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Karen Golema came to speak with us tonight! She began by presenting pictures of her classroom and demonstrated how alternative it is In her classroom, she uses bean bag chairs, milk crates, and rugs that can be used for more tan one purpose. Her pictures demonstrated how you can be creative and resourceful in furbishing a classroom. Many of the pieces of furniture showed during her presentation were reused from other rooms or places in the school. Mrs. Golema elaborated on the reason that large exercise balls are so important for students-general education and special education. She then took many questions about introducing this all to students, how this looks with standardized tests, and hwo this method affects student behavior. Her honest answers all highlighted that this flexible seating really helps student learning and behavior. She went on to explain her experiences with her students working with whiteboards and solving problems collaboratively. Another way her students are able to get collaborative are the stem and genius hour. This is where she leaves her students with directions for a task and materials and lets students work (stem), and a process of student-led process (genius hour). Students brainstorm what they want to learn about and then go through a 4 week process working on these projects. We got the pleasure of watching a video of testimonials for these strategies from her own students! Needless to say, the presentation was a hit!
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Lori Schumacher came to speak to us today! She serves as an Early Childhood program Director currently, and belives that early childhood development is the basis of all education. She shared her own experiences and challenges with education. Her experiences demonstrated her interests in extracurricular activities, leadership, and working with special needs kids. Lori challenged us to discover our own passions, and we discussed these in relation to education. She shared with us her online portfolio and encouraged us to build up our own. You can include your resume, your work and projects, and even references! Through her experiences, she inspired us to succeed as well. Currently, Lori works at the YMCA Dhild Development Center. Next, Lori stressed goals and reflection to us. She modeled life-long learning skills to us and talked on how important this process is. We then went on to discuss what kind of teacher and leader we wanted to be one day. Among the highlights of this discussion were compassion, and understanding differences between people. Karen, another worker at the YMCA also spoke with us about her experiences. She discussed different activites offered at the YMCA. As the Office Assistant, she shared a few of her roles within the center, and discussed the importance of what she does in relation to the support and education of the students. Both speakers touched briefly on the importance of the team environment-that there must be clear communication, roles, and honesty between one another at any work place. |
It’s already our second meeting of the semester, and we were lucky enough to have Ron Houtman come to our event tonight to talk to us about Universal Design of Learning. He is an educational tech consultant at the Kent Intermediate School District. He talked about practical ways to represent information in unique ways, find new ways to have students demonstrate what they know, and how to keep students engaged. To accomplish these things he gave us several practical components including: continual feedback, using tools purposefully, making sure knowledge is transferring. One key point he left us with is how important it is to first figure out the student’s needs and then find a tool that fits their needs, not the other way around! He encouraged us to go beyond “teaching how we got taught.” |
Winter semester has begun and we were very excited to have our first meeting of 2016! Amy Schelling was here tonight talking about IEPs (Individual Education Plan) and the laws related to them. This was a follow up to our last event of the fall semester discussing IEP case studies. Amy broke down several disabilities categories that students can fall into to receive special education services. She also spoke thoroughly about what and IEP includes and who is a part of participating in the IEP team. This presentation was extremely helpful for both future special education and general education teachers! |
This was our last meeting on the semester and we were very happy to see that many people made it on the last week of school. We welcomed Professor Jo Fisher and Dr. Monica Harris to talk to IEP's. We participated in a 'mock' IEP. Our member's got out of their seats and each had a role in their IEP meeting. They looked over documents that are written and looked over to find accommodations for the child. Dr. Fisher talked about the three steps that teachers take during the IEP process. After the mock meeting, Dr. Fisher took questions that came up during the role play. It was a very informational meeting that many of our members enjoyed. |
Tonight we listened to Heather Gauck who is a resource teacher at GRPS. She has been teaching for 20 years and has a passion for technology. She explained that a part of getting students to engage in their learning is to use multi sensory activities. She used this method for about 15 years until the iPad was invented. This changed a lot of how she did things. Heather uses the iPad in her classroom to reach farther than Bloom's Taxonomy. She wants to keep the excitement of technology a positive thing for students. Heather explained how she used the app Aurasma in the classroom to create social stories to help her students learn and remember. Another strategy that she talked about was having her students create movies in her classroom of themselves talking about the things that they are learning. She is able to show this information to their classroom teacher and the student is able to show off their skills! See Saw is a digital portfolio that parents of the students can use to see what the students are creating in their classes. |
This evening Alison Bennett stopped by to talk to our members about her experiences being a school psychologist at Jenson Public school. She explained all of the different responsibilities that she has. Assessments, data collecting, consultations and collaborations, interventions, mental health, instructional support, preventions, behavioral interventionist, research, and crisis preparedness response and recovery to name a few. She works very much with Tier one, progress monitoring using Dibels, and Tier 3. She attends a lot of meetings where she helps discuss individual children. Alison is the person that teachers go to for special education services if the interventionists haven't worked for the students. Her tips for future school psychologists is to remember that teachers have a lot of demands placed on them and to be patient when working with these teachers. Her tip to future teachers was to stay calm and remember to focus on the positives of the students. Be flexible and frequent when communicating with support staff.
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Halloween is right around the corner and the days are getting shorter! Tonight we welcomed Megan Ward who is an ASL teacher at Northview Public Schools in Highlands Middle school. She has been a teacher for three years and really is interested in deaf children. Deaf is not the wrong word and deafness is not an impairment. She defines deafness as "a hearing loss that makes language inaccessible." Megan brought an audiogram to show our members the different sounds that different people can hear. Deaf children are able to talk to you and communicate their ideas, but when you talk to them, they aren't able to hear all of the noises in our language. We watched a video that showed us what it feels like to be deaf. She spends her day teaching her student's how to sign and help them bridge the gap between their relationships. 2.5% is the national average of deaf students who are fostered or adopted. 25% deaf students are at a higher risk to be abused. Megan gave our members information on the different types of hearing aids and theories in ASL. Teachers are legally required to fix the technologies in their classrooms. Yet, nothing "fixes" deafness.
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At this event we listened to Michelle Corey who is a learn consultant in social studies and science classrooms at Rockford High School. She works with general education teachers in a collaborative setting to help those who need extra support. She founded a way to team teach with general education teachers to make learning easier and more productive. She floats around the high school and goes to each student's class on her IEP list and co-teach with 12-15 different teachers in a day. Students with an IEP are not limited to a couple classrooms. This takes a load off of the teacher's back because they only have to learn a few student's IEP instead of 10+. Student's are able to get peer modeling, higher homework completion, less competition between teacher's attention.She targeted the whole class in the beginning of the year to let them know that she is there to help everyone who needed help.
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Some of our members volunteered their Saturday morning and afternoon to help children create art at Grand Valley's Family Day craft table! They had a blast helping young children create lots of different crafts that they were able to decorate and bring home! Pictured left to right is Megan Eising, Hannah Learmont, Lauren Hogikya and Brooke Bowden! |