LEARNING COMMUNITIES

Hi! Our topic was the Learning Communites. We can define this as a group of people who share common academic goals and attitudes. These groups are students, teachers and volunteers or families. Among all they collaborate and cooperate to make the learning process of the children more successful.

This is our conceptual map:





And this is the video that we have choose. We think that it collects the main ideas of the topic, and also, is a real example of a school in Albacete that is called "La Paz". Enjoy it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yow_MmRPQAo


We think that school is not only for children or teachers, school is something more were all of us have a space. Children learn for experiences and adults could teach their them to make a btter knowledge.

https://www.innova.uned.es/webpages/educalia/las_comunidades_de_aprendizaje_una_apuesta_por_la_igualdad_educativa.pdf

OUR IDEAL SCHOOL

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxsApmUNad_PQURSazVlT2dZRmc

ASPERGER SYNDROME IN CLASSROOM – Ayperi SAL

Asperger syndrome is a form of autism, which is a lifelong disability that affects how a person makes sense of the world, processes information and relates to other people.

Asperger syndrome is mostly a ‘hidden disability’. This means that you can’t tell that someone has the condition from their outward appearance. People with the condition have difficulties in three main areas. They are:

• ·        Social communication
• ·        Social interaction
• ·        Social imagination

As mentioned above, asperger syndrome is a hidden disability, in other words it may be difficult to understand whether a child has asperger syndrome or not. If the people are not aware of this syndrome, it becomes more and more diffucult for an asperger to communicate in a social environment. At this point teachers play an important part. Because not all parents are educated about psychology maybe but teachers have to make research about these kind of disabilities. The students spend most of their time in the school and here is the place where they can be observed deeply. A good teacher must be aware of this syndrome and its symptoms. He/she has to be a good observer. Also the teacher is the one who must inform the parents about this  syndrome and its symptoms.

If I were a teacher and had a child with asperger syndrome, I would try to know much more things about this syndrome and looking for approaches and strategies to help my student have a good learning experience and happy childhood memories.

Before choosing an approach I think it is very important to know the child, his/her interests, behaviours and then I can choose a suitable approach for my student.

Some of these important approaches that may help the students with asperger syndrome are:

·        SPELL (Structure, Positive, Empathy, Low arousal, Links)

·        The TEACCH Approach: it prepares the asperger students to live or work more effectively at home and in the wider world.

·        Social stories and comic strip conversations help people with asperger syndrome to develop greater social understanding.

·        Visual supports are adaptable, portable and can be used in most situations to help.

There are many things that can be done. We shouldn’t forget that a teacher who is a good observer and educated about asperger or psychology can have a great impact on a child with asperger syndrome and on his/her quality of life.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

http://www.autism.org.uk/about/what-is/asperger.aspx

http://www.autism.org.uk/about/strategies.aspx

ASPERGER SYNDROME IN CLASSROOM - Irene Megías

Education is a right and as such all the children should practice it on equal terms, so we must fight against all forms of discrimination; in this case I will post in the fight against disability discrimination, or rather discrimination by Asperger syndrome. Although there is a greater adoption in which children with special educational needs are included in plans of regular schools, the challenge is to successfully educate all children equally and above all try to change attitudes of discrimination, creating an inclusive society.

As we have seen in class, Asperger syndrome is a set of mental characteristics and behavior that is part of the autism spectrum disorders. The most characteristic of the people suffering from it is that they exhibit a socially and emotionally inappropriate behavior and are unable to successfully interact with others, what can be a big problem in the classroom, because as we know, is a place of continuous social interaction.

What can we do when we have an Asperger´s syndrome child in class?

The people with this problem, since the beginning of their schooling, need an accompaniment by a professional specializing in the subject, including further guidance to the family. On the other hand, is important the real commitment of the teachers who are in contact with the child with Asperger's and there must be resources that complement each other, such as psychologists and other therapists who orient them.

The first of all is to detect as soon as possible this syndrome, as in children to avoid certain harmful behaviors for him/her and the school environment suffer from it in general. Teachers must pay special attention to those children who show some difficulty to deal with social situations or rejection of social interaction; immaturity in motor control (writing), emotions and empathy; or anxiety before the change of routines.

One of the key factors for school integration is a consideration for the particular needs of each student, for which it is necessary that inclusion is mutual, working with typical development child and the child with disorder asperger. On the one hand it is important that social insertion techniques will teach these students and encouraged the relationship with colleagues; so students with the syndrome should learn empathy and reciprocity. On the other hand, ordinary students need to understand the causes of the behavior of their peers. As an intermediary is the teacher, who has an extremely important role in the inclusion. You must create a decodificable social environment and structure the class so that students interact and be he who choose groups, taking into account the qualities of the students and organizing them in a way that will create a pleasant atmosphere.

As teachers, we must take into account certain aspects to facilitate the school life of children with Asperger's, as well as the inclusion of these students in the classrooms. Among them should be highlighted avoid comparisons with other classmates, consider the continuous (and always positive) assessment student, assessing their zone of proximal development and devote the time required to pick up your pace of learning and interacting with it. We must also make use of certain disciplinary tactics or educational strategies that can help the educational development of our students with asperger's syndrome. It is important to ensure that the child knows what is expected of him/her, always in a positive sense to persuade him/her, as well as rules that favour mental flexibility from the routines (there should be consistency) and a structured context, rules and consistent compliance and routines for the morning and afternoon. On the other hand, it is very important to encourage the relationship with the classmates to encourage them to share with joint activities that promote contact.

In conclusion, as far as I´m concerned, the integration of this type requires a change of universal thought, in which everyone has the right to be accepted as we are, and at the same time the duty of tolerating the different ways of being of each and every one of us; but if all of us involves in this, it can be possible.

THE ASPERGER "PROBLEM" AT CLASSROOM

Asperger in classroom

First of all I´m going to talk when I was in TAFAD. In my practice I has a one child with asperger. I think that is not a big problem if you how to do with this child. In this school he has a teacher only for him that call PT. For me is the most important thing that need a child with Asperger, because he need different thing or learn more slowly than his classmates and for the teacher is very difficult.

My first impression when I stayed with David (it´s his name), was he is crazy and a little bit stupid, but this changed at seconds. He is a very very smart child, but learn some subject slowly than his mates. But he is very good at maths or doing some sports, in spite, he don´t have a good coordination.

Now, if you have an Asperger child in your class, you can´t despise him for that, you need that he talk with of his mate, do everything with them. In my opinion the most important thing are teacher (need a lot of knowledge about Asperger and how it work with them) and classmates (they should make he like one more).

Asperger in the classrooms of primary education 

(María Jiménez)

The current education system promotes a personalized education where the teacher is a guide in the process of learning and teaching. He has to know their students, their characteristics, peculiarities, interests and difficulties to help them to have a correct development.

Teachers should follow some guidelines in the classroom to adapt the learning process to the needs of these children.

In a cognitive level:

• The teacher must ensure that the child has understood the tasks through questions to check it. He should provide additional explanations simplifying the complex concepts.
• Divide the goals into smaller parts.
• The sentences have to be clear and simple in activities or exams.
• Avoid overstimulation because these children are easily distracted.
• Avoid mechanical and repetitive work, the teacher should encourage tasks to internalize and interpret and so understand what memorized. Because they have the ability to memorize large amount of information but have difficulty to manage memories.
• Increased focus on learning methodology in a visual way. It is how they get much information due to their high visual acuity.
• To create them a routine, with steps they take them every time when they do an activity. For example:
• To read slowly all questions.
•  To think if I have any doubts and if so I wonder it.
•  To start with the question that is the best for me.
•  To check the time I have and how many questions left me.
•   I leave the most difficult question for last.
•   Review examination or activity before submission.

• These children operated time badly, it is necessary to help them through calendars, task lists, with a clock, etc.
• They can talk for hours about their interests so we know their tastes to approach problems and classroom activities, in this way we create them motivation indirectly. 

        In a communicative level:

•        They don´t understand the message when the teacher speaks for the group because they are considered within the group therefore it needs to be repeated individually and make a summary of the main ideas, trying to be concrete.
•           It is necessary to teach them the keys, the social rules, "what to say and how to say".
•          Use videos starring him daily situations to teach aspects that should improve.

         In a socio-affective level:

        

       The greatest difficulty is that this children don´t know how to socialize, so they have difficult to establish friendly relations, they don’t get follow a conversation, they don’t appreciate nonverbal signals and body gestures.

-         

•         Is a good idea to create problems through visual tiles where they have to find the answer. For example:

 Mom hurts her stomach, what should she do?

- To drink coke and eat sweets.

- To visit the doctor and rest.

- To go to the park.

•          With the help of his partners to teach them what is the appropriate behavior.
•          It is beneficial to the child to have a peer tutor, a friend in class, who help him in moments that make him stress as the break, in the school bus, corridors, etc. And try to help him his social integration.
•          To make him a circle of friends, first with few members, who can protect him from jokes and increase the group gradually. The child with Asperger wants to make friends but he doesn’t know how.
•          They tend to get angry and be aggressive in situations that supposed them stress. The teacher should help to recognize their emotions and teach to manage them.

        In a physical level:

•          Children with Asperger have difficulties in coordination, they are stiff when they walk, they are clumsy in physical games. These problems may affect the writing and drawing so the teacher should help more in these tasks and let more time on tests and activities.
•          They have an auditory hypersensitivity, so it is necessary to minimize the annoying noises in the classroom.
•         They respond badly to physical contact. The teacher can avoid, as far as possible, by placing on one side of the class not in the center, to be the first or the last in the row, always avoid the crowds. If contact is necessary, he talks him before to explain the situation in order that it isn’t a surprise.

       The primary teacher plays a key role in the success of a proper adaptation of teaching and learning process to the specific needs of an asperger child. This adaptation is a complex process which involves good knowledge of the disorder to be able to work. It is also necessary to know the characteristics can present the student, possible difficulties and aspects that can promote.

      

       BIBLIOGRAPHY:

“      El síndrome de Asperger en el aula de educación primaria” T.F.G. Almudena Andrés Serradilla Universidad Internacional de La Rioja

  http://www.orientacionandujar.es/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/El-S%C3%ADndrome-de-Asperger-en-el-aula-de-Educaci%C3%B3n-Primaria.pdf

    http://www.csi-csif.es/andalucia/modules/mod_ense/revista/pdf/Numero_13/M_DEL_ROSARIO_MARQUEZ_1.pdf

    http://www.aulapt.org/2008/03/21/sindrome-de-asperger/

    http://www.eumed.net/rev/cccss/03/ver.htm

   María Jiménez 1ºB G.E.P.

ASPERGER CHILDREN

Sometimes we found some difficulties in a classroom. One on them could be some children with different problems. In this case we’ll we talking about Asperger children.

In this post I will talk about some clues to work with these children in class.  First of all it’s so important make them feel like one more, I mean, we will try to make an inclusive education.

To get a better work we could do some exercises like:

-          Work feelings: one of the difficulties that they have is the fact that they don’t understand it. To get this we could do activities like

o   Activities to reflect: through this we will work differents feelings like

§  Ex: a boy in a line of a restaurant want to eat and he decided to put t first, how does he feel? Happy because they take that they want, worried about the comments of the people, sad because they know that this is bad…

 With these activities we try to understand how they feel and they could understand what the meaning of feelings is.

o   Role play: we can work the feelings with some short plays like in a theatre for 5 minutes or different situations. In this way the teacher could introduce some verbal tenses or vocabulary that he wants children to know

-          Methodology: I agree to work with cooperative learning, inclusive classrooms and all this type of work that we have been seen during this course but it’s better if the groups are smaller like 3 or 4 people in order to get this children more comfortable. It could be a great idea to use more examples and visual supports to get a better understanding in order to get more participation in these groups.

-          Rules: it’s important for these children to know the rules that speakers have like not interrupt, ask for speak…. And others more for a daily live like greet and bid farewell.

-        The importance of changings: in this case is necessary to have the support of parents, friends and family. Children should understand that changings are good and get used of them. We could start with smaller one and little by little get bigger.

All this ideas have the same base, try to get these children as comfortable as possible and use games and dynamic activities to get it in order to transform the class in a big group where all of children are friends and they love each other without discrimination.

BEATRIZ MARTINEZ