Welcome to the Special Education Association's on-line book club for 2011!

One of the goals of the Special Education Association of British Columbia 

is to develop professional learning opportunities beyond our annual conference for our members.  Our hope

is to support teachers in their efforts to provide a quality education experience for students with special learning needs (http://bctf.ca/SEA/). 

Welcome to the 2011 Book Club, where we will be reading Joyful Learning:  Active and Collaborative Learning in Inclusive Classrooms.  This year, we thought it would be beneficial, prior to the Crosscurrents 2011 conference, to provide an introduction to the keynote speaker, Dr. Paula Kluth.  Dr. Kluth has worked as a special educator and has experience both as a classroom teacher and consulting teacher.  She is committed to encouraging inclusive settings, thereby providing students of all abilities with the opportunity to experience a successful learning environment.  Joyful Learning is appropriate for all teachers from kindergarten through to grade twelve, especially for those who are interested in creating, or who have already created, an inclusive classroom environment for all learners.  If you have the opportunity, please take some time to explore Dr. Kluth’s website at http://www.paulakluth.com/index.html.  The website provides a background on Dr. Kluth as well as information about inclusive schooling, Autism, literacy and differentiating instruction.  Included on the website is a list of publications by Dr. Kluth, including a synopsis for Joyful Learning, which is described as presenting, “techniques for using differentiation, active learning, and personalized instruction that enable teachers to use sound teaching practices and engage students in discussion, debate, creative thinking, questioning, teamwork, and collaborative learning.” (http://www.paulakluth.com/publications.html)

As an incentive for book club members, $10.00 from the purchase of Joyful Learning will be reimbursed following completion. If you are interested in joining the Book Club, or if you have any questions, please contact Tina Sikkes at tinasikkes@gmail.com

Outline for the book club:

-There will be one week of introduction time (January 1-7) followed by 6 discussion sessions in our book club.  Each session will be two weeks in length.  All sessions will be kept on the site, making it possible for participants to reveiw previous sessions throughout the course of the book club.

-Each session will be numbered and can be accessed by clicking the link on the sidebar.

-Each session will begin with a brief summary of the chapter. 

-For each session, there will be a discussion question or two listed to begin the discussion.  As the book focuses on strategies to be used in the classroom, rather than theory, participants are encouraged to share their experiences, likes dislikes and so on.  Discussion deviating from the posed questions is absolutely encouraged! 

-Participants can respond to questions, pose their own, or share a comment by typing in the comment boxes at the bottom of each page.

-Each time a participant logs on, it is encouraged that they take time to scroll down and read other's comments for the session.

-Because we would like to continue to develop educational supports for special education teachers, the sharing of additional resources is welcomed.  If there is a site, a book, or other information that you love and would like to share with others, you are encouraged to add a link to relevant sites on this Wiki page.  Please include with your link a brief description of the resouce and what makes it such a terrific resource. 

If you have questions or concerns, please e-mail me at tinasikkes@gmail.com and I will do my best to answer them. 

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