Phan,+MyLinh,+IEPs



I am My-Linh Phan the name alone means A Beautiful Soul It means love, and hope – my parents’ gift when I joined this world
 * I am **

I am my father’s son the one he never has – so he brought me up like one I could ride a Vespa by 13, fix my house electricity system by 12 and had the instinct to love and protect my mother with all my heart

I am my mother’s daughter the one she lives her life for – her best friend, soul mate, heartache & pride We share stories, hide nothing! – though it was her greatest regret “I took away your childhood; the right to be foolish, immature & thoughtless...” But I thank her for her “mistake” For I couldn’t stand the thought of any other alternatives to the "**us**" we have today

I am the Vietnamese girl, who travels the world alone since fourteen the one who wears beautiful red velvet shoes, tirelessly dances around the globe Vietnam, Singapore, England, Italy, South Korea, the Dominican Republic... It was my blessing, my joy – this is who I am! I never feel like I belong to any particular place but Hanoi – my hometown, the ancient one, the sleepy one, my only Hanoi And it is alright to always be the foreigner I know one day I will come back to where I started
 * home **

I am a lover of life the one who creates and captures moments that make life worthwhile with her over-priced camera. But no! I am not a photographer. I draw but am not an artist. I cook but am not a chef. - Just a girl who enjoys bringing life to innate materials.

One day, I will be an amazing mother, who loves and adores her children A passionate and inspiring teacher, with springs in her steps who sees the potentials in every student, and stops at nothing to help them "get there" A happy woman, with a small pretty home and many pairs of fine-looking heels Worn out by all her amazing adventures around this whole wide world.

--*--*-- * --*--*-- This poem speaks much about me. This is the "Ms. Linh" I would like my students to know and remember - someone who is fun and inspiring; someone who doesn't forget how it feels like to be a 3rd grader - someone whom they can relate to despite the age gap; someone whom they can feel comfortable enough to be exactly who they are, say exactly what they think without the fear of being judged. I believe this is also one of my goal as a future educator. I am determined to provide my students with a nurturing and safe environment where they have no fear of making errors and enjoy the excitement of learning from their mistakes. My greatest fear about being a teacher is to fail my students' trust in one way or another. It can be anything: unintentionally break a promise, carelessly give hurtful remarks that scar them... It is a blessing to be loved by your students. However, once you are entrusted with such adoration and respect, you carry with you the responsible to safeguard and treasure that precious gift. Furthermore, I am also afraid to fail their expectation. Certain developments are acquired more easily during certain sensitive period (window opportunity). I do not want to waste their time and chances not learning something new, not constantly growing, mastering a new skill. A child's development and experience at school play a crucial part in shaping their attitude toward life and building their characteristics for the future. As I recognize the importance of our roles at school, I am indeed afraid to make any mistake that leaves a life long negative impact to my students' future. I do remember a time when it was extremely difficult to learn. I realize that when I am put under the pressure to be correct, to finish the fastest or in any stressful environment, I become nervous, easily irritated and lose the focus to finish the task as well as I could. This is when I realize the importance of class climate to the learning experience of students. From this class, I want to gain knowledge about different learning disorders, physical and emotion disabilities that my students may suffer from. Having such knowledge, I believe I will empowered by the training to give them appropriate - not just intuitive help. In my mother tongue there is a saying: An clumsy overly-enthusiastic helper is a destroyer. An unskilled doctor may do more harm than good even with his best intention to save a patient. I feel that with just sincerity and concern, without the professional training and study, I am still inadequate to help my emotionally fragile students. I am truly excited and look forward to this class.

**Attention & Memory: **


 * i. Introduction to the topic: **

For my topic, I focus Attention and Memory: how to help students in general and disable students in particular to improve their attention in class and enhance their ability to retain knowledge learned (memory).

//"We remember what we understand; we understand only what we pay attention to; we pay attention to what we want." // - Edward Bolles

Learning disabilities are associated with problems in listening, reasoning, memory, attention, selecting and focusing on relevant stimuli, and the perception and processing of visual and/or auditory information. These perceptual and cognitive processing difficulties are assumed to be the underlying reason why students with learning disabilities experience one or more of the following characteristics: reading problems, deficits in written language, underachievement in math, poor social skills, attention deficits and hyperactivity, and behavioral problems. The statement above, made by a specialist in the study of memory, highlights my reasons to place my focus on this topic and my goal for the research:
 * Students insure more effective learning and memory when what they study and learn, matches with and contributes to their educational and future goals.
 * When students know how they learn best in terms of individual learning style and preferences and are able to apply appropriate study techniques, they take ownership of their learning experience: paying attention to, take in, and process information in different learning opportunities.
 * When students fully understand information (at all cognitive levels), students are better able to remember information. By using elaboration strategies such as summarizing, questioning, and using visual organizers, they "deep process" information in a way that assists and insures understanding. As a result, students can appropriately "file" and to retrieve information, and thus, assure memory of the information.

iI. top 5 things i learn from this project: 1. Ask and you shall receive! Resources and Help are everywhere. Personally, this is the most delightful thing I personally find out from this project. I started the research with almost no background knowledge or experience working with students who have attention definite and troubles memorizing. However, as I research, I was able to find my answers from different resources. I can say that it is indeed a never-ending process. I sought out to find the answer for one questions but I found myself forming more and more questions along the way. The more I read and search, the more I learn, the more I desire to know, desire to help, desire to bring my knowledge into practices. 2. Serial recall improved with age! From one of the resources, I learned this piece of information. The older children get, the better their production deficiencies in free recall appeared to be ameliorated with training in organizational strategies. From several interviews that I conducted with parents of children with attention deficits and short memory span, I learned that sometimes they faced the discouragement that their children did not seem to improve at all. However, there is hope. The ability to memorize and stay focus is a life long skill that children take time to master. At first, I had the perception that it is something we are gifted with, or born with. I am glad to learn it is something within our control to improve as we grow and practice. 3. You can be friend with your "problem." From one of the blogs, provided by ADDitude, I find this quote very inspiring. It is indeed frustrating for students to be unable to stay focus and remember things but hey! it does not mean they cannot have "fun" with it. I was blessed to stumble upon a series of bloggers who are bright and positive, who are extremely cheerful and optimistic about dealing with their disadvantages. I thought, this is indeed something I would like to share with my students. Know yourself and Own your disadvantage! There is no shame in being who you are. 4. I was intrigued as I learned about all the different types of Mnemonic Devices - what stimulates your brain, what makes you remember things and retain your memories. I found the answers to my questions through this research and understood how "wrong" we, as teachers have been. We keep our students caged in the classroom, make them sit still and focus on our lectures while what we should have done was to stimulate their senses in an appropriate manner so that the knowledge they learned stay with the memory they have in class. 5. The first memories are nonverbal and emotional. After my research, I had a question. I wondered about the first memory that children remembered - even with children who have learning disability, what the first memory that they remember and why despite their struggle memorize things, they are able to recall such a memory at such young age. While having that thought, I read the article about children's memory and the quote above inspires me to further my research to find the answer. iII. Resources: 1. [|ADDitude - Living well with Attention Deficit.] (5/5)
 * This definitely is my 5 out of 5 stars resource as I research about students with attention deficit. The website helps connect families and individuals living with attention deficit or learning disabilities with the help and services that make their lives healthier, happier and more organized. This resource is not limited for children and students, it also gives out a lot of information for the adults, parents, teachers and the community. Furthermore, not only does the site provide articles and researches to inform parents and the community about students, it also shares individuals' blogs, life stories of how people cope with their everyday struggle. There are also games and tips for teachers to apply in the classroom, for instance [|Games That Increase Attention and Focus in ADHD Children]
 * This resource is on the top of my list as the best resource because it is a platform for teachers to share with one another their strategies, the tips that work, the methods that don't so that students can benefit from the learning experience in class. [|ADHD Classroom Accommodations: Guide to Getting Special Accommodations, Services for ADD Children - Eight steps for meeting your child's educational needs with ADHD accommodations at school.].
 * [|Improving Memory] - Even though this site seems to solely focus on children with ADHD, however, that is not the case. This site allows its user to put in key words and find a tremendous amount of resources that will enhance their understanding of their topic of interest to fight almost every aspect of their struggle with attention deficit and short memory span problem.

2. [|Your brain, Just brighter.] (4.5/5)
 * This is another very interactive and resourceful site that allows user to "design" their own experience with the website. When user join the website, they are asked several questions about their topics of interest. This will help the website to cater to their individual needs. The site provides users with a program - uniquely theirs, to improve their attention and memory span. I believe, this is a good resource for students to work on their personal development, at the same time, for parents and teachers to assist their children, helping them improve.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">3. [|Modeling and Attention-Retention in Learning Disabled Children.] //<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">b //<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">y Mercer, Cecil D., Cullinan, Douglas, Hallahan, Daniel P., LaFleur, N. Kenneth from Journal ofLearning disability (4/5)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Examines the influence of attention-retention functions of learning disabled boys on a modeling task. Relation of attention to and retention of relevant versus irrelevant stimuli with modeling performances of learning disabled children; Relationship between modeling performances and academic achievement; Influence of modeling as a technique for effecting behavioral change in these children.

4, [|Distractibility in Learning-Disabled Children: The Role of Measurement Artifact] b<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">y <span style="color: #111111; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">Harvey, Philip D.; Weintraub, Sheldon; Neale, John M. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">from Journal of Learning disability. (3/5)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Reports on the use of two-digit span tasks to compare distraction performance of learning-disabled (LD) and normal learning (NL) children.Assumed deficiency in attention and memory performance in LD children; Absence of a differential distraction effect in the ability to discriminate differences; Need for researchers to consider the psychometric properties of their tasks as important variables and as another explanation for some of the findings in the distractibility literature with LD children.

5, [|Working memory in children: Tracing age differences and special educational needs to parameters of a formal model.] //<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">b //<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">y <span style="color: #111111; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">Göthe, Katrin, Esser, Günther, Gendt, Anja, Department of Psychology, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany (4/5)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Parameters of a formal working-**memory** model were estimated for verbal and spatial **memory** updating of **children**. The model proposes interference though feature overwriting and through confusion of whole elements as the primary cause of working-**memory** capacity limits. We tested 2 age groups each containing 1 group of normal intelligence and 1 deficit group. For young **children** the deficit was developmental dyslexia; for older **children** it was a general learning difficulty. The interference model predicts less interference through overwriting but more through confusion of whole elements for the dyslexic **children** than for their age-matched controls. Older **children** exhibited less interference through confusion of whole elements and a higher processing rate than young **children**, but general learning difficulty was associated with slower processing than in the age-matched control group. Furthermore, the difference between verbal and spatial updating mapped onto several meaningful dissociations of model parameters. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved) (from the journal abstract)

6. [|Memory Strategies in Children with Learning Disabilities] by <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Richard S. Newman, John W. Hagen, University of Michigan (4/5)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Memory strategies were examined among children, 7-13 years old, with diagnosed learning disabilities, in order to investigate whether they perform in appropriate active and efficient ways. The children were grouped at two age levels and administered tasks o f serial recall and free recall. A strategy-training session was conducted on the second task. On the serial recall, neither age group showed evidence of rehearsal, in contrast to previous studies. On the free recall task, the younger children's performance was consistent with the mediation deficiency hypothesis, while the older children improved in sorting, clustering, and recall following training; i.e., they showed a typical production deficiency. There was support for considering this sample of learning disabled children as inactive learners, with potential f or developmental change. Serial recall improved with age, and the older children's production deficiencies in free recall appeared to be ameliorated with training in organizational strategies.

7. [|Adam Khoo - Speaker] (4/5)
 * I personally had a chance to attend one of Adam's workshop. One of the things he told us that I remember vividly is that: "it is not fair how we never teach our children how to study, but expect them to study well." Adam's workshop provides many interesting brain exercises and study strategies that help students improve their study techniques, excel in their study: study smart, not just study hard. Many students come into his workshop, wondering why this millionaire bothers to teach, why he thinks he knows our struggle. ** Adam Khoo actually knows what students are going through. He's been there himself, complete with getting kicked out of school for miserable performance. **
 * Adam Khoo is an entrepreneur, a best-selling author and a peak performance trainer. A self-made millionaire by the age of 26, he owns and runs several businesses in education, training, event management and advertising, all with a combined annual turnover of $30 million. He is the Executive Chairman and Chief Master Trainer of Adam Khoo Learning Technologies Group Pte Ltd and a director of seven other private companies. Adam is also a member of the Singapore Chapter of the Young President’s Organization (YPO).He is also the best-selling author of 11 books including ˜ I Am Gifted, So Are You!™’ that was ranked MPH#1 best-seller in 1998 and 1999. His other books include ˜How to Multiply Your Child’s Intelligence™’ & ˜Clueless in Starting a Business™’
 * His most recent books are ‘Nurturing the Winner and Genius in Your Child’, launched in April 2008, ‘Secrets of Building Multi-Million Dollar Businesses’ launched October 2008, ‘Profit from the Panic’ launched in January 2009, ‘Secrets of Successful Teens’ in June 2009. His latest book is ‘Profit from the Asian Recovery’ co-authored by Jason Wee.

8. [|Mnemonic Devices] (3/5)
 * In my research, I was intrigued by the mention of Mnemonic Devices and sought out to learn more about it. Mnemonic Devices is any learning technique that aids memory. To improve long term memory, mnemonic systems are used to make memorization easier. They do so by increasing the efficiency of the process of consolidation. This process involves the conversion of short term memory to long term memory. Commonly encountered mnemonics are often verbal, such as a very short poem or a special word used to help a person remember something, particularly lists, but a mnemonic may instead be visual, kinesthetic or auditory. Mnemonics rely on associations between easy-to-remember constructs which can be related back to the data that are to be remembered. This is based on the observation that the human mind much more easily remembers spatial, personal, surprising, physical, sexual, humorous, or otherwise meaningful information, as compared to retrieving arbitrary sequences.
 * This website introduces us to 6 different types of Mnemonic devices that can be used to help students improve their memory. I thought it is indeed an interesting resources for us to explore the alternatives and make our lessons a lot more interesting for our students.