Do you ever feel that there are times where your brain has all these letters just floating around? That is totally how I have felt this week as I have finished the second week of my new job. My days are filled with reviewing student’s Special Education Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) from their Admit, Review and Dismissal (or ARD) that uses information from their Full Individual Evaluation (FIE) to determine the appropriate placement and services.
So what does all of that mean for me? I’m getting to know the ins and outs of the “formal” sides of my students. I am learning where they are supposed to be versus where they are academically and basically anything and everything that makes them who they are. What am I not learning while going through these mounds of paperwork? I’m not learning what makes them tick. I’m not learning what excites them. I am not learning what they need help with.
To help make things a bit easier for me, I created an IEP At A Glance form that I have put in the beginning of each of my student’s folders that I keep so I don’t have to dig through the entire file each time. Guess what, I am sharing it with you today for FREE! Feel free to download it here and leave me a comment so I know it is of benefit to you!
In the virtual setting our Class Connect times are crucial not only to implement accommodations and modifications to help each of my students be successful but also to learn more about them. I am loving EVERY MINUTE of Class Connect times and am looking forward to some new optional times I have created with another teacher to help our students be more successful in Pre-Algebra.
This past week I was asked to work one-on-one with a student on Inverse Operations which sparked me to start using my classroom blog again to help my students. Then in our second Class Connect session this week Scientific Notation came up and we worked through the steps together before I sent them the Flippable that I created to help keep track of the steps and examples in converting standard and scientific notations.
Not only am I loving working with my students in these settings but in this short amount of time my students, and their learning coaches, are already seeing improvements in their willingness to learn. How awesome is that?