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EDU222 - Introduction to Exceptional Learners (OER)

Introduction to resources for those learners whose needs differ from the average student, with emphasis on identification, best practices, and educational adaptations.

As a teacher of children with (exceptionality), I will . . .

Your response report requires you to describe an educational practice you will implement, based on your understanding of exceptionality. To do this, you'll need to review a source you find and answer these questions:

  • What is the main point or idea?
  • What specific interventions are addressed?
  • How can I relate these ideas to something I already understand?
  • Have I ever experienced a situation that sheds light on this idea?

Basically, you are writing an annotation. Your annotation should demonstrate that you understand the relevance of that source to your topic. So your annotation should describe why you will use this source; what makes it important to YOU.

There are three parts to an annotation:

  1. A citation for the source done in the chosen citation style (APA)
     
  2. A summary of the source: one or two sentences describing the source: what information it covers, and the purpose of the source.
     
  3. An evaluation of the source -- why it is significant, an analysis of the KEE (described below.) 

Annotation Example

Good Annotation:

Hock, S., & Rochford, R. A. (2010). A letter-writing campaign: linking academic success and civic engagement. Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship, 3(2), 76+.

   Retrieved from: http://go.galegroup.com

Two classes of developmental writing students were engaged in a service-learning project to support the preservation of an on-campus historical site. The goal of the assignment was to help students to see how they have influence in their community by acting as engaged citizens, and to improve their scores on the ACT Writing Sample Assessment (WSA) exam. The authors report that students in developmental classes often feel disempowered, especially when English is not their first language. This assignment not only assisted them in elevating their written communication skills, it gave real-life significance to the assignment, and by extension made them feel like empowered members of the community. The number of students enrolled in this project was small, however, and it would be beneficial to see more statistically verifiable results in addition to the qualitative results which were overwhelmingly positive.

Bad Annotation:

Hock, S., & Rochford, R. A. (2010). A letter-writing campaign: linking academic success and civic engagement. Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship, 3(2), 76+.

   Retrieved from: http://go.galegroup.com

Two ELL classes complete a service-learning project and improve their writing scores. This article was good because it provided me with lots of information I can use. The students learned a lot in their service-learning project and they passed the ACT exam.  

Establishing the Credibility of Your Sources: Use the KEE

KEE: Unlock Expertise

  1. Knowledge

    • Education of the author (what/where did they study?)

    • The publication history of the author (is this a topic they write about often?)

    • Vocabulary in the source (is it technical/discipline-specific?) 

  2. Experience: ​

    • ​​Where has the author worked/volunteered?

  3. Evidence

    • What evidence is provided? (Testimonials, data, statistics, personal observations/experience, intuition, research studies, analogies?)

    • How current is the data?

    • Who published the data? Does the publisher or originator reveal any bias?