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COMMUNITY ENGAEMENT PROJECT PART 2
Community Engagement Project Part 2
Joy Miles
Liberty University
EDUC 521 Foundations of Exceptionality
Dr. Taylor
May 14, 2021
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COMMUNITY ENGAEMENT PROJECT PART 2
Summary/Synopsis
After reading Feeling Excluded: An Inclusion Teacher’s Guide, there is a great depth of
understanding why Dr. Jennifer Landrum wanted to explore the area of inclusivity in special
education. Dr. Landrum reflected on her experiences from a young woman on through her
college years discovering the need for her to become more than just a general ed teacher, but a
special education teacher. It all started one day when completed a course that was required in
special education. It was then when she discovered her passion and changed her major. Dr.
Landrum stated,” I experienced a very rude awakening: not all teachers want to include all
students.” (Kirk et al, 2020) She explores her expedition in inclusion teaching and takes her
experience to explore strategies so that she can help support teachers addressing the needs of
students with disabilities.
The text puts focus on ensuring that instruction is differentiated, and that the classroom
setting meet the needs of students with disabilities. Inclusion students face many struggles to be a
part of an inclusion setting. This leads them to feel embarrassed and often a sense of
helplessness. Differentiated instruction allows for provision of flexibility of instructions in ways
that meet the learning goal of students (Landrum, 2008) As for classroom setting, it is important
that teachers adopt various ways of teaching that caters to all learners. This includes individual
student intelligence, their backgrounds, and how they learn. This ties into if a student is a visual
learner or an audible learner. Some students require the Montessori approach to learning.
In conclusion, Dr. Landrum provides strategies that inclusion teachers, and all pertinent
staff that is involved in the student’s success should use. However, she focuses more on
equipping inclusion teachers with effective strategies to use on a day-to-day basis.
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COMMUNITY ENGAEMENT PROJECT PART 2
Personal Case Study #1
Matthew is a 15-year old student who is currently in the 7th grade. Matthew is an
inclusion student with a Specific Learning Disability. He has been held back two times due to
his lack of motivation in the classroom. Although he was born a crack baby, his IQ is withing
normal range and when he completes classwork, he is usually proficient. He lives with his mom
and sometimes a male figure is around. Mom has grounded and has made him attend tutoring,
but nothing has seemed to work. Strategies that can be applied to help Matthew’s lack of
motivation to do the work that they know he can do includes continuous discussions with mom,
modeling, and entertaining him as he transitions.
Remaining in contact with mom will help Matthew in a couple of ways. Although
Matthew does not show it, he knows that the teacher and his parent cares and wants what is best
for him. It also builds the relationship with his family to know what actions are taking place at
home. How is he acting when with his family or friends outside of the school setting. If teachers
are aware of other interest of the child and actions taken place outside of the school, they can
better model what is best. Modeling what should take place and being specific to Matthew
would be helpful. Lastly, talking with Matthew about the great things that happens as he
continues his education would be a great strategy too. Knowing that Matthew wants to drop out
at 16, it would be important to put together some transition plans that could encourage his
thinking. Encourage him to stay in school.
Personal Case Study
My personal experience is with a student who was in the 7th grade. This student,
“William” would be disrespectful to his female teachers. He comes from a single parent home
with his dad and his sister. His mom was not around because she was incarcerated when he was
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COMMUNITY ENGAEMENT PROJECT PART 2
2. William was ADHD and struggled with communicating because he was often embarrassed
because of what he thought others saw in him. While trying to build a safe quality education for
William, the school was very strategic when creating strategies for him. One strategy that was
done was hiring a male para for him. While trying not to discriminate, the school knew that he
would encounter female teachers, so the best fit would be to have an all-day male para to go to
all classes with William. Another strategy was constant communication with dad. The
communication led to us finding out a variety of dos and not to dos with William. Now dad
looks at the school as part of his community to ensure William gets what he needs from school.
William was almost proficient in all his classes, as long as there was not a lot of attendance gaps,
which occurred more frequent when the school was not in constant communication with dad.
I believe that it is imperative for the school to have strong communications skills with
inclusion students and their families. It would be nice to have set strategies in place, however,
all students are different and deserves what is needed from their academic setting to be
successful academically.
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COMMUNITY ENGAEMENT PROJECT PART 2
References
Kirk et al. (2020). Foundations of Exceptionality. Stamford, CT: Cengage. ISBN:
9780357500972
Landrum, J. (2020). Feeling excluded: The inclusion teacher’s guide to surviving the inclusive
classroom.
