Kind of figured that...
I went to the first night of my class this evening...and, well, yeah. Not going to be so cool after all. There are three of us there with intimate knowledge of and interest in autism spectrum disorders, but the primary focuse of the class (and it sounds like all but 2-3 nights of the class) will be on learning disabilities.
AND the course is aimed at educating us for half the class on what the various signs and symptoms of LD, ASD, TBI, etc., THEN talking about methods for teaching. And the primary method for teaching is a program from the University of Kansas that the prof loves that has an actual SCRIPT for exactly how to teach these things and what to say and in what order. She has spent thousands of dollars training to be allowed to teach these nifty workbook methods--which she admits are all structured the same--and it sounds like a cultish thing to me as they won't even SELL their workbooks without the name of an approved "trainer" to teach you how to read the script off the page... Yeah.
Most of the students in the class are undergraduates...and everyone is either elementary ed or, in a couple of cases, middle school. I'd forgotten about that pitfal of education classes: we're all talking about how to teach kids basic reading skills and phonics and 2nd through 5th grade stuff.
The case examples we were to suggest modifications and accommodations for at the end of class were things that I knew at age 10-12. I really, really forget that others don't just KNOW these things, that it's not a part of how everyone (at least teachers) approach different learners.
So, no, probably not learning much in this class. Probably learning even less I can apply to my classroom. Will perhaps get some good ideas for how to work with my own kids and will get 4 semester hours of credit for free, so, yay. Probably not too hard to do the work needed.
Wow, though, am I SO FAR past the information they're covering...and while I knew that was a possibility...wow.
AND the course is aimed at educating us for half the class on what the various signs and symptoms of LD, ASD, TBI, etc., THEN talking about methods for teaching. And the primary method for teaching is a program from the University of Kansas that the prof loves that has an actual SCRIPT for exactly how to teach these things and what to say and in what order. She has spent thousands of dollars training to be allowed to teach these nifty workbook methods--which she admits are all structured the same--and it sounds like a cultish thing to me as they won't even SELL their workbooks without the name of an approved "trainer" to teach you how to read the script off the page... Yeah.
Most of the students in the class are undergraduates...and everyone is either elementary ed or, in a couple of cases, middle school. I'd forgotten about that pitfal of education classes: we're all talking about how to teach kids basic reading skills and phonics and 2nd through 5th grade stuff.
The case examples we were to suggest modifications and accommodations for at the end of class were things that I knew at age 10-12. I really, really forget that others don't just KNOW these things, that it's not a part of how everyone (at least teachers) approach different learners.
So, no, probably not learning much in this class. Probably learning even less I can apply to my classroom. Will perhaps get some good ideas for how to work with my own kids and will get 4 semester hours of credit for free, so, yay. Probably not too hard to do the work needed.
Wow, though, am I SO FAR past the information they're covering...and while I knew that was a possibility...wow.