Module 6 Task: Personal Philosophy Paper: An Overview
. The personal philosophy paper gives students an opportunity to critically evaluate their professional and personal views of serving children with disabilities, examine the course of their professional training to date, and demonstrate their ability to choose research-based strategies specific to certain disabilities. While not all students taking this class are or will become special educators, this paper must focus on serving students with specific disabilities in your setting, whether a general education classroom, a counseling setting or in a speech therapy setting, to give a few examples.
Those taking the class at the undergraduate (400) level write a 3-page paper; Reference page is an additional page, not included in aforementioned requirements. Please adhere to page limits--points are deducted for exceeding page limits. The paper must be double-spaced, typed in a 12 point Times New Roman font with 1” margins all around. References must be cited in the body of your paper, as well as included in a reference page at the end of your paper. Citations & the reference page must be in APA (6th ed.) style (no abstract, title page or running head is necessary).
At least two references must be included to document your sources in this paper. One reference must be one of our textbooks and the others must be from a peer-refereed professional journal (not a book, web page, magazine, newspaper, etc.) published no earlier than 2015. You must use original sources, rather than secondary sources, i.e., you cannot use information from an article referenced in another publication, but must access the original publication yourself. You must paraphrase. Do not use direct quotes. The source for paraphrased material must be cited in the body of the paper using APA parenthetical citation. Failure to do so constitutes plagiarism.
The personal philosophy paper must include the following sections, and the following subheadings are preferred:
Students I Desire to Serve
Provide a description of the type of students you believe you would like to work with or teach at this point in your training (age/level, disability) and provide a rationale for your choice. You must choose a specific IDEA disability category rather than all students with disabilities. This will help focus your search for instructional strategies.
Instructional Strategies
Provide complete descriptions of two research-based instructional strategies you plan to use when you work with these students, and why, with documentation: (a) fully describe the strategies and give an example of classroom use; (b) cover how they address specific weaknesses and/or utilize the strengths of your chosen population; (c) provide scientific evidence (numerical data on the results of the study) of the strategies’ effectiveness; and (d) Provide proper APA citation for each strategy.
Extended Professional Skills Desired and Plan for Acquisition
Extended professional skills are those that reach beyond the skills and competencies required for licensure. Include a description of two extended professional teaching skills you hope to acquire to best serve your students and a concrete plan of action describing when, where and how you will acquire the professional teaching skills that you have described.
Personal Philosophy of Education
Include a statement of your personal philosophy of general or special education, including a reflection on serving diverse populations. Please see the prologue (p. 2) & postscript (p. 559) of the Heward textbook for suggestions on developing a personal philosophy of special education.
SPED 400/500 Personal Philosophy Paper Rubric
| Description of the type of students I desire to teach at this point in training (age/level, disability) and rationale for choosing this population. | Response omitted the rationale and/or description. (0 - 1 point available) | Response included required description but provided a weak or inadequate rationale. (2- 3 points available) | Response provided required description and a well-reasoned rationale. (4 points available) |
| Description of 2 proven effective instructional strategies that will be used with these students. Make sure to: fully describe each strategy and provide an example of classroom use of the strategy describe how each strategy addresses a specific need of the chosen population provide scientific evidence of each strategy’s effectiveness with the target population provide proper APA citation for each strategy | Response omitted more than two of the following: a complete description, classroom usage, how the strategy supports the population’s needs, scientific support, and appropriate APA citations (0 - 9 points available) | Response omitted no more than two of the following: a complete description, classroom usage, how the strategy supports the population’s needs, scientific support, and appropriate APA citations (10 - 11 points available) | Response met all descriptive and citation requirements. (12 points available ) |
| Description of 2 extended professional teaching skills that you desire to develop/refine and a plan(s) of action that describes how you will obtain the specified professional teaching skills. | Response described professional skills that were not beyond licensure and/or did not provide a reasonable plan for acquisition. (0 - 1 point available) | Response described one professional skill beyond licensure and provided a reasonable plan for acquisition. (2 - 3 points available) | Response described two professional skills beyond licensure and provided a reasonable plan for their acquisition. (4 points available) |
Statement of personal philosophy of general or special education. | Statement was not thoughtful and/or did not provide a reflection on the instruction of students with diverse needs (0 - 1 point available) | Statement was provided but neglected to include reflections on the instruction of students with diverse needs (2- 3 points available) | Statement was thoughtful and included reflections on the instruction of students with diverse needs (4 points available ) |
| References on reference page are formatted in APA style according to Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th edition only). In-text reference citations are formatted in APA style according to Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th edition only). | References on reference page and in-text citations evidenced more than 2 errors in APA 6th edition style. (0 - 5 points available) | References on reference page and in-text citations evidenced 1-2 errors in APA 6th edition style. (6 – 7 points available) | References on reference page and in-text citations conform to APA 6th edition style. (8 points available) |
| Response is well written (e.g., academic tone, proper grammar, spelling, punctuation, and conforms to formatting and source requirements). | Response evidenced more than 2 errors in writing competence. ( 0- 5 points available) | Response evidenced 1 -2 errors in writing competence. (6- 7 points available) | Response met all writing competence requirements. (8 points available) |
| Your score |
Scoring Guide: Target: 40 points; Acceptable: 30-39 points; Unacceptable: <30 points
SPED 400/500 Personal Philosophy Paper Hint Guide
| Required Components | Hints (Also remember to check the rubric and other help materials for additional guidance) | Target (40 points) |
| Response is well written (e.g., academic tone, proper grammar, spelling, punctuation and conforms to formatting specified in syllabus). | If you are unsure what academic tone means, look at any professional journal. The writing is objective except where opinion is called for and is free of jargon, popular sayings, emotional statements and unprofessional language. Example: CORRECT: “The students demonstrated low comprehension of basic math facts.” INCORRECT: “The students were totally lost when it came to math.” | (8 points available) |
| Description of the type of students I desire to teach at this point in training (age/level, disability) and rationale for choosing this population. | If you don’t plan to teach special education, you can tailor this to your career goals. Since this is a class about students with disabilities, however, you must address those students and you must choose one of the disabilities covered in the Heward text, with the exception of giftedness/talent (not considered a disability under federal law). Example: If you are a general educator, talk about how you plan to serve students with a specific disability in your classroom. If you are on the speech-language track, you should address strategies for communication disorders. | (4 points available) |
| Description of 2 proven effective instructional strategies that will be used with these students. Make sure to: fully describe each strategy and provide an example of classroom use of the strategydescribe how each strategy addresses a specific need of the chosen populationprovide scientific evidence of each strategy’s effectiveness with the target populationprovide proper APA citation for each strategy | This is the most important part of your paper, so make sure to cover each of the competencies. Discuss each strategy in a separate paragraph, providing all the required details. Remember to include the results of the study that confirmed effectiveness by presenting numerical data. Avoid broad statements like “The study indicated that this strategy was effective.” Instead, use statements like, “This strategy was effective for 82% of the fifth graders who participated. Improvements included increases in reading comprehension of .5 to 2.5 grade levels.” An instructional strategy is a discrete technique. A few examples are: using white boards to increase student responses, community based instruction, choral responding. Heward has many, but you’ll need to find the primary research study that proves the strategy was effective (See Heward’s references). Use professional journals accessed through ODU’s library database to find research-based instructional strategies. The following are TOO broad to be instructional strategies: inclusion, collaboration, and behavior management. Rule of thumb: if there is an entire class devoted to it and/or you can’t implement it on your own (e.g., schoolwide positive behavioral support, curricula like Wilson Reading), it is too broad to be an instructional strategy. | (12 points available ) |
| Description of 2 extended professional teaching skills that you desire to develop/refine and a plan(s) of action that describes how you will obtain the specified professional teaching skills. | Extended professional skills are those that reach beyond the skills and competencies required for licensure. In this section, you need to indicate 2 skills that you will acquire to increase your professional expertise. A few examples are: becoming certified in applied behavior analysis, taking a workshop on using PowerPoint for student presentations, attending a conference on methods for teaching science, and learning to use a piece of assistive technology. Nonexamples are: anything required for licensure: classroom management, behavior management, teaching reading, etc. Do not propose anything that there is not a known way to acquire, for example, patience. Please link your skills to your choice of population as well. | (4 points available) |
Statement of personal philosophy of general or special education. | A statement of your personal philosophy of general or special education, including a reflection on serving diverse populations. Please see the prologue (p. 2) & postscript (p. 559) of the Heward textbook for suggestions on developing a personal philosophy of special education. You are welcome to cite supporting research to support your opinion. | (4 points available ) |
| References on reference page are formatted in APA style according to Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th edition only). In-text reference citations are formatted in APA style according to Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th edition only). | I’ve provided a number of sources for this information, but the authoritative source is the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). As you can tell by the number of points, this is an important skill to master. All remaining classes in this program will expect correct APA style. Neither a title page nor a running head are required, only correct parenthetical citations and reference list. Subheadings are not graded, but highly recommended to help you structure your paper. | (8 points available) |