What to Do Regarding Botched Instructional Support

[Chef Dave]

The special education instructor has posted a standing invitation for all instructors to refer special educaiton students to him for small group assistance.

When two of my culinary arts students began to experience difficulty with identifying the production costs of given recipes, I sent them to the special education classroom.

The problem is that when the students came back, half of their answers were wrong. The students claim that the instructor helped them with each problem. One of them even had a sheet of scratch paper. In looking at the scratch paper, I can see that in one instance, the instructor multiplied when he should have divided. Multiple decimal places were also not rounded to the nearest cent.

The special education teacher has invited me to send my kids back whenever they need help ... but it's really not a help if this teacher lacks basic math skills.

So ... what do you think I should do?

I don't want to hurt this person's feelings by pointing out all of the mistakes he made but I also don't want him to work with my students if he doesn't know what he's doing.

Not only will I now have to reteach this lesson, but I'll have to work at "un-teaching" erroneous methodology.

[busbus]

Chef,

I was thinking that you could begin a step by step "How To" guide for the students. For each kind of calculation problem/situation that you teach, give each student a "reminder" "How To" sheet for their information (whatever you want to call it) folder. Even though this will be designed for the special education students, all of your students will be given this "reminder." When you send your special education students to the special education teacher, let them take the folder with them and instruct the teacher to help the students through the use of the appropriate page in their "How To" guide. In this way, I think, no one's feelings will be hurt and the students will be receiving the additional help that they need.

[Chef Dave]

Ah ... THANK YOU Busbus! Kudos for a creative and elegantly face saving solution!

I'll develop this resource over the weekend and will have it ready for next Monday. :)

[Boxcar]

I agree. That was an excellent idea!