Appropriate Physical Intervention (API). Never really, had I ever really considered that this would be a necessary area of my professional development as a teacher. However, in my current setting as a teacher of students with special needs, it was quickly becoming apparent that this type of training would be very useful in my classroom almost everyday.
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At the beginning of the year during some of our training and PD, I remember learning about the Crisis Cycle. I didn't know then, really how crucial knowing and understanding this concept would be to my teaching and everyday classroom management.
It didn't take me to long to start to look at student behaviours (positive & negative) and see their place on the Crisis Cycle and being able to identify and predict behaviours from my students. As I learn more about my students each day and develop deeper relationships with them and learning what their triggers may be that bring them to the escalation and crisis phase, I can use my knowledge of my students and of the Crisis Cycle to use specific strategies with individual students to help them de-escalate, stabilize and return to baseline. I have also noticed that as my relationships build with my students the longer students are able to stay in the baseline phase, or the quicker I can respond and get them back down to baseline if they have started to escalate. This is definitely as skill that will follow me to all my future teaching endeavours! I am so thankful for having learned this. I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the Loose Parts Play learning session this weekend by motivention. It was a fabulous. I loved every moment of it. It also helped me gain insight to the vision that R.E.S. was trying to take within their classrooms. So what are Loose Parts? They are alluring objects and materials that children can move, manipulate, control and change while they play. Children can carry, combine, redesign, line-up, take apart and put loose parts back together in almost endless ways. The materials come with no specific set of directions, and they can be used alone or combined with materials. (Daly, Beloglovsky 2014 p. 3) Loose parts provide so many learning opportunities such as:
I was so excited to plan my teaching year using themes to base my teaching and learning from. Yes, it is possible to teach this way in traditional schools, especially for Kindergarten and some elementary classrooms. However, it is a lot more difficult to reach all the curriculum goals in each subject once you start to teach Grade 1 and beyond. As crazy as it may seem, this is the first time I've had to create IPP's for any of my students. Yes, I had seen some during my practicums, but was never really involved in any of the development, or assessment of the plans. Well, that all changed rapidly here at Renfrew!
Each of my students required an IPP. All of my students are coded as severe and all needed at least 4 or 5 goals for the year, along with many accommodations. I was overwhelmed at first, but the JMC crew were amazingly supportive. I loved meeting with previous teachers and therapists (PT, SLP, OT, Pych,, and AT) to discuss each child and collaborate on what goals would be best to work on for each individual student. I absolutely agree and support this transdisiplinary approach to teaching! Creating IPPs also opened my eyes to the different levels of prompting to help students become successful. They are verbal, full physical, partial physical, model, gesture, and visual. The idea is to move the student from most dependent to least dependent and ultimately independence, wherever possible of course. With the needs of some of these students, full independence my never be achieved but getting them to a lower need/level of support helps them gain a sense of accomplishment and independence. I'm quite sure what I was expecting as my first week as a special needs educator but I was NOT really prepared for the realities of my students. Many of my students are non-communicative, with several of them using a communication devices or only gestures to communicate their needs. At the academic level most were at about a pre-school level as well as globally functioning at a pre-school level, with all being in the Grade 2-3 age range.
My original thoughts and plans for teaching have for the most part, gone out the window. Now, I have a better understanding of my students needs and abilities and can plan my lessons and units more accordingly. This is definitely going to be an interesting year and a fantastic learning opportunity for me. I am excited! Well, due to my hubby's job relocation we find ourselves owning our first home and I have a new teaching job. It has been an eventful summer, full of tearful goodbyes and exciting possibilities for our future.
I was ecstatic when I was offered a job with Renfrew Educational Services as a Gr. 2/3 teacher. However, after the realization settled in that I had taken a job that required working exclusively with students with special needs, I'll admit a slight panic started to set it. What had I done?! I've never worked with with special needs children on a professional level before. But I had never taught a three grade split classroom before either, and I think I did pretty good. So I figured this can't be too much different. I can handle this task. Once seeing the school, my classroom, and the resources available I was put more at ease. Then when my principal informed me that one of the two Child Development Facilitators (CDFs) I would be working with had about 20 years experience with the school I calmed down even further. My other CDF was also new to the school, like myself, but not new to working with people with special needs. After having a few days of training and sitting down and planning with my new classroom staff, I was soon ready for my students to arrive and knew it was going to be a great year. The relationships that were building between the three of us in the classroom were getting off to a strong start and we seemed to all work together well. To compliment our social studies and science curriculum this year, the kindergarten teacher and myself took our classes to the Calgary Zoo for our year end field trip. We had such a blast! The long bus ride to and from the zoo provided us time have fun together singing songs and reminiscing over over our activities of the past year. I coordinated that our school would experience the Edu-Trek: Eurasian Safari. It was such a fabulous experience learning about extra facts of the animals and their habitats that you would not normally get to learn on a self-guided tour. While on our Edu-Trek we also were fortunate enough to take in the Tiger Training session and experience the penguins getting fed. It was also amazing that with the exception of the hippopotamuses, we were able to see EVERY animal we visited. I thought that was exceptional, because often when visiting a zoo, some of the animals are hiding or in positions in their sanctuaries that is not visible to the public. What a better way to end off the year than with a camping themed unit! As the teaching year winds up and all my final assignments are finished that are report card worthy, I thought I'd end my year with some camping. With the help of a good friend, I transformed my classroom into a campsite in the woods!
I found some great ideas from Pintrest, and awesome teaching ideas from Teachers Pay Teachers. I've taken bits and pieces from each to teach in my classroom.
So, it's no big secret that I love to watch movies, especially Disney movies. One of my favourite thing to do after I've finished watching a DVD is going through all the special features. It may drive my husband bonkers, but that's just what I like to do. I'll get to the relevance of this information in a moment. This year I was assigned the task of teaching the Grades 7-9 Art. Another challenge for me. I laughed out loud when I heard I had to teach it, but I was up for the challenge. I'm afraid that my brother was gifted with artistic abilities, not myself, so this was going to be an interesting adventure. It is a whole other ball game teaching junior high art, as opposed to elementary Now, back to my beginning thoughts.. After viewing The Good Dinosaur, I, like always immersed myself into the special features, and Disney never is lacking in special features. Anyways, one of the extra features inspired an art project for my junior high class. Recyclosaurus. Because Earth Day was coming up, I thought, what an excellent project! We have all sorts of materials lying around the school that we could use. I put my idea in motion and unleashed the project. I set similar parameter, in that the students were only given one roll of duct tape and could use any of the items that we found around the school, or that they brought from home. It was difficult for some students to come up with ideas, but the final products where fantastic!
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GaddzuksI am a dedicated wife and hockey mom, who wishes to educate young minds on the side! Archives
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