Bay Area Private Schools

Bay Area Private Schools lists private schools devoted to special education around the Northern California Bay Area (including Monterey Bay area). The site also lists helpful resources for parents and educators. This site is another one I'm using to look up places to apply for jobs.

Private schools for Special Education

The National Association of Private Special Education Centers lists private schools dedicated to Special Education around the USA.

Blind and Visually Impaired Center of Monterey

This center shows services for the blind and visually impaired in the Monterey Bay area. It will be useful for looking up resources for students in this area with these disabilities.

Public and private schools to look at for jobs in the Monterey Bay area

GreatSchools.net allows for searching schools in different areas around the USA. This page shows public and private schools in the Monterey Bay area where I currently live. I'm using this page to look up schools to investigate for applying to jobs.

EDJoin.org

http://www.edjoin.org/ is a service to find teaching positions or other school-related jobs in California. The service allows to search for jobs by region, county, and district and allows for you to apply directly at the site.

Social Skills and Mild Disabilities

This article is about the interaction of mild disabilities and poor social skills or pool social perceptual skills. It concludes that students with mild disabilities need explicit teaching of social skills and explicit social intentions. I include this article to highlight the importance of academic AND social help for students with special needs.

Ed.gov

Ed.gov is the US government's website on education that covers all of the most recent trends that the government idealizes all states can follow regarding general and special education. Go here to find lots of information on No Child Left Behind, IDEA, other relevant laws, and what students, families, teachers, and administrators need to know as determined by our federal government.

Council for Exceptional Children

The Council for Exceptional Children is an organization to help students, their families, and teachers be aware of news, laws, publications, and professional development.

Teachers Helping Teachers

The Teaching Helping Teachers website lists lesson plans and education resources in all of the academic subjects, classroom management, book reviews, and other help for teachers.

National Education Association

The National Education Association covers a wide area of current issues in education, including special education, help for parents and the outside community, laws, help for teachers, news, and conferences.

The Future of Children

The Future of Children is a website about all students and their education, with research, news, and journals on special education, technology, poverty, good teaching, and many other topics.

Special Education for Students with Disabilities Journal at the Future of Children

The Future of Children website writes a journal and this issue is fully online and dedicated to Special Education for students with disabilities. The articles cover a variety of important topics such as:

• Analysis of Special Education
• History of laws in Special Education
• How students are assessed and identified as having special needs
• Learning disabilities
• Consideration into placement
• Transition from high school
• How to pay for Special Education outside of the public school system or when health care is involved
  

National Association of Special Education Teachers

The National Association of Special Education Teachers is an organization and website dedicated to the myriad of issues Special Educators face or need to learn. The organization offers memberships, resources to help teachers and students, publications, awards to educators, professional development, and where to get jobs.

Eligibility Criteria for Special Education Services

This article outlines the twelve definitions of special needs that can be assigned and the criteria for each determining each need exists. Although the article is concise it clearly explains the differences between the special needs and the criteria that defines those needs.

Important reading for teachers and parents so as to avoid mislabeling and to explain when labels should be used to address certain needs.

Schwablearning.org for Learning Disabilities

Schwablearning.org is devoted to learning disabilities but it covers helpful information to help all students who struggle, those with disabilities and those without disabilities. The site helps with:

• Understanding special needs
• Helping your student at school
• Helping your student at home
• Helping your student socialize
• Finding more information and publications
  

Evaluation and Eligibility for Specific Learning Disabilities

This article explains how students are assessed and determined to be eligible for specific learning disabilities, with discussions into topics like:

• Definition of "specific learning disability"
• Changes in laws from before IDEA 2004 and after in regards to learning disabilities
  
• Definition of "discrepancy requirement" in order to determine eligibility
  
• Definition of "Response to Intervention" in order to help students before receiving special services
• The steps to determine eligibility for learning disabilities
• Differences in how states handle learning disabilities
  

Learning Disabilities Association of America

The Learning Disabilities Association of America is devoted to learning disabilities. The website covers a wide variety of topics on learning disabilities, such as:

• Recent news
• Articles and research
• Classifications of different learning disabilities
  
• Conferences and meetings
• Informations for parents, teachers, and professionals
  

Eligiblity for Special Education Services at the Learning Disabilities Association of America

The Learning Disabilities Association of America lists the determination for eligibility for Special Education and related services with extra emphasis on learning disabilities. The site does not go into great detail on eligibility but it is helpful in answering initial questions in areas such as:

• When eligibility is determined
• Who determines eligibility
  
• What the team considers in order to determine eligibility
• Other procedures to evaluate students
• Other procedures to determine specific learning disabilities
• The two main components for a student to be eligible for special services
• Definition of "child with a disability"
• Definition of a child with developmental delays
• How to determine special services based on developmental delays
• Learning disabilities if identified with developmental delays
• Other possible designations
  

Wrightslaw- Special Education Laws

Wrightslaw is a site devoted to special education laws in a readable format that is easier to read than actual laws and the site is organized somewhat well to find whatever you might need. The creators of the site also created reference books and other products to help teachers, parents, and other non-lawyers understand the laws. A vital site I plan on studying to make sure I am legally compliant and to share with others.

How to create rules for classroom management

One page of many on making rules to help students understand what you want them to do in your classroom, with suggestions such as:

• What rules, routines, and standards to teach
• The importance of rules
  
• Activities to teach rules
• How to motivate students to use the rules in their lives
  

Teachers Network

This site has a wide variety of information for general and special educators, all written by actual general and special educators. Some things I found helpful:

• The how-to section with such topics as:
  
• How to use your teaching style to best help a student's learning style
• How to use assessment to drive instruction
• Resources to find much more information
  

Article on how to differentiate instruction

This concise and clear article at the helpful site Teachers Network outlines beginning concepts to take when differentiating instruction. I could see these steps as useful for a Special Educator working with varying student needs in his or her classroom or for a General Educator including a Special Needs student in the general classroom. The concepts are:

• Content: what is taught
• Process: how students understand what is taught
• Product: how students demonstrate understanding
• Affect: how students feel in the classroom
  

A to Z Teacher Stuff

AtoZTeacherStuff is a large website devoted to K-12 general and special education with many resources, such as:

• Forums that cover from being a teacher to currently teaching
• Lesson plans and handouts
  
• How to manage a classroom
• And many more things that warrant a look!
  

Learning Styles Types

One of the issues of Special Education and General Education is attempting to teach to the different types of learning styles so to best address each student's strengths and needs.

Like the previous Teaching Styles post, these Learner Styles apply to adult learners in distance education. The styles apply to K-12 students as well.

• Learning Styles
• The page defines three types:
• visual
• auditory
• kinesthetic or tactile
• The page offers a quiz to determine learning styles
  
• Resources about Learning Styles
• More quizzes and information about other definitions of styles
  

Teaching Styles

The teacher's teaching style seems to be just as important as the student's learning style.

The following links are designed for long-distances teachers of adults but I believe they can be applied to K-12 teachers as well.

• Teaching Styles
• The page defines four types:
• formal authority
• demonstrator or personal model
• facilitator
• delegator
• The page offers a quiz of your teaching style
• Resources on Teaching Styles
• More quizzes on teaching styles