Posted by Andrea on 1/14/09

Ok... I teach one section of Algebra I at my school that
is technically the "SPED" section.... Out of 21 students
16 have IEPs and the rest really should have....this just
means that most of them have mild to moderate learning
disabliities or IQs in the range of 70-80. Not to mention
that most of them are also diagnosed as emotional or
behavioral disorder kids (a few that have actually thrown
punches at teachers) I have a Spec Ed teacher who
collaborates with me in this class and she is
WONDERFUL...and lives two blocks down from me. We get
along like peas and carrots...and not to mention after the
first week of adjustment these kids have on the whole been
SUPER this year. They have committed completely and all
have experienced huge success on their level, a few are
even doing A and B level work on a consistant basis with
little or no modification. Overall I'm highly impressed.

Here's the thing. Recently we have covered graphing of
real life linear data and writing equations based on those
patterns. Well, this is something that all students
struggle to really "get" and its ten times more abstract
for this group of kids due to their circumstances already.
Plus many of them have horrible home lives that honestly I
think are the only factors that do keep them from dropping
out (at least at school they get fed and no one beats
them)...so they have no real world experience outside a
disfunctional home to relate to anyway. Well I'm looking
for a project to design for them that will give them some
real life linear data that relates to
animals/dogs/rescues...something like that. I want them to
connect emotionally with the data for two reasons 1) to
help them really want to understand the work 2) to give
them experience with a positive emotional connection. What
can we investigate in rescues I was thinking number of
spays/neuters performed compared to shelter intake
numbers? or could you guys think of anything we can
investigate I would like to pair it up with a "food drive"
activity for all of my classes where they can bring in a
food item or toy/leash/collar, etc to earn a free HW pass
or something...and when the kids present their data they
can donate the stuff to the shelter...what do you think?

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