Tammy Axt – Page 6

April 30, 2019April 30, 2019 Tammy Axt General, Special Education

A Typical Day in a Class of Students with Developmental Disabilities

When I started my new role of supporting students with Developmental Disabilities this year, my biggest question really was about the structure of the day. Since it was my first time doing this role, I asked many other teachers who have been doing this role for a long time for advice. They shared with me how their day was structured and ideas for potential programming. I took many of their suggestions and paired them with ideas that met the needs of my students. Without the kindness of so many of my Peel colleagues, I would have been LOST! For those of you out there that will be taking on this new challenge in September, below is a typical day in our classroom to hopefully give you some ideas to get you started.

It is important to note that my schedule has changed at least 30 times since September as we worked towards the perfect fit for our students. All of our students and staff were new to our class this year and there were many things that impacted our schedule that I didn’t anticipate such as medical needs, busing schedules, integration opportunities, behavioural needs and student goals. The schedule is something that I am constantly reflecting on and am constantly tweaking as I observe my students and team in action.

A typical day in my class:

We enter the building and put our stuff in our lockers.

We have our morning meeting.

We do our morning work.

Snack time

Gym or art

Lunch/Life skills (Today was public transit training and eating in a restaurant)

Hygiene Routine (brushing teeth, brushing hair, washing face and putting on deodorant)

Afternoon work time/social skills

Pack up and get ready to go home

March 31, 2019 Tammy Axt General, Special Education

Attending ISRC (In-School Review Committee)

Most of us will attend an ISRC (In-School Review Committee) at some point during our career. Usually, it is for students that we have concerns about in a variety of areas including behaviour, academic success, emotional well being etc… In my experience, the ISRC will include an administrator, a Special Education teacher and a variety of other professionals from outside your school. The goal of the ISRC is to review and monitor students’ needs.

Like many other things in teaching, no one really sits you down and explains how to get the best out of your trip to the ISRC. I wish someone had told me how to prepare and what to ask for so that my students could get the best services possible. After one year in a special education role, I have learned many things that I didn’t know before and I can share with you how I now prepare for an ISRC.

Before I go, I answer the following questions:

What is the problem? Is the student struggling academically, is attendance an issue, have they gone through some kind of trauma, is there severe behaviour, are they going through difficult financial times etc. Before you go before the panel have the issue that you are trying to address very clear in your mind. Basically, what is in the way of this student being an academically successful contributing member of the classroom? If it is multiple things, pick one to start.

Have I done my homework? Get out the OSR for this student to see if this student has ever had any kind of supports before. Referrals, signed consent forms and reports of service should all be in the OSR for you to review. A good team at the ISRC table will ask about previous supports for the student.

Do I have evidence to support my student’s need? Evidence will help you answer any questions that the panel may have for you. Evidence may include attendance records, assignments, report cards or behaviour tracking sheets. Basically, anything to demonstrate your student’s need.

Have I called the parents to communicate my concerns? Before you step foot in ISRC you should communicate your concerns with parents and explain that you will be going to discuss their child at an In School meeting.

What services does the student need? Before I started my current job, I literally had no idea what supports were even available to ask for. This is the mistake that I made many times early in my career. I went to ISRC not to ask for services but to highlight a student I was worried about. No one told me that going to talk about a student I was worried about was sometimes not a useful exercise. I wish I could go back in time and request social work for my student who was always absent and Speech for my student who was struggling with his articulation.

Nobody told me that you could ask for:

Speech and Language Therapy. Can address concerns about articulation, assistive technology, programming and communication needs.
Occupational Therapy. Can address concerns about fine motor, gross motor, sensory needs and daily life tasks such as toileting, putting on clothing, holding a pencil and tying shoes.
Physical Therapy. Can address concerns about physical mobility and safety around the school and in the classroom.
Social Work. Can address concerns about family trauma, attendance and mental health. They can also provide support in making connections with community support.
Phycologist. Can perform Physcoeducational assessments and support on the writing of a safety plan
Behaviour Team. Can observe, plan and consult on behaviour at school and at home and help with behaviour that is interfering with academic success.

Obviously, there is usually a long, long wait list for many of the services and the services are often given to students that are most in need first. However, if you never ask, the student will never receive the help you are looking for.

One final thought

If the student is struggling academically, you can go to ISRC to get input on teaching strategies from the panel. However, please keep in mind that out of all of the people in the room you are the only one that has taught the student. It can be very frustrating listening to a group of people suggest strategies that you know will not work because of your experience with the student. It makes more sense to invite a colleague or a teacher in the school with special education experience to come in to your class and to co-teach a lesson and discuss strategies. After you have tried a few strategies and have some data to demonstrate the effectiveness of those strategies a trip to ISRC could be the next step and the experts in the room will be able to provide more effective feedback.

Thanks for all that you do every day to support your amazing students at your school!

March 31, 2019March 31, 2019 Tammy Axt Special Education

World Down Syndrome Day

On March 21^st, our class celebrated World Down Syndrome Day. World Down Syndrome Day is designed to recognize and celebrate the contributions of people with Down Syndrome. It is also a day to highlight the rights, inclusion and well being of those with Down Syndrome.

It is common for many schools and places around the world to demonstrate their acknowledgement of the day by wearing unusual or mismatched socks. This simple act encourages all of us to celebrate uniqueness and diversity.

For us, preparing to wear our special socks was a great way to start the conversation about this fantastic day.We sang the song “Lots of Socks” every morning throughout the month of March and spoke daily about Down Syndrome.

On the 21^st of March, we had a celebration in the morning where we all shared what was special about each of us. We spoke about Down Syndrome and all the amazing people in the world with Down Syndrome. And of course, we showed off our socks!

In addition to our class celebration, I thought I would share some of the things that I have learned this year.

I am very fortunate that I teach 5 students with Down Syndrome. It has been my first-time teaching students with Down Syndrome so I had a lot of misconceptions going into the role and I have learned a lot!

The first thing I learned fairly early in the year was the correct way to speak about someone with Down Syndrome. In the past, I had the misconception that a person with Down Syndrome may be referred to as someone with Down’s. That plural form is incorrect. John Langdon Down was the person who classified the Syndrome but he did not have it and therefore, it is not possessive. The only proper way to speak about someone is to put the person first (as you would with any exceptionality) and follow it with either Down Syndrome or D.S.

Eg. Student with Down Syndrome or Student with D.S.

I also had the misconception that people with Down Syndrome are always happy. I can confirm for all of you with out a doubt that my students demonstrate a variety of emotions regularly. My 3 students who have just hit puberty, go through about 25 emotions an hour as many of you have experienced with your students who are adolescences. Whew!

However, my students do smile a lot and that sometimes prompts many of the adults at my school to speak about how “sweet” or “cute” my students are. Sometimes I have to gently remind the staff that my students are not young children and that they need to be spoken about the same way you would speak about other 11 and 12-year-old students. They need high expectations for behaviour and communication.

Finally, as I started reading articles about people in the Down Syndrome Community, I was surprised how many times they were referred to as being afflicted with Down Syndrome. Just this week I read an article that spoke about people being victims of Down Syndrome. I assure you that my students are not victims. They are some of the coolest, most interesting, charismatic, smart, caring students I have ever taught.

Happy World Down Syndrome Day!!

February 28, 2019 Tammy Axt General

Setting up a Positive Relationship with Teaching Assistants

I have had the great pleasure of working with a variety of staff over the past decade as a teacher. TAs, or as they are called in my board Educational Resource Facilitators, play an incredibly important role in the success of my students every day. This year has been my first year that I have worked with 3 TAs all day and I have tried to make that relationship a positive one. I have made a ton of mistakes throughout the year but thankfully I have had the most patient and gracious team that has supported me as I learn my new role. I sat down with a few of them to ask what teachers could do to make the relationship between teachers and TAs work well. This is what they had to say:

Everyone in the room has a need for information and everyone can do their job more effectively when they have all the information pertaining to students and the running of the classroom. It is important that teachers prioritize communication because much of the information will be given only to the teacher. Information from Speech and Language Reports, Parent phone calls, ISRC meetings and so on will only be shared with the team if the teacher has an effective style of communication. (I admit that I stumble with this sometimes. I feel like there is never enough time in the day to communicate everything I need to share. I am working at it and continue to make this a priority for my professional growth) My team and I realized that we needed a way to share information this year. We designated a place on the blackboard for all of us to place updates and reminders. It has been great way for everyone to stay up to date on things like pizza orders or letters that need to go home.
Teacher is not the boss. I have heard TAs over the year talk about the few teachers that they have worked with who have come in and very clearly outlined that they are the boss and that everyone else works for them. It is important to remember that everyone has valuable professional knowledge that they bring to the classroom and when everyone is using their knowledge its benefits students. Teachers and TAs have different training and different roles to play in the classroom. As the teacher, make it clear that you value the skill set of the TAs placed with you. If everyone is doing their role and using their training the classroom has a greater chance of success.
Don’t let things fester. There are a million things that can be irritating when you are in a room with people all day. It is best to deal with things that impact the ability to provide a good environment for students. As the teacher in the room, deal with things that come up and don’t let them go on for weeks and weeks or months and months.
Getting to know the people in the room and using their strengths. Plan with everyone’s skill set,experience and knowledge in mind. Observe your team with the intention of analyzing the strengths in everyone. If you focus on what everyone brings to the classroom and highlight it regularly, it will make your class a happy place to be. If you focus consistently on the negative, the classroom will be a negative place. Within my team there is a fantastic artist, an unbelievable organizer and an eternal optimist. A teacher should really value the skills that everyone brings and utilize and highlight the amazing skills often.
Different opinions. You will have different opinions. You have to remember that your training is different and you are often seeing things from a different perspective. It is important that you pick your battles and sometime just let things go.
Let’s try and see. (This has been something that I have really learned this year). As a teacher, you should encourage everyone to give input into challenging situations with students. The team will work better when you try out a variety of suggestions. Even if the suggestion sounds really out there, what is the harm in trying something new? If it doesn’t work, go back to what you were doing before. However, you might just be pleasantly surprised!
Having Fun! Lighten up. The most important thing to success. As a teacher, you often set the tone. If you are not setting the tone of positivity with all of your students and members of the team in the room, the room will often be a negative place to be.
Isolated bubble. Being in a contained class can be very isolating. The only people who understand what is going on is you and your team. Model the expectation that you have each other’s back and that you will support each other through the tough times.
Equity. Trying to make everything fair will be really important. Therefore, rotate which staff comes on field trips, to the park or does special events. Make a schedule and post it in the room.

February 27, 2019 Tammy Axt Learning About Your Students, Special Education

Why are your eyebrows grumpy?

One of my students asked me the funniest question during our morning meeting this week. She stopped, looked at me and asked, “Why are your eyebrows grumpy?” It struck me as really funny and I burst out laughing and she did as well. I went home that evening and began to think more about her question. At the time that she asked me the question, I was talking about an exciting trip that was coming up for our class. My voice was animated and I thought I was conveying my excitement through the words that I was choosing but upon deeper reflection I am not sure my facial expression was matching my words.

One of the real gifts that my students bring to the school and the class is their ability to read emotion. Many of the students are very sensitive to the expression on my face, in my voice and in my body. They laugh with me often and can easily tell when I am upset with them by a simple look or a body position. The great thing about this is that I rarely have to use my voice to intervene on unwanted behaviour and I can show someone what a great job they are doing by a simple look. The tricky part of this is that my facial expressions are being analyzed all day long. As a person doing this job for the first time, I am often perplexed or thinking about next steps. When I was talking about the upcoming trip with the class, I was also thinking about all the logistics of how to make this trip successful. I am sure that is why my student thought my eyebrows were grumpy.

Working with this group of students has been a fantastic reminder to slow down, stay in the moment and enjoy the experience. Things will get done. I will make mistakes and learn from them. I will get better at this job every day.

My talented students will forever teach me the skill that the author Toni Morrison spoke about. Toni Morrison explained that children don’t care about weather you help them zip up their jacket or have everything prepared. They care about one thing ….“Does your face light up when a child enters the room?” She also encouraged all of us to “let your face speak what is in your heart.” My students are reminding me of Ms. Morrison’s important lessons everyday. Slow down. Stay present in the moment. Let them see everyday how much you care for them.

January 29, 2019 Tammy Axt General

Examples of Alternative IEP Goals

Writing goals on an alternative IEP can be a daunting task for a teacher who has never done it before. That has been my experience this year as it is my first year teaching an amazing group of students with Developmental Disabilities.

I have written many modified IEPs over the course of my career. I am very comfortable increasing or decreasing the complexity and/or number of the Ontario Curriculum expectations. I know who to consult and what information I need to gather to make an informed decision about these types of goals for my students. However, writing Alternative Goals required a whole new set of skills this year.

Since Alternative expectations represent skills that are not represented in the Ontario curriculum it is sometimes difficult to know where to begin. For many students in Ontario, they will have Alternative expectations in addition to their modified expectations such as speech remediation or social skills. However, for some students their entire IEP will be Alternative.

So where do you begin?

If your students have been in school for a few years, the face place to find information is the OSR. In the Ontario Student Record, you can see what kind of services and goals have been recommended in the previous school years. You can also refer to previous IEPs to help get your started. If your OSRs arrived a messy blob of papers, take the time now to organize them. A friend of mine sat with me in September to walk me through organizing the hundreds of papers and it has saved my life. I am either filing or referring to an item in my OSRs at least once a week this year so they have to be organized.

The next place to turn is people. Consult with the families and Special Education colleagues. Families play an important role in helping set goals and can give you great ideas about IEP goals. For example, in December one of my parents contacted me and asked if we could work on fastening buttons during our fine motor skill development time as her son was starting to wear jeans to school and needed to learn the skill.

Finally, data collection will play an ongoing role in the creation and updating of goals throughout the year. I do assessments on my students consistently throughout the year. If you want some ideas about what to assess and how to assess things that are not curriculum based, I recommend using one of the two following resources.

The FISH (Functional Independence Skills Handbook)

The Carolina Curriculum (both the infant/toddler and preschooler resource)

They will help you gather the information you need. Both are incredibly expensive to buy, so borrow them from your resource department or special education team.

Here are some examples of what your goals could look like. I am not an expert by any means but if you are like me, sometimes examples can be a really helpful place to get started.

Attention/Focus

_______ will attend to a self-selected activity without being distracted or losing interest for 10 minutes.

_______ will work on completing teacher directed tasks for 25 minutes.

Mathematics

_______ will count to 100 with 75% accuracy.

_______ will demonstrate one-to-one correspondence up to 10 between numbers and objects with 75% accuracy.

_______ will identify time that is personally relevant to her and use it to independently begin tasks.

Life Skills

_______ will wash her face and put the facecloth in the laundry bin daily after lunch.

_______ will use a visual guide to assist her with the steps necessary to establish routines regarding menstrual activities (e.g., bringing necessary items to school, changing pads, disposing of pads, washing hands)

_______ will brush her teeth and put on deodorant daily after lunch.

Personal and Social Development

______ will successfully participate in a turn taking game with a peer, 3 out of 5 opportunities

______ will orally express when someone is in her personal space.

______ will work on sharing the classroom materials with other students.

Communication

_______ will demonstrate a choice between two types of food for snack time by pointing to the item.

_______ will point to a picture when he wants to request a walk.

January 29, 2019 Tammy Axt General

Learning about Menstruation for girls with Developmental Disabilities

A few weeks ago, I heard my student screaming in the bathroom. I mean really screaming. The bathroom is located right across the hall from our class and two of us bolted to the door to see what the problem was. 8,000,000 things went through my mind in the 4 seconds it took me to get to the door. Was she hurt? Did she cut herself? Had she broken her leg? We knocked frantically and went into the bathroom and breathed a deep sigh of relief. My student was having her first period. She was bawling and very upset because she did not understand what was happening to her. My student has a Developmental Disability that impairs her ability to process information so explaining this was normal was a very difficult thing for her to understand.

We got her cleaned up, assisted her with some materials and brought her back to class to relax. (My other students who also heard her screaming were freaked out and needed to see that she was okay)

I called mom to let her know what had happened and supported the student through the remainder of the day until it was time to go home. I explained to the student multiple times that it was part of growing up and that all women experience this but she still seemed incredibly confused by the whole thing.

I went home that night and decided it was time for my 5 girls to learn about their menstrual cycles. However, I have never tried to teach students with Developmental Delays about what happens during puberty. I thought about what I needed to do to explain this effectively.

The next day I spoke with the parents of the other four girls and told them that we would be speaking about this in class. I wanted to prepare them in case they came home and had questions. Some of my student’s ability to communicate is quite impaired so when they come home talking about blood with no context there could be some confusion.

I also prepared visuals for us to use in class and visuals with a dialogue for home. It is really helpful for my students to hear things repetitively so having the same message at home and school is very helpful. I used visuals from Boardmaker online. Here is what an example of that looked like:

I made a time in our schedule over the next 6 weeks for the girls and boys to do a separate activity. The girls stayed in the classroom and the boys went for a walk. During that time, I used visuals to explain when a woman grows up, she gets a period. I explained what a period was to my girls using the most basic language and pictures I could think of. It has taken some time but my girls are starting to understand. For my group, I have had to reassure them consistently that it is healthy. The word healthy was something that they all understood. They knew if you ate vegetables it was good for your body and it made you healthy. It is a word that obviously resonated and made sense for them. After using that word, they all stopped looking so horrified about the concept of becoming a woman.

Privacy has also been a real challenge for some of my students. The day after our first big talk, my student walked into school and was so excited to tell me that she explained everything to her mom and dad last night about periods. She said it so loudly that an entire class of grade eight students next door to us heard it and burst out laughing. My other student walked in and loudly asked my other student “how’s your period going?”. My girls have had to be reminded multiple times that periods are private and not something we talk about in public.

Throughout the past few weeks, we have also purchased pads from the grocery store and practiced putting them on underwear correctly.

We will continue learning about puberty and menstruation until all of my girls develop the skills to manage their monthly cycle independently.

December 31, 2018 Tammy Axt Communication with Parents and Guardians, Diverse Learning Needs, General

Helping our Parents Find the Supports They Need

This is my first year in the role of classroom teacher for students with developmental disabilities and looking back over the past four months, I have really learned a lot. I have written my first IEPs, programmed for 9 different children and learned new assessment techniques. However, some of the biggest learning I have had was understanding what my families needed help with outside of school.

Parent teacher interviews were very eye opening for me. I introduced some of the community resources available to my families and all of them had never accessed the support they needed before. Parents spoke about their need for help with funding and support at home. They also spoke about the challenges accessing answers to their questions about having a child with special needs. I was very surprised that all of my families had never had this discussion before as most of my students have had a formal diagnosis for many years and my students have all been in school for eight years.

Then it hit me, before my new job would I have been able to direct my families to the right organization for assistance? The answer would have been a resounding NO! No wonder my student’s families have not received support until grade 6 for this reason. Community resources are not always part of Professional development and often times parents are referred to special education teachers or ESL teachers.

Some may say ISRC or IPRC may be a good time for these conversations, however, it is very intimidating for both families and teachers to attend these meetings in many cases. There are usually about 10 people in the room, most of whom you have no relationship with. It is hard to ask questions or be vulnerable in that environment. Parents often prefer to ask these questions during a conversation with the one person the parent knows and trusts- the classroom teacher.

I did a simple google search to understand what my parents were facing and put in “Special needs support” in my area. The organization that does intake service and assigns case managers for my families came up eighth. This would be the recommended first place to start in my community and I am not sure it would have been possible to figure that out for my parents. I also explored the government of Ontario’s website’s section for parents of special needs children. It would be incredibly challenging for my parents to navigate. There is very little explanation or resources for parents with children with developmental disabilities compared to the section on autism. The website would not be helpful for my parents in finding the answers that they need.

This year my board funded training for all of our contained teachers to learn about assessment strategies for kids who are on alternative IEPs. Within that training, there was a short portion about community resources for families with special needs. Every single teacher in that room was so grateful to have this relevant and important training that often gets overlooked. Due to this important training, I will be able to support nine families get the caring guidance that is needed. I wish every school in Ontario did this very short information session to help teachers support our families.

December 31, 2018 Tammy Axt General

Best December of Teaching

I just had the best December of teaching ever!! I left school on such a high note on December 21^st and have carried the joy right into my holidays. I have been trying to put my finger on what made this December so special and fantastic and I think it has to do with the amount of laughter in my class this month. The staff laughed a lot in our class this December. My students responded really well to our team’s approach and laughed and laughed right alongside with us. I know it is not always manageable to laugh when we have such a stressful job but it is sometimes the best medicine we have.

Here are some ways we found the joy throughout December:

We visited our old class and had a great day with friends that we hadn’t seen in a while.

We hung out in the gym

We tried new things.

We did really fun science experiements!!

We made sandwiches and fruit and it was delicious.

We took time out for holiday memory

We built structures

We worked with our friends to complete puzzles

We had dance parties for DPA.

We made great math patterns.

$math puzzles$

We did holiday song karaoke

We visited another class to play some games

Santa came to bring us some cheer

The staff decorated a pair of ugly socks as part of our team’s special gathering.

We opened our selfie Christmas crackers and took some funny pictures

We enjoyed our new scarfs that I knit for my class

It was the best December ever!!

November 30, 2018 Tammy Axt General

One Sore Throat and Two Stomach Flus

Today in my class, I have one really bad sore throat and two of the ERFs in my classroom are off with the stomach flu.

So, I thought today might be a good day to talk about personal wellness.

We are coming up to the last three weeks of school before the break and these three weeks tend to be the most demanding. The students will be extra anxious, excited, emotional and generally demanding of your time and energy. The problem is after report cards, interviews, IEPs, referrals, ISRCs etc., we are all pretty run down by this point in the year.

There are many ways to make it through December with a smile. Some of my favourites are:

Do an activity with a colleague. Put two classes together and work together to support your students. Having a team approach to deal with extra behaviour from students can take the pressure off of being calm and patient all day long.
Plan activities that don’t require you to take marking home. Try to get all your marking done in class. Commit to taking anecdotal notes about rich conversations as opposed to marking assignments after school. For writing, do an assignment that requires writing conferences as assessment. For Math, get into some amazing Marion Small rich tasks and capture everything in the moment. The less you have to take home, the more time you have to recharge in the evening. You need to stockpile the energy this month.
Get outside. Do a couple of lessons in the great outdoors building structures out of snow, balloon races or making some art out of found objects. Extra time outside can really have an impact on all those high emotions and can help students burn off some energy.
Take time out for laughter. Yesterday, a bunch of my friends and I went out and did an ugly Christmas sweater run. It was great to get out and laugh A LOT. We took crazy selfies all over town and cars were honking at our silliness everywhere we went. I know many of you have a whole bunch of gifts to buy and food to prepare and family to host but somewhere in there find time for laughter. It can be the best self care there is.
Make rewards more immediate and obvious for the students. I sometime up the reward time in my class in December to help the students stay focused and on task. I have posted the letters F-r-i-d-a-y-F-r-e-e-t-i-m-e at the front of the room and tell the kids that each letter represents 10 mintues. I remove letters based on if students are not following the rules.
If emotions are running high, have students do some independent work. Give them a break from doing their work and using their social skills at the same time.

All in all, I love December and all the celebrations that happen at this time of year. But this month requires you to take one deep breath and take care of ourselves!