasks are a little difficult and which tasks feel impossible. Because learning disabilities can be well hidden, people will not always know what a student may need unless he or she tells them. By making themselves heard, learning how to problem solve, and asking for help students will learn how to advocate. They will begin to directly affect the decisions that are part of their daily life. Students learning to speak up about what they need to succeed can cut down miscommunication, confusion, and frustration that can happen when someone else is speaking for them. Teaching students self-advocacy skills is teaching them how to be independent and successful.
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