Detoured Learning

I have taught special education students in grades k-12, spending most of my time with 9-12th students in the resource room. When I graduated college, I thought I was going to be an elementary school teacher. Then, I got my first job as a 7th-8th grade intervention specialist in a rural school district in Ohio. The next year, I moved back to my home-town and discovered, high school students weren't scary, but were actually awesome! I started working in a high school resource room in the inner city teaching both English and math as well as some science and social studies. After about 5 years, I switched classrooms and now teach what would be the bottom half of the resource room. I am currently teaching mostly math with some other subjects sprinkled in to students with cognitive disabilities.

What you won't find much in my products are notes. Why is that? Because I realized that my students were copying letters, not words and didn't know what they were reading or writing. I discovered that my students, who mostly have cognitive disabilities, can do algebra! They just need the material broken down and scaffolded. When I couldn't find what I was looking for, I started making it. Many of my products will have pages without negatives or fractions at first. I also try to keep at least 2 problems that are similar next to each other so they can learn a skill and apply it to the next one without needing to learn a new skill. How do I teach? I often will use the first 2-5 questions to teach the students. Slowly, once I believe they have some understanding, I will begin to ask them to do the first step of the next problem. After each step I check each student, then put that step of the board. Eventually, I allow the students to work independently. I always try to have some kind of a matching worksheet so they can self-check their work. Then I follow with a quiz and move onto the next part.