Day 7 3/23/15

Blog 7 

3/23/15

 

During lab on Monday night I was assigned by Dr. MacDonald to work with Finny. After a few minutes of waiting Finny did not show up.  I was assigned to work with Tom whose student was Thomas.  After Thomas finished eating his Doritos we brought him into the dance studio.  When I first met Thomas he shook my hand and introduced himself. I was happy to see that he had good social skills when first meeting someone.  I am not sure if this was part of Toms affective domain or not but it was great to see! When we got into the dance studio Thomas was wondering around greeting everyone.  He seemed to be very stimulated with the mirror. We tried to have Thomas play soccer. He would pick up the ball and throw it. After a few minutes of that he wandered again. Tom said it was in his lesson plan to work with another group in an activity. Thomas didn't want to have any part of that though.  He wandered to the other gym where a classmate he didn't get along with was in.  We redirected Thomas out of the gym.  I work in an ABA program over the summer so I use this strategy often.  I simply placed my hand on his shoulder and walked between him and the classmate he didn't get along with.  After when he was in the hall he wondered down the hallway.  We attempted to use extinction and asked Thomas to tell us when he was ready to play. He again wondered down the hall near the elevator.  He then found the elevator button pushed it and refused to get out.  While in there he dropped and was noncompliant with the demand to get up.  Lesley the graduate assistant went in there and after a few minutes got Thomas out of the elevator.  By the time this happened the time for class was over.  Overall, I felt a little frustrated.  I did not know if we handled the situation correctly but I was unsure what else to do.  I know that Thomas had some time off from school so I'm not sure if this could have triggered it.  Today was challenging but I was glad I got to see how to handle challenging situations. 

Day 6 3/12/15

Blog 6

3/12/15

 

            Today me and my teammate worked with Jessica.  Jessica was very happy to be with us today!  After chatting with Dr. MacDonald and Jessica's parents and aids we decided that it would be a new and exciting experience to go onto the ice.  I have had a lot of experience with ice hockey but only some experience with sled hockey so I was excited to give it a shot!  It made me a little nervous at first because I have never transferred someone into a sled before.  The aid and I worked together to put her in the sled.  This took a few minutes because Jessica was very excited and when she gets like this her muscles tighten up and it makes it harder to transfer her.  Once we got her in the sled we all decided that it would be a good idea to have her wear a helmet just in case.  I had my friend Makenzie get a helmet out of the hockey locker room for Jessica.  Once we were all situated we started to go.  At first I pushed her holding onto the sled at all times.  I had Makenzie put her skates on.  Jessica enjoyed watching Makenzie skate about.  My friend Makenzie had never worked with anyone with a disability before so I could tell she was a little nervous.  After a few minutes I asked her if she wanted to push the sled.  She was hesitant but ended up doing great.  After she was comfortable I went and put on my skates.  We took turns pushing Jessica.  Eventually we would give her a slight push and let her glide on her own.  She was so happy!  She was laughing and smiling the whole time.  We put music on the speakers and skated around listening to country songs.  After our time was up it was time to transfer Jess back into her wheelchair.  She did not want to go back into it so she covered her face up with the jersey we gave her.  It was great to see she was having so much fun!  All in all this experience was great.  I was so happy to see that Jess was having so much fun.  This is something she doesn't get to do all the time so I was happy to share this experience with her.  I also thought it was a great experience for my friend Makenzie.  Working with someone with a disability was new for her.  She was nervous at first but after a while she was great! I was so happy to see her and Jessica have a great time. 

 

 

Day 5 3/9/15

Day 5

3/9/15

 

            Today I had planned to keep exploring Finny’s interest and capabilities.  I waited for him for about 15 minutes but he still didn't show. Dr. MacDonald, Lesley and Maddie told me to act as a T.A. and rotate from group to group and observe.  Since I am a T.A. in Dr. Crafts Friday afternoon 356 lab I knew what was expected from me. 

            I started out working with Zoey.  Today she was working on basketball. The component I observed worked on shooting the ball. Her teacher was practicing against the wall.  I thought this was a good strategy because often when children practice shooting at the basket they do not use proper form. This may be because they are worried about the product of getting he ball into the basket and not the process of correct form.  The teacher had two visuals taped up to the wall.  When Zoey was working on her shooting the teacher reminded her of the cues. She also asked various checking for understanding questions about the cues. One example of this is when she asked, “what about your elbow?”  The student responded, “it's supposed to be touching my side.”  I took a picture of the visual aids the teacher used, see the photos below.

 

            The next student I observed name was Brianna.  She was working on locomotor skills such as jumping, hopping, running, and even balancing.  She could jump holding a teachers hand 10 times in a row. She was a little uneasy about jumping without holding the teachers hand but could do this around 5 times.  She could balance and hop holding the teachers hand but was not comfortable doing this alone.  We also worked on throwing various objects. We used beanbags and balls.  The student could throw the objects against the wall and to a teacher. From what I observed she was still in the initial stage of throwing. I would consider her throw to be in the chop stage. She would throw the ball and chop her hand down on the same side of her body. She did not take any steps with the throw.  One activity I thought of that could help her throw would be putting footprints on the ground and have her move from the “T” position to a sideways position.

 

            Although I was disappointed that Finny was not able to make it tonight I was glad I got to observe other students. I learned a lot from watching these other groups and enjoyed seeing the kids do their best.  The teachers I observed did a great job as well!

 

Day 4 3/2/15

Day #4

3/2/15

 

                Today was the second day I worked with Finny.  When he arrived I met his parents and took him into one of the center gyms.  I discovered last time that Finny was distracted from other groups in the smaller gym.  The center gym today only had one other group.  I think this was better for Finny because he seemed to be over stimulated from others last class.  When the class began Finny was very excited about all the space he had available to him.  He decided to run in a circle and pretended I was chasing him.  I had set a demand on him to pick a piece of equipment to work with.  I decided to follow through on this demand and gave him a piece of equipment to manipulate.  He played with it for a few minutes then started running again.  I used the same strategy but this time with a scooter.  He laid down on his stomach and used his legs and arms to move about.  He kept saying he wanted to go faster so I had the idea to have him hold onto a jump rope and I could pull him.  This would still use his upper body muscles.  I pulled him around and used literacy words (fast and slow).  I would have Finny request if he wanted to go fast or slow.  He really enjoyed the scooter.  He would look at the floor and watch it go by.  I think this may have been stimulating for him.  I had the following question.  Was it okay to continue if this stimulated him?  I allowed him to do this because he was still doing what he was asked and it did not distract him from learning.  After the scooter Finny requested to play with a hula hoop.  I honored his request and had Maddy get a hula hoop for him.  He enjoyed throwing the hula hoops and even rolling it across the floor.  I demonstrated how to walk the dog.  He didn't like sharing the hula hoop but he tried to replicate this motion.  After a few minutes I told Finny it was time to move onto something new.  He did not want to give up the hula hoop.  I told him first bowling then hula hoop and he agreed.  After he bowled for a few minutes I let him use the hula hoop again for a few minutes.  I was using the hula hoop as a reward for positive behavior.  I did this again when it was time to move onto the spinner toy.  He did not want to sit in it but he did like to spin it on his own.  We also put objects in the spinner and watched them spin around.  This is the way I cleaned up at the end of the lesson.  After we cleaned up we finished doing group stretches in the Rockwall gym.  All in all I am starting to figure out what motivates Finny.  Today was a successful day.        

Day 3 2/23/15

Day #3

2/23/15

 

                I switched to the Monday night lab from 6-7 with Dr. MacDonald because they needed extra help.  I was assigned to work with a little boy named Finny.  My goal today was to explore what Finny's capabilities were.  I wanted to see what he enjoyed to play with to aid me in the rest of the semester.  I of course came in with a safety statement.  The safety statement read, "Throughout the lesson, Finny will remain in his self-space, he will be aware of his surrounding and show respect to himself, the teacher, his classmates and the equipment."  I think it was important to include both physical safety as well as emotional safety. 

                Finny arrived a little late but he was excited to get started.  He was very excited that he was going to get to go swimming.  I brought him into the Rockwall Gymnasium for today's lesson.  There was quite a few groups in this gym.  I believe that this may have distracted Finny a little bit.  He kept looking at other groups and wanted to manipulate their equipment.  I tried different strategies such as having Finny look towards a wall instead of towards the middle of the gym.  I also gave him choices of the equipment I had out so he felt he was in control.  He liked throwing objects up in the air and watching them fall to the ground.  I gave him different objects such as beanbags and balls to manipulate.  I also introduced throwing scooper instruments that he really enjoyed using.  He was very excited about going swimming so I tried to have him "warm up" for swimming.  I asked him to repeat me by warming up our swimming legs by doing various kicking motions.  He was not interested in doing this and decided to dart to a different group.  I redirected him to the area we were assigned to and had him give it a try again.  He tried it for a few seconds and then stopped.  It was good to discover something he didn't like as well.  I was happy that he gave it a try.  At the end we did a group stretch.  Finny did a great job during this.  He tried his best to repeat what the head teacher was doing.  I used tactile modeling to help Finny get into the right positions.  After the group stretch I met Finny's parents and we brought him down to the pool.  As I debrief I am very happy about Finny's capabilities.  He enjoyed a lot of the equipment and activities I brought to the table.  I think next class I will try to find a space with less distraction.        

Day 2: 2/10/15

Day #2

2/10/15

                Today was our first day with the students.  Before the class began the teachers separated and set up the stations they were assigned last class.  The pre-class setup for Hannah and I involved setting up for the sliding and dribbling stations.  We used two cones and placed them about 25 feet apart on a line for sliding.  For dribbling we had both a playground ball and a basketball for students to use.  Before class Hannah and I studied the performance criteria for the slide and dribble to make it easier to see the whole skill during class.  The performance criteria for the slide included body turned sideways so shoulders are aligned with the line on the floor, a step sideways with lead foot followed by a slide of the trailing foot to point next to the lead foot, a minimum of 4 continuous step-slide cycles to the right and left.  For the dribble the performance criteria included the following.  Contacts ball with one hand at about belt level, pushes ball with fingertips (not a slap) Ball contacts surface in front of or to the outside of foot on the preferred side.  Maintains control of ball for four consecutive bounces without having to move the feet to retrieve it.

                When the students started to arrive the first thing that happened was the students received their name tags in the hallway.  Then they entered the gym and we directed them to take a seat at the back of the gym.  During the introduction all the teachers introduced themselves by saying their names.  We explained to the students that today we were going to be assessing some of their skills.  We put it into their terms by saying looking how good you are at skills such as running, jumping, throwing, catching, etc.  After the introduction each teaching pair took 1-2 students back to their station with them.  When we were at the station we had the kids sit down.  We allowed to pick which skill they wanted to do first.  After they chose we would demonstrate what we wanted to see.  After this we would have the kids do two trails and evaluate them using a chart.  It was quite difficult to see all of the criteria during one trial.  However, as more students went I found myself beginning to become more natural at looking at their skills.  One thing today that was confusing was the rotation of the students.  We did not have a list of all the students so it was difficult to see who had been to what station.  We just worked our best to get through the assessments quickly but also thoroughly.  At the end of the lesson to close things down we did a cleanup activity to clean all the equipment up we also played red light green light.  Finally we did some group static stretching and finished up with a cheer.  All in all today seemed a little scrambled but we did get the data we needed to teach.