Leadership+Project-+(a)+Description+and+Goals

 **Canisha M. Boldeau Marquette University School of Education Teacher as Leader EDPL 223 Online Spring 2009** **Description and Goals** The topic for my leadership project is “Flexible Teaching Strategies to Accommodate the Needs of All Students”. This topic was chosen as a result of my experience as a support assistant in a school where students with special needs and disabilities were in a pullout situation and attempts were made to teach them from a watered down version of the regular curriculum. This strategy proved to be unsuccessful because the “watered down” syllabus were not designed to meet the needs of the special needs students who consequently were not motivated and did not learn. In addition, this “watered down” syllabus was pitched at their perceived ability rather than their actual ability (Rude et al. 2008). My proposal therefore is to produce a professional development plan that will assist educators in the re-designing the curriculum, emphasizing flexible teaching strategies, in order to meet the needs of all students, including students with special needs and disabilities, so that special needs and non-special needs students can be successfully accommodated in the same classrooms. Popular research supports the view that the curriculum should contain opportunities for all children regardless of need or disability to achieve higher academic standards that will be comparable with students without disabilities Billingsley etal, 2007). This plan would eliminate the need to provide a separate curriculum for students of special needs and disabilities. Instead, educators would be inspired to have a new approach towards curriculum planning that emphasizes flexible teaching strategies and varied activities, based on the general curriculum that would capture the interest of all children. The plan would also ensure that all educators are equipped with the appropriate curriculum, workable knowledge of how to deliver the curriculum to all students, and appropriate teaching strategies with a high degree of flexibility in order to reach all students regardless of need, and to make the curriculum accessible, attractive, challenging and worthwhile for the diverse group of students right from the start (De Valenzuela et al. 2000). For my project, I drew from my experience while working in a school where flexible teaching strategies in individual classrooms were at its introductory stage. The school administration and educationists from the education department are in agreement that my proposal plan represents the way forward. The principal and the class teachers would assist this project by identifying the appropriate students, suggest items of interest to be included in their lesson plan, assist me in assessing valuable information from the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and any other laws affecting the education of all students. The above persons were invited to participate in this manner in recognition of their expert knowledge and experience in the design and delivery of the regular curriculum. It is expected that this experience would prove to be mutually beneficial to all participants. The main goal for this project is to provide an alternate way of expanding the regular curriculum to meet the needs of all students, by assisting educators in re-designing a professional development plan that emphasizes flexible teaching/learning strategies. Such an alignment of a common curriculum through flexible teaching strategies (e.g.; varied activities and pictorial descriptions) should foster the improvement and quality of teaching, thus allowing all students to achieve their highest potential by enhancing their learning experience (Rude et al. 2008).