Week 4 Reflection

Reflection:

This last week in class we discussed a lot about Eco-maps and actually had the opportunity to do an Eco-map for one of our classmates that we didn't know very well. I really liked this assignment, and was glad we had the chance to work together and brainstorm different questions that we would ask to find out what support systems are available to the families we are working with. It was a really neat experience to be able to draw one of these maps and actually complete one because now I feel much more prepared to do these in the future when I am working with families throughout the future.

The Eco-map assignment was actually the one that helped me the most this week. Reading the material and watching the videos was a good start to learning about it, but actually having that hands-on experience made it much better and clearer to see how the whole process works. It also helped me brainstorm and get creative with ways to ask questions in the appropriate manner.

I think our class as a whole participated this week and helped one another learn these topics and how to do these Eco-maps. While we were brainstorming different ideas for questions I noticed that everyone I was sitting around were kind of bouncing ideas off of each other.

Quote:

"Love on another; love those you teach." At church today we were discussing how we can help others and one of my leaders said this and I really loved it. I feel like it relates to this past week's class because if we love one another and love those that we teach, then we can have their best interests at heart and know that we are doing the best things to help them. As a future SPED teacher, I need to have a love for those I teach so that they can learn and grow.

HWD Paragraph:

This week I was able to talk to a mother who has a child with a special need. We had a conversation and she said a few things that kind of stuck out to me about how their family works together with this child. The mom has been able to stay at home and raise her children, and the dad works. One thing I found very cool about this family was how each of them knew some techniques and things to help their brother when he was having a melt down, and each of the siblings tried to help him calm down again; but the mom of this little boy is sometimes the only one who can calm him down in different situations. I found this interesting because even in just one conversation I could see how this family all dealt in different ways and how sometimes different people could get through to this boy and help him calm down again.