handwritten on April 7, 2014
This past semester, my low incidence disabilities class required that we carry out two instructional plans. One of the instructional plans had to focus on an academic skill and one had to focus on a functional skill. After one week of intense observation, I decided to choose Mark (psuedonym) for my academic plan and Angie (psuedonym) for my functional plan.
With Mark, I noticed that he knew most of his upper case letters, but was unsure of many of his lowercase letters. Thus, the instructional plan focused on helping Mark learn his lowercas letters. The baseline data collected showed that Mark knew around 50% of his lowercase letters. Using the cold probing technique of the verbal behavior...
handwritten on April 6, 2014
When I am a teacherI am going to make sure that my students are given bright yellow pencilsso they will never say… “Teacher, I lost my idea!” I can’t find it…and the pencilWill be without an eraserbecause the point of the pencil is what creates the castles and the riversand there is no such thing as erasing a mistakebecause the strongest castles are built on staircases of mistakes And my door, won’t be any normal door.My door will not have the nameplate that says “teacher” it will say“Student in bright bold letters”and when I look at the confusion on their facesI will smile and tell them that before I became a teacher I was a student and before a student I was a person. And I am still a...
handwritten on March 18, 2014
I recently just read a book by Diane Dreher entitled Your Personal Renaissance. Ultimately, it is a book of practical lessons that are very applicable to the field of education. As I began reading the fourth chapter, I came upon a remarkable quote that I have since reflected on:
Your Job is not your calling. You are always more than what you do-what matters most is the spirit in which you do it.
Although this appears to be a simple quote, it is actually filled with complexity. As a student, I have always had a difficult time understanding veteran teachers who tell me that the most important thing for me to remember is that you must have a balance between your work and your personal life....
handwritten on February 24, 2014
Today was most definitely a Monday. This is not to say that my Monday was bad or that my students had an awful day, it was just a challenging, yet wonderfully rewarding Monday. Today marked the day of my very first time taking over my teacher's position in the classroom. It was absolutely exhausting, but I certainly learned a lot. I learned that while I have been making some excellent personal progress following the Verbal Behavior Program, I have also been making some mistakes which I suppose is explanatory given the fact that I am only in the classroom Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Here are some of the lessons I learned today.
1. Even if the student has already mastered a skill, you...
handwritten on February 9, 2014
Last Wednesday, I sat down with my mentor teacher for two hours, and she taught me how to fill out and recording cold probe sheets. You see, at any given time, a student is working on around seven new skills at a time. These skills may look like the list I have created below:
Receptive: LR Action (Show me...(coughing))
Receptive: LR Pictures (Show me...(tomatoes))
Tact of Pictures: (What is it?...cat)
Tacting Action (What is it?...clapping)
Two-Step Imitations (Do this..Clap hands/tap thighs)
Echoic: (Say window: "Window")
Intraverbal Fill-ins (Peanut Butter and...JELLY)
It may seem quite simple, but when you are in the midst of cold probing and you are trying to keep the student engaged...
