Teaching special education students requires patience but there are also methods to implement measures to help them thrive. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 15% of all students in public schools throughout the U.S. receive some form of special education service. These students have varying levels of need and a diverse set of challenges. They all have one thing in common — the need for competent and compassionate teachers who can impart essential lessons with care.

Best Methods for Teaching Special Education Students to Succed

Teachers who step up to the plate often deal with stress, including the many liabilities that can emerge in a special education classroom.

Benefits of Educators Liability & Employment Practices Liability

Insurance that covers educators liability & employment practices liability can help to mitigate the aforementioned risks. Schools must invest in insurance coverage for educators through a professional liability program for teachers. With the right insurance policies in place, teachers can stop worrying about liabilities and get back to doing what they do best — teaching. Special education teachers can maximize their impact in the classroom with the following three strategies.

Create Small Groups

Many believe that smaller groups are a good strategy for classroom management, and this is true in the special education classroom, too. Teachers can group students together in twos and threes to help them learn from each other and share their ideas. This strategy is particularly effective when students work together according to their skill level. It allows students to work and learn according to their level of advancement. Conversely, pairing advanced students with those who haven’t met the learning objective may enable students to learn from peers with different skill levels.

Teach Basics Strategically

It’s easy to focus on the minutia of classroom management — especially in a special education setting — but teaching must still be at the forefront of every educator’s agenda. To this end, teachers should teach strategically by blending basic instruction with more specialized concepts. Teaching concepts of varying advancement alongside each other can help students become familiar with new ideas. More importantly, it ensures that lessons are appropriate for every student in the classroom — even when the classroom contains a wide diversity of abilities. The content of a lesson must be versatile enough to meet all needs.

Rely on Educators Liability & Employment Practices Liability and Integrate Themes Into Lessons

Teaching on a theme is another effective strategy for engaging students of varying advancements. It can also facilitate smooth transitions between math, writing, and science topics. To achieve this, a special education teacher should choose a theme for the lesson — for example, astronauts and space — and then center the lesson around this idea. For math, students can calculate how many miles an astronaut must travel to reach the moon, and for writing, students can write about the astronaut’s mission. Themes can also help keep special education students engaged by relating to their unique interests.

About PGUI

Professional Governmental Underwriters, Inc., is a full-service risk management company dedicated to assisting public, educational and non-profit entities in the management of their professional liability exposures including educators liability insurance. We are dedicated to providing state-of-the-art professional underwriting management and loss control advisory services on behalf of our designated carriers. For more information, call us toll-free at (800) 586-6502.