Brief Description of Evidence:   

In the spring semester of 2022, in my EDUC 230 The Exceptional Child class, as a group we constructed a complete simulated parent teacher conference for a child with exceptional needs who needs an IEP. The purpose of creating this artifact was to teach me as a future educator to seek appropriate leadership roles and opportunities to take responsibility for student learning, to collaborate with learners, families, colleagues, other school professionals, and community members to ensure learner growth, and to advance the profession. Once the IEP was completed we then participated in simulated parent teacher conferences for the child that we created this IEP for. 

 

Analysis of What I Learned: 

During the simulation parent teacher conference with other future educators, I learned the importance of collaborating with other professionals along with the learners' families in order to create a curriculum to best support the learner. We developed an IEP with the learner's growth in mind. This ties into Joyce Epstiens theory of the importance of incorporating family, school, and the community in order to best support the child.During this parent teacher conference it taught me just how important family communication is to help support the learner in the best possible way using my resources around me such as the learners, families, colleagues, other school professionals, and community members. Along with creating the simulated parent teacher conference we were able to research the procedural safeguards as well as structure and components of an IEP. I learned how to consult with the team of professionals to decide what is most important to cover during the conference to best advance myself in the profession and ensure my learning is growing at a developmentally appropriate rate. I also learned that it’s not just special education teachers that are involved in the creation of IEP's, it's everyone which I think is great. 

 

How This Artifact Demonstrates my Competence on the InTASC Standard: 

My simulated parent teacher conference and IEP fits perfectly with standard #10. During my simulated parent teacher conference and IEP I was able to see all the important key details and aspects to be able to engage and advance my learning as an educator. As a teacher I was able to use the theorist, Joyce Epstein, whose theory was on parent involvement. I showed my compentacey on this InTASC standard by drawing upon learner growth to collaborate with learners, families, colleagues, other school professionals, and community members. Using the parent involvement theory I was able to hit all Six Types of Involvement when creating my simulated parent interview and IEP (Engagement,2019). As a teacher I reached out to the parents of my fictional child to communicate my concerns about her stance in kindergarten. I worked on my decision making skills to advance myself in the education profession by deciphering between what areas my fictional child needed to be evaluated on. I was able to give the fictional parents volunteering experience to benefit their child by using community resources that help benefit learning, along with giving the fictional parents work to do  at home to benefit their child in learning areas in which they are falling behind. By educating myself on the topic of parent teacher conferences and IEPs I was able to collaborate with other professionals, learners, families and colleagues on how to create an inclusive and developmentally appropriate curriculum for the learners.  These topics allowed me as a teacher to improve my leadership role in and outside of the classroom. The simulated parent teacher conference and IEP plan gave me insight on real world situations to advance me in my future profession. 

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