30 Words or Less in their Shoes

This afternoon, I came home from a tutoring session all in a huff. I was at the library and the announcement came on that we have 5 minutes left before the library closed. We were at the celebration portion of the tutoring session where we reviewed the student's accomplishments today and accomplishments since the beginning of tutoring. In the middle of the announcement, the librarian in the children's sectioned hustled over to the light switch. As soon as the announcement was over, as if speaking to herself, she said "I hope everyone is out by the time I turn the lights off!" and stared at me. WHAT? I had 4 more minutes to celebrate! I was not checking out books, I was not loitering, I was celebrating! She could have been turning off the computers, throwing a book or two on the shelves, or straightening shelves before she left, but no, she was rushing me out! When I got home, I was threatening to write a letter to the editor, when my husband reminded me of the 30-Word Rant in the local newspaper.



But then cautioned me, being the english major in college and all.....it takes a lot of precise words and editing to summarize in 30 words or less.

Then I got all excited! (and soon forgot why I was so upset!)

When teaching my students with Learning Disabilties or those students on the Autism Spectrum, I use the Collaborative Strategic Reading strategy. This strategy teaches the students to use specific before reading (What do I know? What do I predict I will learn?) during reading (Click and Clunk, Get the Gist) and after reading (Wrap Up) strategies. For the Wrap Up, I challenge my students to use their Get the Gist notes to write a 30 word or less summary. At the beginning, it is very rough- many unnecessary words, and irrelevant information. With much guidance and scaffolding, the students are able to grasp this super higher level thinking activity! VICTORY!

So, I have begun the Enhancing Professional Practice: A Framework for Teaching by Charlotte Danielson




and am now going to attempt to complete what I ask of my students...a summary of Chapter 2-"Assumptions and Features of the Framework for Teaching" in 30 words or less....

Higher level learning is accomplished by "minds-on" learning. The framework does not endorse specific teaching styles, but gives guidance as how to analyze the practice of teaching and learning.

Woohoo! 29 words!

My Summer To-Do List Takes Me to the Beach!

At the beginning of summer time...well honestly, after FCAT, a "New School Year Prep To Do List" was created....WARNING...not for the faint of heart....

And that is only the first page (but notice the one checkmerk!!!)! It is coded as either summer projects or beginning of the school year projects. When I sit down with this list, I all of a sudden have these mixed emotions...one of being overwhelmed, but then I have this super relaxed realization....due to the nature of the beast of being a traveling teacher dependent upon schedules of others...I am not sure what subjects I am teaching, who I am teaching, or what grade levels I am teaching...so much of this list is not even possible....so...I go to the beach!

Some highlights I can acheive on this list (when not surfing) include...

• Create a Wikispace for the other traveling Special Education Teachers at my school like me (there will be three of us this year!) to share data on our students that we work together with. (CHECK!!!)
• Redo my lesson plan outline to better match the Framework For Teaching that will be implemented as our teacher evaluation system this year (CHECK!!!)....more to come on that....
• Create a collaboration binder. This is to help document meetings with the general education teachers I work with. We are still working on this move to having students with special needs in the general education classrooms. In the past, sometimes our collaborative conversations were not productive, but rather attacking against these students. I hope that with collaboration meeting agendas and notes, we can ensure a more positive expwerience for ALL involved.
• Make a "Poloroid" snapshot for the students with special needs in the gen. ed. setting. In the poloroid, specific reading levels and accomodations will be included. The teachers can then place these "snapshots" in their lesson plans binder.

Since I cannot acheive many of those satisfying checkmarks on this list, I have decided instead to do 2 book studies. The first being Enhancing Professional Practice: A Framework for Teaching by Charlotte Danielson because our school district is using this as our evaluation system. I also am going to read The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller because I have read such great things about it on many blogs!

A for Effort

Last school year after reading The Art and Science of Teaching by Robert Marzano, I wanted to work on helping my students see the direct relationship between how hard they work and how much they learn. I chose this aspect of the book because my students struggle and strive each and every day to keep up with the fast paced curriculum in the general education setting. So I created an Effot Log with the purpose of having the students to reflect upon their effort in the lesson in correlation with the success they had in that lesson or improvement they made in their fluency scores.

When I arrive in the students' classroom, I first remind them of how greedy I am....I only have 30 minutes to work with them, and I am demanding their best for these 30 minutes. I also tell them that I am their biggest cheerleader and I always brag about how smart they are to all of the teachers I work with. We review the effort log (and if I forgot to give them a copy on Monday, they eagerly remind me of the logs!) at the beginning of the lesson. At the end of the lesson, they put their initials where they think they ranked on the log. I then have brief individual conferences with each student as to where I think they landed and I tell them specific reasons why I thought they landed on a certain spot. I was always amazed at how honest they were with their logs. The logs were used with 1st though 5th graders.

As I reflect back on these logs, I want to do a better job tying them in with leaning goals. So added a weekly goal statement. Often times, if it I see the students for reading, they have fluency goals, which we will put in the goal statement. I also have a challenge for them with their direct instruction workbooks. I can envision some students choosing workbook scores as a weekly goal. On Friday, when I do individual conferences, I would like to quickly review how well they did in regards to the learning goal.


Ok....enter my dreamworld.....wouldn't it be great if I could collaborate with the general education teachers and get them to implement this log with my students for another aspect of the school day. I am not saying each subject, just one area in particular....addition facts, science vocabulary....and track their progress. I would love to see if this is effective outside of direct instruction land!

The primary version has stars, smiley faces, and sad faces to help with the understanding of the different levels. Please feel free to use, cut apart, add to, etc. I would love to hear what you do with it and how well it does with your students!

***I know it is hard to see on this blog, but if you email me, I can send you a copy of the log!

In Search of a New Travel Companion

Sadly, at the end of the school year, I had to retire my travel companion, my trusty cart of 2 years given to me by a dear friend. A few words...ahem...(you may need tissues close by) my strong, sturdy cart faithfully followed me into many classrooms and was a key to the education of many students with special needs. Although, at one time, it did leak a pen which caused me to be trapped in an elevator for the 5 longest minutes of my life, this cart has become a paraeducator itself, holding instructional materials, motivators, and has brought smiles and laughter to many students and teachers as it was often decorated beach style throughout the school year.


But, I recognized that it is time to move on and begin to explore the vast world of cart options...

Wow! Look at this option! A place for the computer and a locking cabinet, keeping my motivators safe from sticky little fingers!

Ouch! The The price tag is $236.00.

Ok, lets check out an education specific resource....
Wow! Perfect!

We have some of these floating around our school, but teachers DO NOT want to give this sweet ride up! And I can't afford $349.99...

Game plan time...I have to go to school next week...maybe I will go on a little hunt for abandoned cart options....who knows what is hiding in a closet somewhere....being a special education teacher, I am pretty good at being resourceful..... begging, borrowing, and bribing!

Do any of you have any creative ideas for a cart?

Me and My Cart

Me and my Cart...
....the show on the road

Each day during the 2011-2012school year, my trusty cart and I traveled to 4 different grade levels, into 10 different classrooms, to support 35 students with special needs in their endeavor to be successful in the general education classroom.

My cart carries a variety of intervention programs, lesson plans, student data, IEPs, my expectations, the Teacher vs. Student game, pencils, highlighters, flashcards, cooperative learning roles necklaces, and a beach bucket of motivation...on any given day.

This is the second year my cart and I have worked together, and sadly, I had to retire this cart at the end of the school year due to a wheel that kept falling off in the middle of a roll down the hallway, and a handle that did not want to join its other side. Last school year, our school district moved to a "push-in" model of support for students with special needs in the general education setting. Away went the resource rooms....and in went the special education teacher. This "new" way of ensuring our students with disabilities were getting the rigorous education they deserved even came with a new title....Support Facilitation Teacher. (Fancy, isn't it!) But this fancy title came with many challenges...

My cart and I found ourselves having to be pioneers in the idea of collaboration. In the past, teachers were "Kings" and "Queens" of their own classroom kingdom. In the beginning of this "new way", my cart and I were intruders....

I like to consider myself an Ambassador, from a far away land (yup, I have put my time in as being the special education teacher in the large storage closet next to the boy's locker room in one school, and have also lived in the Special Education Portable City of another school). But here I am, traveling into many kingdoms to spread the awareness of the many Abilities of those with disabilities, the importance of using accommodations (fair does not mean equal), and to advocate for my students.

My cart and I would like to welcome you to share in our journey. We want to share our successes, our traveling trinkets (lesson plans, motivation ideas, and my other creations that have helped me along on my daily travels), and our encouragements for both special education teachers and general education teachers.

We look forward to traveling with you!