Epq presentation

Epq presentation

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  Extended Project Qualification Presentation RebeccaDear How can we effectively meet the individual needs of a child with Autistic Spectrum Disorder in the primary classroom?
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  Outline of Project •The main focus of my extended project qualification is on the topic of children with ASD in the primary school environment. • My project is about how to include each and every child who suffers from Autistic Spectrum Disorder into the primary school classroom. • It looks at the ways in which teachers plan activities that allow for children who suffer from ASD to be included seamlessly into the class of children without too much disruption to their daily routine that would cause them stress. • The reasons I chose to research this subject is down to my ambition to study primary education in the future, with aspirations to become a primary school teacher once I have secured my degree.
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  Primary Research • Throughoutmy EPQ, research has been one of the most important elements of my dissertation. • My research was obtained from various sources such as; Websites, Interviews and Online Articles and Videos. • To begin with I started to research the general characteristics of Autistic Spectrum Disorder, because truthfully, I knew fairly little about the condition. I looked to websites such as Brookdale Care and The National Autistic Society to aid my understanding. In particular, Brookdale Care is a resource I am likely to use again in the future as it gave a clean cut and clear run down of the Triad Of Impairments, which shows clearly the three key areas of difficulty which children face. • As well as the aforementioned resources I watched a few videos on YouTube, which focus on how the children feel about having this condition. These videos gave me a crucial insight into a the child’s own feelings on the subject, and allowed me to see the impact of the condition on their learning. Brookdale Care Triad of Impairments EBD Episode 1: Primary- A Whole School Story
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  Primary Research Continued •The interviews I did were conducted in a local primary school in which I did a work placement every Monday and Friday. By doing this structured interview I received the opinions of 4 practicing primary school teachers. All the information I received from them allowed me to see how different people use strategies that are already being regularly used. • My questions were as follows: Which do you find to be the best way to conduct lessons that are hard to change at short notice? What qualities do teachers who teach a child with ASD need to keep them engaged in lessons? Which Subjects have you found to be the ones in which pupils with ASD struggle the most? How challenging is it when children are uncooperative in lessons? How do you find having to adapt methods that you have found to be highly successful when they do not work with newer pupils?
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  Secondary Research • Afterconducting my primary research about the condition itself I moved on to research focusing on the children’s needs in the primary school classroom environment. • There are several resources that came to my aid when looking into this element. I particularly found valuable information within a PDF Document created by the Department of Education Northern Ireland. This outlined ideal classroom practice for teaching children that have a disorder on the Autism Spectrum. • As well as this I utilized resources that are available from The National Autistic Society, who also created a booklet PDF on advised strategies that are in place to help a child adjust to classroom and playground environments. • One particular section of the triad I wanted to look into further is the social skills area. As children with ASD tend to struggle with their social skills, the classroom can be an environment that they struggle in. To aid my understanding of this area I used Kasari and Patterson study on Interventions Addressing Social Impairment in Autism. This gave me some vital information on how to help children overcome their social issues.
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  Analysis of Findingsfrom Research • There are several things that can be said about the research I’ve conducted. • After my research it became clear to me that because not all children who have the same condition will be the same, it is paramount that each get specific care catered just for them. • When looking back over the answers the teachers I interviewed gave, I came to the conclusion that even though teachers regularly use the same methods to help children with ASD the way they use them still varies. This shows that some teachers adapt them to their ways of teaching and their pupils ways of learning, however it could also suggest that some teachers like to alter some methods and conjoin them with others to make more successful strategies.
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  Strengths of myProject • In my opinion I would say that there are several strengths of my project. • One strength is that I researched what I intended to from the beginning. I strayed slightly when I began writing my first draft of my dissertation, however I rectified this and got myself back on track. • Another strength of my project is the area that I am researching is very specific and allows me to look for reasons and strategies that are heavy in detail, as opposed to looking at something vaguely.
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  Weaknesses of myProject • As well as having strengths my project does have some weaknesses. • I found it hard to reference and I seemed to be repeating the same references throughout my dissertation. This shows that I should have done even more research than I had already done. This would have allowed me to expand on the points I have written. • Another weakness is that my writing style can see quite informal and as if I am having a conversation at times, it has been a struggle for me to rectify as this is my natural style of writing and I have never been told by any other teachers in the past that I write like this.
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  What have Ilearnt? • Whilst doing the Extended Project Qualification I have learnt a lot of valuable skills. It has been an eye opening experience that has given a selection of new skills that I will continue to use into my university career. • In particular I have learnt how to Harvard Reference, this will help when I am at university and I am using a wide variety of sources. • Writing a dissertation was a new challenge for me as well. I have never written anything for a subject above 2000 words, so 5000 proved to be a hard task to me. However I have now discovered how to write correctly and the formatting of the document including footnotes and adding comments. This skill will be something I shall hold dearly. • As well as these academic related things that I have learnt, I have also gained more personal skills that will aid me in my future, in particular time keeping. At the beginning of my project I wrote myself a timeline of where I wanted to be and when, and I more or less stayed to this time line with slight variation on dates. • In addition to my time keeping I have learnt to become confident in my own ability to write a lengthy piece of work. I have learnt that I need to believe in myself so that I am able to create good pieces of work.
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  Additional Thoughts onthe Project • Overall I have found doing the EPQ to be a very enlightening experience and something that I have fully enjoyed doing. • I’m glad that I have had the opportunity to research a topic that will help me become a better teacher in the future due to the knowledge I have gained whilst preparing to write my dissertation. • If there was anything else I were to take from my EPQ it is that everything takes time to be made brilliant and that it’s worth all the time that you will spend working on it.
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  Thank you foryour time and for listening to my presentation, if you have any questions it would be my pleasure to try and answer them.