Teaching Autism and Special Education by Nikki

I am so excited to sharing my top 5 teacher planning tips with you in this podcast episode. If you follow me on social media, or even on here, you'll know I love to plan. I'm a very over the top planner. But it honestly makes my life so much easier when I have things set up and planned out ready. Especially if I need to take some last minute time off. I could easily talk about planning for days on...

Many of us are still virtual teaching - or we're about to go back virtual teaching. So I thought today I would share 5 ways to take data during virtual teaching that will help make your life easier! Data is a huge part of our jobs. We need it for so many different reasons in the classroom - but it can be really stressful too. And one of the ways to make it extra stressful, is to get us to take it...

Today on the podcast I am sharing 5 parent teacher relationship breakdown tips (plus a bonus!) for you. This is a really important topic because it’s a situation that pretty much everyone may find themselves in at some point or another in their career. Maybe you will have a parent teacher relationship breaks down - or maybe you’ve never been able to build a relationship with them and it is just co...

Have you been wondering about using virtual field trips in special education? If so, this podcast episode today is the perfect listen for you. My students love to go on field trips. And we usually go on one every week. This works well for us - it breaks up our week,. gets us outside and into different environments. But with everything going on, we haven't been able to go on any field trips. And th...

I'm always getting asked how to use social narratives with our students - either in school or at home. So I decided to dedicate this podcast episode today to talk all about them and to share my experience with them. I have been using social narratives with my students for as long as I can remember. And they're something that I use every year, without fail. They're a staple in my planning. That's n...

Today on the podcast I am sharing some tips for improving teacher mental health. This weekend was World Mental Health Day. And it was both saddening and amazing to talk to educators all around the world who have struggled with mental health, mainly because of our chosen career. Recent research and reports state that 1 in 20 teachers will have mental health struggles that last for over a year becau...

Lots of you have been asking for ways you can be using paraprofessionals for distance learning. In this quick episode I'm sharing different ideas and ways to use your assistants to help take some of the workload off you, and have a positive and successful year as a team. The main thing that I say to anyone who asks me this question is to look at your assistants as your team. Everyone brings someth...

I am so excited today to share my autism behavior unit success with you all. I currently work part time as an autism specialist in a behavior unit in America. We have staff who specialize in different areas working together as a team with students who are deemed to have beaviors that are too challenging or aggressive for their current school environment. We bring them to our unit and work with the...

I'm so excited today to be sharing some ideas for how you can be celebrating students birthdays online this year. I don't know about you but every year I look forward to being able to celebrate my students birthdays with them in the classroom. But with us now being virtual, it's a little different and we've had to make some changes. After having so many questions from you guys on social media abou...

Today on the podcast I'm talking with Lisa Honold all about cyber safety and screen time management. Lisa is a cyber safety expert  and certified parent educator who teaches parents how to stop fighting with kids over screen time so they can get back to having fun together. As the Director for the Center for Online Safety, Lisa's work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal and she facil...

I am so excited to welcome Cassie from Adventures in Behavior to the podcast today to talk all about using ABA in instruction. Cassie is in her 8th year as a special education teacher and has previously been on the podcast to talk all things behavior when she was working as a behavior specialist teacher. In 2019 she swapped roles to work a middle school functional academics classroom. Alongside be...

Today on the podcast I’m talking all about ways that you can keep your students active during online learning.   Online learning poses a lot of challenges for us. One of these is being able to keep our students engaged and actively participating in our online lessons. We all know how hard that can be for our students in the classroom.. Never mind through a computer screen. One of the best way...

Today in this podcast episode I’m talking all about reward systems for online learning. Almost every student responds positively to having a reward system in place. And in your classroom, you may have a whole class reward system, or you may have individual reward systems, or you may even have both. My biggest tip to remember for online learning, is that it’s similar to being in the classroom in so...

In this podcast episode I am sharing my top 10 best tips for helping you and your students prepare for returning to the classroom after school closures. It's safe to say that the last few months have been a little bit crazy for all of us. Schools closures and distance learning have meant that we have all had to get used to a whole new style of teaching. And now we're all making plans for the new s...

This school year is probably going to look different for all of us. But one thing I'm seeing is how anxious a lot of us are about schools re-opening. So today on the podcast I'm sharing questions to ask for schools re-opening. I sat down - over a Zoom session - to speak to a bunch of special educator friends, and this is a comprehensive list of questions we've come up with for you to ask your scho...

One of the biggest struggles I'm hearing from autism and special education teachers right now is keeping students engaged for distance learning. And I admit, I struggled at first too. How was I going to keep them engaged and learning over a computer screen? Thankfully, after some problem solving and taking a short break, I was able to set up a plan that worked really well for me and my students. A...

With distance learning set to continue in some shape or form, a lot of teachers I know are worried about building relationships with new students. And I know how you feel. We usually visit students in other schools if they're moving, have taster days where they come to visit us. We have meet the teacher night.. And so many opportunities for us to get to know our new students. But this year, all of...

One of the most important parts of distance learning is communicating with families of our students. For me, personally, I have found that distance learning was such a success because we had that strong, ongoing communication between us. And in this podcast episode I'm going to be sharing my best tips for communicating with families during distance learning. What Am I Talking About? In this episod...

Today on the podcast I am sharing my special education distance learning experience with you. If you follow me on Instagram you’ll have seen recently that I’ve been getting a bunch of questions, and while I’ve been doing my best to answer them all, I’ve also noticed that a lot of the questions are pretty similar. So, I’ve been doing some Q&As on my Instagram stories to answer them. If you don’...

In today's podcast episode I am sharing my top 5 visuals for the classroom. Whether you work in a special ed classroom, an autism classroom, or even a general ed classroom. Visuals are beneficial to everyone. The 5 visuals that I am discussing today are the ones that I have found to be the most beneficial with my students. Please keep in mind that all of our students are different - and what works...

Today on the podcast, I'm talking all about why teaching fine motor skills is so important. I recently touched on this lightly over on my Instagram but I had a lot of requests to go more in depth. Which is why I'm bringing you this episode today. What Am I Talking About? In this episode, I am talking about; What fine motor skills are. The difference between fine motor and gross motor skills. Why d...

Today on the podcast I'm talking all about how to use a word wall in the classroom. I see so many teachers and classrooms set up word walls, but then get lost in how to use one - and how often they should be using them. On the Podcast Today In today's podcast episode, I am talking all about; What is a word wall? How to use one. Benefits of having one. How to set one up. If you should have one. Do...

I'm often asked for ideas and advice for managing behaviors during recess. A lot of us assume that all of our students love being outside for playtime or recess. But, often, it's the time where we can see most of the challenging behaviors from our students. In today's podcast episode, I'm sharing my best tips and advice with you for how you can help manage and reduce behaviors during recess. Today...

In today's podcast episode I'm sharing my special education class schedule. This is something that's requested from me a lot. And the main reason I don't give it to you all exactly like I do it, is because everyone is different. All of our students, classes and school days are different. Which means there's not one perfect schedule for us to use with our students. In this episode, I'm sharing a lo...

One of the most common questions that I get asked are for teacher resource prep tips. How to make resource prep quicker? Or easier? Over the years, I've pretty much tried everything you can imagine. And so today I'm sharing my top 10 best tips for how you can make resource prep a less daunting task in your classroom - including how to use your members of staff too. What Am I Talking About? My top...