Autism Classroom Resources Podcast: A Podcast for Special Educators

Have you ever had a family who questioned your experience? If you are a teacher or related service provider, especially if you have been doing this for a bit, you probably have. Think about it. You go to the dr.  An expert in their field.  You see diplomas and certificates on their wall, right?  Where do you see that in a classroom? How is a parent to know what your qualifications a...

IEP mastery criteria is the unsung hero (or dastardly villain) in IEP writing. We don't think about it nearly as much as we probably should. And there are so many ways it can help us or hurt us down the road as we actually are trying to teach the skills from the IEP. We tend to slap on 80% or 4/5 on the end of the goal call it done.  But, the mastery level can be one of the biggest area of di...

Do you write enabling goals? Goals that enable students to access the curriculum more effectively?  Episode 36 focuses on writing enabling IEP goals that focus on how a student accesses the curriculum more than the curriculum that is taught.  Essentially, curriculum should be taught whether it's on the IEP or not.  But the IEP should provide individualized goals that allow students...

As school closures continue, we all need to find manageable ways to support instruction at home for our students in special education.  I can feel and hear the stress weighing on families and educators the longer this goes on, particularly for students in special education. Fitting instruction into their day at home can be tough.  Especially since many parents are working from home and o...

As we continue on this journey of distance learning in special education as part of the Covid 19 school closures, we come upon the need to hold virtual IEP meetings.  Many schools hold the majority of their IEP meetings near the end of the school year to prepare for the next year.  So one of the questions I  have heard recently is how to run a virtual IEP meeting. This episode share...

In Episode 33, during the school closures from COVID-19, one of the questions I get asked frequently is how to involve paraprofessionals in the distance learning efforts of their classrooms.  Everyone is on a completely different page and different platform, so we need a variety of strategies. I've shared 7 ideas in this episode. Find transcript, notes and links at http://autismclassroomresou...

So, I had a few things I wanted to say.  I hope they don't sound too sappy.  But I think it's important to recognize the hard work that educators are doing.  This isn't a substantive episode, which is why I made it a bonus.  It's wed to the time in which it was recorded.  But I wanted to share that there is a new blog post with resources for online teaching available. &nbs...

Whether you are educators or family member, if you live in the U.S. in the time this is written, you've likely been asked to "home school" your child with support from your child's teacher.  Coping with this type of home schooling when it wasn't expected is not an easy thing for educators or families.   Episode 32 has tips for both families and educators in managing this completely new e...

The need to use distance learning with our students to span this school closure from Covid19 is very clear at this point.  It’s amazing that just last week in episode 30 , I was talking about how to prepare your students for leaving school…and many of you never got to see your students before you knew you were shutting down.  Now I am talking about distance learning and how to do it over...

Whether you are in the midst of this particular pandemic closure (Covid-19) or are just experiencing closures due to a regular flu epidemic or extended weather closings, I think this episode will still hold up with tips for preparing your students to leave and return from school.  It also may give you some ideas of things to send home with students and ways to communicate with families during...

In episode 29 I'm talking about 3 specific behavior management strategies for groups or classrooms that are effective and practical to implement.  They will work in general and special education settings.  And most importantly they are based on the research about the good foundations of classroom management in the classroom that I discussed in episode 28.   Highlights: Discussion of...

In Episode 28, I want to help you create a classroom management plan that serves you and your students well.  As with most things in teaching, effective classroom management is likely to change dependent on the makeup of the classroom. And for that reason, I think sometimes it's a little harder for special ed teachers than general ed teachers, because the diversity of our students are so sign...

In Episode 27, I am talking about making positive reinforcement systems to use positive reinforcement in the classroom.  If you have listened or read the blog at any point, you know I love a good system.  Systems make the classroom run with much less thought and decision making throughout the day.  And that allows us to focus on the actual instruction we need to do. So today I’ve got some guidelin...

In this episode I'm busting 5 common myths about reinforcers and reinforcement.  It's amazing how much misinformation is out there about the use of reinforcement in the classroom.  Whether it's that reinforcement makes students dependent on it or this student doesn't have a reinforcer, I'm sharing the facts and the reasons why reinforcement is the fundamental underpinning of so much of o...

Reinforcement is such a critical element for special education classrooms. Yet we don't spend much time talking about it.  Reinforcement underlies most of our effective instructional strategies, but sometimes we leave teachers by just saying "reinforce him" without making sure everyone is on the same page about what that means. Highlights of Episode 25: Defining reinforcement of all kinds Tip...

In this episode I share 5 tips for systems you can use in your classroom. These tips can help you delegate more effectively. In other words, if you are like me and have a hard time giving up responsibility, I’ve got some suggestions for you (and me). The tips will also help you set up systems in the classroom that will increase productivity of all the adults in the area where they are needed. And...

This episode of the podcast (episode 23) will focus on training staff effectively and tips for getting it done in the classroom.  As we all know the days of paraprofessional making copies and filling in for office work are done…and we cannot do the jobs we do in our special education classrooms, or support students in general education classrooms without the help of paraprofessionals. But I k...

IEP data collection is one of the most difficult things that I hear teachers trying to figure out.  Let’s face it, everyone tells you to take data, but few people actually walk through how to do it. So in this episode, I want to walk you through what the 3 things that we need our data collection to be and why those things are important.  But more significantly I’m going to walk you throu...

This episode was pulled from our Special Educator Academy (SEA) Show, one of 2 of the members-only podcasts that are part of the membership.  I hope you enjoy a taste from SEA. Perseveration is when someone gets stuck on a topic, a phrase, or an object and can’t move on to other things. This episode will talk about how to address different types of perseveration based on the potential functio...

This episode is drawn directly from the Monday Morning Inspirations members-only podcast for the Special Educator Academy.  I'm focusing on why and how taking a break during the school holidays or over the summer can make you a better teacher.  Get a taste of our inspirational and leadership podcast (1 of 2 podcasts members can access) from the Special Educator Academy and a reminder of...

So today I want to talk about our last step, which is implementing and monitoring our plan. It's important to remember that this process really uses the scientific method in the method that we're using, in a naturalistic assessment which is what we've been talking about, is going to involve implementing it, monitoring it, and verifying your hypotheses based on your interventions. And I think that...

Even if we have the most kickin' plan on the planet for this student with tons of preventive strategies and replacement skills being taught, the behavior is still going to occur at some point. And so it’s critically important this we write out this part of the plan for everyone to follow consistently.   This episode will outline what to include and why it's important. Highlights What str...

As I noted in the last episode it is important that we teach skills that serve the function of the behavior from our functional behavior assessment (FBA).  However, only teaching those skills is wasting a lot of the information that our FBA gained for us.  Based on our ABC data and our hypothesis statements, we also have behavioral skills that can be taught to address responding to the a...

In Episode 16 I am focusing on replacement behaviors.  I'll share What replacement behaviors are,  How they can make or break your behavior management; What characteristics are important in choosing them; And how to implement them so they work. LINKS: Autism Classroom Resources Episode 16 Special Educator Academy Free Facebook Group --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/autismcl...

In this episode, Episode 15, I address the preventive components part of the plan. I'll give you some examples. And I'll talk about why they are important to both offset setting events and to help our students cope better with potential triggers in their environment. In this episode What are prevention strategies in behavior support plans? The two paths of prevention: addressing setting events and...