Welcome to the first training in a series that
Volusia County Schools is providing for all ESE
paraprofessionals in the district. Thank you for taking the time to spend a few moments learning
a little more about how to be an even better
paraprofessional. The content you will be receiving in these Modules may be new
knowledge for some, review knowledge for
others, but a refresher for everyone working to support our ESE students. You may wish to take
notes throughout this module as there will be a 10
question quiz at the end for you to successfully demonstrate your understanding.
When we take a look at the roles of
paraprofessionals we sometimes focus on all the ways that your roles are different depending upon
the type of setting in which you serve students, all
of the different tasks that you have to perform, and all of the work that you’re doing to help
students be successful. We tend to think that
you all have very different jobs. However, in all the work that paraprofessionals do, there are
three anchors. And we are calling this training,
Para-Professional-ism, the 3 Anchors. Let’s take a look at what the 3 principles are that unify the
work that all paraprofessionals do.
These 3 anchors we call Teamwork, Instruction, and Management.
The type of instruction that you do, or the way that
you manage, may be different, but all paraprofessionals are very much involved in the
teamwork, the instruction and in the management
of students, regardless of the difference in what the instruction might be or what the management
techniques might look like of the teachers you
work with each and every day. Let’s take a look at anchor number 1 first, the one that we call
Teamwork, because you are part of an extremely
complex and important team. All of the people that are involved in serving the
ESE students in Volusia County include the ESE
Administrator, the General Education Teacher, the ESE Teacher, The Program Specialist, The
Placement Specialist, the Behavior Specialist,
and you! And we can also add the School Psychologist, the School Social Worker, and
occasionally the School Counselor. This team,
this large group of people, is dedicated to helping each and every one of the ESE students in
Volusia County achieve their fullest potential. And
it’s really important that all members of the team are rowing in the same direction.
A school team can only truly function smoothly
and effectively when there is a foundation of trust among its members. In addition to being
dependable, trust is built on individual members
demonstrating respect for confidentiality. As an employee with a commitment to professionalism
and a member of your school’s team, you need to
be sure that you always respect the privacy and confidentiality of your co-workers, your students,
and your students’ families.
Teamwork is also crucial for the success of each of the students. One of the key ways that you,
as a paraprofessional, contribute to the teamwork
is the collection of data. What you see and what you record in the classroom, both in behavior and
achievement, goes a long way in helping the rest
of the team understand how better to serve those individuals. And so, as a paraprofessional, you
need to remember that one of the things that
you’re doing as a team member that is extremely valuable is the accurate collection of data. When
you are asked by the teacher you are working
with to collect data, make sure you are paying attention to what’s happening in the classroom,
so that you can record the data efficiently.
Another thing that is important for the paraprofessional is understanding what it is that
the other members of the team are trying to
accomplish. What decisions are made with regard to behavior and academic achievement
are very, very important for you to implement in a
consistent way. It is so crucial that all members of this team are rowing in the same direction.
The second area that is absolutely crucial, the
second anchor that you are working with, is the idea of instruction. In instruction, you might be
asked to do any one of 3 things. You might be
asked to do the initial teaching, you might be asked to do some remediating, and you might be
asked to be guiding some practice for students.
Upon the request of the teacher you are working with, you may be asked to provide the initial
teaching of a lesson or concept. This could be a
reading group that you have, a math group that you’re working with, or teaching a life skill with an
individual or small group. That initial teaching
means that you have to have a firm grasp of the objective, the learning goal, or the learning target.
So, what is it that the students need to learn?
How will this individual student to be different after this lesson is over? What should he or she
understand? What should they be able to do? Or
what skill will they now have that they didn’t have prior to this lesson? If you’re doing that initial
teaching, you have to keep that established
learning target in mind. It is also important in much of this initial teaching to understand the
concept of mastery learning. The mastery
learning programs that Volusia County uses require there be absolute mastery and it’s very
important for you, as a paraprofessional, to
understand the difference between “They almost got it right,” and “they got it 100% right.”
Sometimes you will be asked to do some
remediating. This might be with an individual student or two, who after the teacher has taught
his/her lesson, need a little extra training or a little
extra work. You’ll be following the teacher’s lead as far as re-teaching, perhaps with more
problems or perhaps with a different example, or
perhaps with a different approach like using more visuals instead of auditory presentation or
bringing in manipulatives to make the learning
more concrete if necessary. Finally, you might be asked to spend some time
with students guiding their practice with skills.
Follow what the teacher wants you to do as far as giving the students more opportunities to practice.
Your job, as the paraprofessional, is to make sure
that their practice is accurate. Practice doesn’t make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect.
And again, you must be working to make sure the
students are doing that practice correctly. Now, the 3rd Anchor that you’re working with in
the ESE program is that of Management.
Management works on two levels, and you need to be conscious of this anchor on both of those
levels which are Whole Class and Individual
Student. YOU are one of the key rowers in managing the classroom as a whole. In Volusia
County, we use the CHAMPS system, and almost
all ESE teachers are trained in this system. We’ll talk a little bit more about that in just a moment.
Understanding that your job is helping to manage
the classroom as a whole is crucial. This includes things like arranging the physical space
in the classroom, how students line up to leave
class, it includes how they will walk in the hallway, how students are passing up or turning in
materials, and how you, as the adult in the
classroom, pass out materials. But you also have a significant responsibility in managing the
student as an individual and we can break this
down into three categories. There is the category called behavior
modification, and that is the job that you and the
teacher and other people on the team have dealing with unproductive behaviors and replacing
those with more productive behaviors.
Then there is the category of Positive Behavior Support. In positive behavior support, we are
looking to reinforce those behaviors that are
appropriate in the classroom. In the second training, we are going to take a more detailed look
at positive behavior support and how we can, in a
more structured way, provide that support for students.
Another area that you need to become familiar
with, if you are not already, is the term called manifestations. Manifestations, simply put are
those things that a student maybe cannot do
because of his or her disability. If we are looking at a student who is truly ADHD, for example, one
manifestation of the disability may be that he or
she may not be able to sit still. So, what kinds of accommodations or modifications may need to
be made in order to deal appropriately with this
manifestation? It is really important for you as a paraprofessional to grasp this concept of
manifestations, so that you know what to expect
of a student and what it is that you cannot expect of a student. I want to take a little bit of time now
to talk about managing the classroom as a whole
and a system that we use in Volusia County called CHAMPS.
CHAMPS is dealing with conversation and help
and movement in the classroom and defining positive participation in any activity or transition for
all students to be successful. Let me take just a
moment to talk a little bit about these categories so that you have an understanding of why they
are so important.
It is important in every classroom, ESE and General Education, to control the conversation.
When we talk about controlling the conversation,
we are NOT talking about limiting the conversation. When we say the word control, we
are talking about making sure that there are clear
procedures for conversation in the classroom so that the students can actually talk more in
collaborative ways. Research clearly shows that
if we want students to be developing at higher levels , they need to participate in conversation in
the classroom. But this conversation needs to be
structured, follow set procedures established by the teacher and paraprofessional, and be in ways
that are socially acceptable. So, understanding
how to control the conversation so that students can talk more in the classroom is extremely
important.
You may be in a classroom where you’re asking yourself, “what if my students don’t talk?” That
doesn’t mean because they don’t talk that there is
not a need to address communication. Some students may be using devices to communicate.
One essential thing we want to be teaching those
students is to initiate conversation, not just use devices for the purpose of responding to your
adult led conversation. So, the area of
conversation within CHAMPS is essential to consider with all types of students in all types of
classrooms.
Let’s look at Help. Here we are talking about the ways students might need a teacher’s help or
your help in order to be more productive and
efficient in the classroom. We can break help down into two categories: One is Academic help;
the student saying to you, I cannot read this
passage I don’t understand this problem or fully understand what my task is. A second major
category of help is that of Personal, meaning: my
pencil point broke and I need to sharpen it, I need to use the restroom, I’m thirsty, or I’m hungry. So,
how we design procedures to get help in the
classroom is a major skill that you and your teacher need to have. When doing training for
professionals throughout Volusia County Schools,
we always say that if you do not have help under control, it will inevitably lead to conversation
and/or movement that you do not want in the
classroom. Controlling movement in the classroom is also
crucial. That is, when are students allowed to get
up?, why are they allowed to get up?, and where are they supposed to move? This includes
everything from turning in papers, to lining up, to
walking from their area or desk to the restroom. Also, students may be in wheelchairs or utilize
walkers or other forms of assistance to navigate
through their classrooms and campus. We spoke earlier about managing the physical space
in the classroom, our design of the classroom
must facilitate their successful movement throughout their day, so that they are able to
access all parts of the class and fully participate
in activities. Finally, and most importantly, defining what
positive participation looks like in any activity.
While the students are listening to the teacher, while the students are watching a video, while the
students are working independently on tasks at
their seats, what is it that we want them to do? What does their positive participation look like
during these activities? Teachers and
paraprofessionals must take the time to teach students what it looks like when a student is
demonstrating positive participation during
activities in the classroom. Thank you for spending some time with us today.
You are valued professionals and we appreciate
the hard work you do each and every day to support ESE students.
Please reference the “Guide: How to access the
Paraprofessional Training Series” or this screen for directions to access the Module 1: Para
professionalism Quiz. Remember that an 80% is
required to pass this quiz and you have 2 attempts, if needed, to obtain that score.