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Talklink and Tauhara College Special Needs unit collaborative work.

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Integrating new technologies to empower learning and transform leadership

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Tauhara College
tino u ki tou hiranga committed to excellence

In August 2010 a referral was made to the Talklink trust to provide communication supports for special learners attending Tauhara College.

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AAC VISUALS GESTURE ORAL TALKING BODY LANGUAGE Signing SCHEDULES

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Michelle Classroom Teacher Primary teacher Passionate about Special Learners Worked in area of Special Education most of teaching career Wife and mother of three

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Brenda Head of Faculty Tauhara College Special Needs Unit Primary trained teacher Worked in low decile schools Current position 3 years Son with Special Needs 19 years

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Who are we? What do we do? 14 ORS Students Personal and Physical Cares Learning supports Behaviour supports

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Our staff Two full time teachers Seven support staff Itinerant Teacher Service to Local Primary Schools

Auckland Wellington Bay of Plenty Christchurch

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TalkLink Trust
Speech-Language Therapists Occupational Therapists Technical Support Assistive Technology Trainer

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Vision
The provision of quality assistive technology services which enable all people to communicate and interact with their environment independently and as effectively and efficiently as possible.

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Talklink Services Assessment Service

Work with existing team Not a therapy service Able to provide training packages to support the client and their team

Training

In communication skills For specific software design

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The Camp Model What is it and what does it look like?

Creating opportunities for communication Add AAC Model Communication Prompting communication

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Camp covers the aspects of good communication which are

universal and are not dependent on the use of any particular form of AAC.

Considering

What is a multi- modality approach? What are the functions of language? How we include communication in all our routines?

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Some examples of TOOLS

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AAC PROFILE - A CONTINUM OF LEARNING (KOVACH, 2009) Uses four communication competency areas
Operational Linguistic Social Strategic

Assesses students in these four areas Assess communication partner in all but linguistics Pre and post training measure of intervention

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SOCIAL AREA OF LEARNING PRACTISED INTERVENTION

STUDENT WHO USES AAC Demonstrates increased AAC system use and practise Purposefully uses AAC system and communication functions to more fully participate in communicative exchanges

COMMUNICATIVE PARTNER Refrains from anticipating needs and the expression of those needs Models effective social communication

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What did the collaboration between Talklink and Tauhara College look like? Initial training session with Julie for all staff to introduce the CAMP framework. Ideas and strategies to develop ways to engage students in communication. Left to trial and practise strategies. The expected outcome was to enhance students ability to communicate and engage in learning experiences.

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Regular visits from Julie over the last year to build on staff and student Learning. Julie has worked individually and collectively with staff on these occasions to develop ideas and strategies. The frequent and ongoing nature of the

professional learning has contributed to its success.

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Back to Tauhara the starting point We were surviving managing a diverse range of students with variety of learning and behaviour supports required

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What did we learn? Keep it simple Low tech is the best place to start. Daily schedules and pegs

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Box work Attention to task

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Using visuals creates the contract

First Next Then

When students feel some sense of what is happening next and what is expected then attention to task is encouraged.

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Talking Boards

James.wmv

Morning Box Work

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Using other communication tools Go talk

Objects of reference

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Links to curriculum and SPEC

Our belief: All students are learners. A framework for teaching and learning programs is essential. Learning tasks needs to be relevant, meaningful and have a purpose, not just a series of isolated or unrelated tasks.

www.spec.org.nz

KEY COMPETENCIES
MANAGING SELF

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Participating and Contributing

Relating to others

Thinking

Using language symbols and texts

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Thinking

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Relating to Others

Sharing our work - being part of our community

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Using language symbols and texts

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Managing Self

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Participating and Contributing

Using the data projector as a visual model

What is Board Maker? A computer program which allows you to print a huge variety of simple pictures. How do we use Board Maker? To make any and everything we use with our students.

Board Maker

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Some of our schedules... Eating/meal times Arrival routines Morning box routines Rotations skill based tasks

Many and varied schedules are used every day in our room for many different reasons encouraging independence, behaviour management, reducing student anxiety.

Schedules

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Learning tasks
The CAMP model has shaped the way we present our learning tasks.

Some things we have tried..... Book making with visual student checklists Emotions and feelings exploring higher level thinking and ---concepts Visual category sorting tasks -to manage students finishing work at different times Writing visual stories

Trialling the IPAD IN OUR CLASS

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Diverse range of APPS for all special learners responding visually to early literacy and numeracy

Students working co operatively Shared learning turn taking communicating

Age appropriateness and coolness of having something new and interesting and being able to use it

The impacts and changes to student learning Attention to task Following instructions Improved communication

Improved self esteem I can do it - I did it myself Becoming engaged not just colouring in Higher level thinking skills supported by visuals

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The impact on teaching practise

Ability to adapt tasks and curriculum for range of abilities is easier

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VISUALS BECOME CRITERIA AND MODELS for students to refer to (teacher can roam) Lessons are authentic and contextual

Teacher skills in designing purposeful visuals has improved and developed. This has been driven by need.

Summary of Achievements to Date

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Attention to task Most powerful tool is the visual prompts Visuals are changing Visuals used to support behaviour management Visuals used for learning and curriculum content Teacher aides seeing the value in using visuals Our anecdotal evidence shows that using the visuals has markedly improved communication

Visuals are invaluable

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Some key points as we reflect on our learning

Behaviour is communication Attention and listening are critical No one believed these students could learn or change their behaviour All people are learners responding is thinking and learning Labels not questions telling not asking

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Where to now We are ready for high tech. What will this look like? USING COMPUTERS IN CLASS TO SUPPORT SPEC PROGRAMME USING THE INTERNET STUDENTS USING AN IPAD

STUDENTS BRINGING THEIR TECHNOLOGY TO CLASS ie OWN IPADS EXPLORING THE USE OF COMMUNICATION DEVICES HIGH TECH STUDENTS FOLLOWING THEIR OWN VISUAL SCHEDULES TO BECOME INDEPENDENT LEARNERS AND WORKERS

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Resources that may be useful www.spec.org.nz www.boardmakershare.com www.clickspecialednz.com www.setbc.org/pictureset www.boowakwala.com www.starfall.com www.do2learn.com www.visualaidsforlearning.com www.helpkidzlearn.com You tube clips and links

links to areas of interest from Wiggles to Bob Marley

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Michelle Pointon email pm@tauhara.school.nz Brenda Pilkinton email: pb@tauhara.school.nz

Julie Tan Talklink email: Julie.Tan@talklink.org.nz

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