Bloghop Week 4 -5 Important Steps to Successfully Working with Paras

Paraprofessionals- where would we be without them in a special education classroom?

LOST- for sure as they can be our greatest resource for working with the children we do. Like every good relationship, it takes work. It takes training, teaching, love, compromise, feedback and good communication to run a room of students with disabilities and paraprofessionals as your right hand.

When I decided to move into teaching a self-contained Special Ed class, I was initially apprehensive about having to work with other adults in my room all the time. Prior to this I had only shared paraprofessionals when I taught resource classrooms.
 I have always known that my strength lay with working with children. But how would I do  working with adults too? Where do I start?  All I could think about was I can handle kids but how do I manage adults and be their friend and supervisor also?

One of the first places I decided to start  was to start was the same place I start for students.
 I knew I wanted to establish a good relationship with them and a safe and friendly environment for everyone to be in.  I wanted them to feel comfortable in the classroom. I wanted them to have a stake in how are kids performed. Here are some ideas in how I approach working with paraprofessionals.

Establish a relationship. Get to know the person.

I was very lucky in all the years I've worked in special education to have the advantage of knowing the person before I had to work with them in most cases but whether I knew the person or whether I was meeting them for the first time one of the first things I wanted to do was to get to know them better.
Share your story. What goals do you have for the classroom and the kids? Sometimes I did this in a casual way with just chatting with them in getting to know them other times I did this in a more formal way with a kind of get to
                                    know you form.
a.  Shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee chat ..well maybe not quite that close.
 Sometimes impromptu chats ended up being interrupted. I found it worked best if we set aside a time to chat and I shared that the goal of our chat would be for us to share with each other about our strengths and weaknesses and goals. Even for these chat, I would usually outline points I wanted to cover to make sure I asked about all the information I wanted.
 b.  Get Acquainted Form. Using a Get-to-know-your-form gave time to sit down at their convenience and reflect and give thoughtful answers. This usually gave me the most useful information and the information that they put on it could give me information about how they saw themselves what they felt their strengths and weaknesses were.  I also share an expectations list of things that are expected in their job, not only by me but in our Special Education department and school. If you would like a copy of the form and the expectations I used,you can get yours HERE.

Start with their strengths.  Everybody has strengths and weaknesses and paras are no different of course. When assigning tasks,  I selected an activity or task I knew would be an area of strength for them. Perhaps it would be something they shared with me they liked to do. The next thing I do is to look at where they think they are weak whether that is in things such as discipline, recording data,  in managing children with severe behavior issues, or changing diapers/pull ups. This might be something I observed or something they had shared with me was weakness.

Begin training immediately. 

One of the first areas I always share with paras, to begin training is the importance of confidentiality. Who we share information with and who we do NOT. The other important area to get to immediately is how to take data. Utilize all your resources at hand whether that is webinars videos one the one teaching training or even on the job training use your resources to give the information you need them to have.

Share Share Share
No, I don't mean share your toys like we tell students. Well...yes I do. Share your knowledge. Talk out loud. That may sound so funny to say, but how many teachers do so much  of their work mentally? I know that is the way I functioned at one time after spending some time teaching general education and having no paraprofessionals. I processed so much internally that I found I wasn't sharing with my paraprofessional partners enough.
Share your kids IEPs with the paras. Explain the goals and objectives. Share  the prompting levels, behavior plans, tokens systems because they are an integral part of your success and the success of your students.

Assess, reteach, adjust and GIVE FEEDBACK!
Give positive and constructive feedback. Set a time aside to give feedback and guidance to the paraprofessionals. We all like to hear whats going well. Share the good things you see. Share and reteach what isn't going as well. Adjust assigned tasks, students and classroom zones when needed.


Above all BE FLEXIBLE! But then with all we do in working with children with special needs - isn't that the name of that the name of the game?

Thanks for stopping by and keep on clicking through the Bloghop by clicking on the link below

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Blog Hop #3 Back to School Forms

Hi everybody and welcome back to the summer blog hop!
Hope your summers are going well!
What fun has everybody been having?

Some of the initial forms I use are those that I shared in Week 1 of our Bloghop such as class scheduling and staffing schedules, so be sure to go back if you missed them.

 After I have scheduled the day and where I want all the kids and paraprofessional(s) to be (see week one of this hop), its time to turn my attention to other Back To School forms I may need.
IEP TRACKING FORMS

One of the most important forms I  need each year is something to track goal/objective progress for the students. This one below if a quick and easy one with date and goals/objectives listed on the left hand side. I type the goals in bold font and the objective in regular font to differentiate between them quickly. The other side of the form has number correct/incorrect on work they have completed for that goal/objectives and a last column for comments written by the adult that worked with them on the skill.

I like to have several copies of these forms for each student and while it may not seem to be the most efficient, I provide copies to my paras as well as myself. This makes multiple copies but I do it because I have each adult meet with every student in some way every day and I want the data sheets to be totally accessible to them at the moment. This way everyone can record data as soon as it occurs. I tend to work this way just because of the makeup of my class each year. Some years I can place one set of forms in a central location and everyone can record on one form. 

SCHOOL/HOME COMMUNICATION FORMS

One of the most important forms I find during the year is the homeschool communication form. One of the most important forms for back to school I use is a Home/School Communication. This is a form I develop based on the needs of the students and parents each year to maintain daily communication of what their child is doing in the class. I frequently had at least one student in my class each year that was non-verbal and several others that while they could talk, had a difficult time sharing information with their parents about what went on at school. A form like the one above is an example of one I have used. It includes specifically selected portions of the students school day with checkoff items about that section in the box. For example, in the box for Communication, it might say "I used my Words today", "I used Picture symbols" or "I used Gestures". These are just the items I needed for the student I last used these with. 

I thought I would share several of the forms I have used with you. Depending on the makeup of my class, I occasionally use the same form for the entire class, but more often I make forms that fit each child and use those. Sometimes the forms for Home/School Communication are based on classroom activities such as this one below.

This form is set up for 2 weeks and is based on the theme for the classroom of YOU ARE A STAR! that I used that particular year. It is designed to be a quick number assessment system of reporting behavior to the parents on a daily basis. The behaviors on this form corresponded to our class rules and the form left room for both teacher and parent to write short notes if needed. 

These are the most important types of forms each year for me. Don't forget to hop through all of our blogs this week for great ideas for BTS forms.

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