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:
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! Today I had the pleasure to attend a fabulous workshop! I am so glad I was able to take this opportunity to go to a workshop held in my own town. It is not often that renowned speakers come to little communities like Foremost to deliver their workshops. Not only was Lisa Murphy a fabulous speaker and educator, she had hands on activities for us and spoke to us from the heart and in a real way that was very impressionable. A lot of what she had to say was not really to new to me, but gave me a bit of a refresher. How ever she helped me change how I think a little, and gave me a new perspective on the importance of play. I would highly recommend that any early educator that gets an opportunity too, to take in one of her workshops. Stalkers welcome she says! www.ooeygooey.com Facebook Page - Ooey Gooey, Inc. Instagram - @OoeyGooeyLady Twitter - @OoeyGooeyLady I had the good fortune of attending a PD opportunity provided by the SAPDC regarding The Daily 5, Daily 3, and CAFE. Back in my PSIII, my mentor teacher used the Daily 5 in her classroom Language Arts program. I was really intrigued by it. So when I I had learned that there was an upcoming PD opportunity to learn about the Daily 5 and CAFE from the 2 Sisters close to home, I was ecstatic!
The two day workshop was AMAZING! I kind of wish it could have been longer so we had time to go over what it looks like and how it works in a classroom, or had more practical examples. However, because I attended the workshop I now have a 1 year subscription to their website www.thedailycafe.com which has a tonne of info and resources to help me integrate the Daily 5 and CAFE into my classroom. I am very grateful for that resource. Once I got back from the workshop, I was eager to get this program into my classroom. I got started as soon as I could. My students have been very receptive to the Daily 5. So far we have learned 3 (Read to Self; Work on Writing; Read to Someone) of the 5 Daily 5 components. I have not had an opportunity to formally introduce the CAFE components yet, although the students have learned some of them. I just haven't formally labeled the strategies. My students are excited to build their reading and writing stamina. We are well on our way to getting to 20 minutes of Read to Self time! We continued with our 7 Habits of Highly Effective People training today. We were only able to work through one of the habits, Habit #3 - Put First Things First; the habit of integrity and execution. I feel that Habit #3 is one of the most important habits to learn and one of the habits I struggle the most with. Planning and prioritizing, I am slowly getting better at. However, it following through with what I had planned is where I struggle the most! The Time Matrix (see picture) is an eye opener and convicting. I myself definitely need to work harder at being in quadrant 2 (aka - Q2). One thing I never thought of doing before and believe it is good way to plan one's time is by prioritizing based on one's personal mission statement and the roles that come out of it. It is a new goal of mine to try and plan this way. This year one of Ecole St. Mary's initiatives is to be a 7 Habits school and as such all the staff will be officially trained in Steven Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I am so grateful that I was considered as staff as a PSIII student and will also be completing the training. Today is Day 1 of a three day program. They will be done over school PD days.
The 7 Habits are not exactly new to me because way back when I was a teenager, the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens was very influential. However, there is a big difference between knowing the 7 Habits and applying them to your daily life. Hopefully, this time around it will become a bigger part of my routine. The habits we are learning today are Habit #1 - Be Proactive and Habit #2 - Begin with the End in Mind. Well, I better get to it! During the Holy Spirit Catholic School Division Professional Development Day I attended a math session called Five Alive Math. It is a math program created by two teachers (Cheryle Hanna and Coreen Packham). It is loosely based off of the Daily 5 Language Arts students choice program. This was such a great session and such a fantastic system to teach math. This would definitely be a program I would be interested doing in my own classroom someday (soon I hope).
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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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