Taskbox Time: More Vocational and Life Skills Tasks

Earlier this week we discussed Vocational Tasks and School-based Jobs to help students prepare for life after graduation (Find that post here: Around Town Round Up: Vocational Activities at School). Sometimes students are not ready for jobs that require a sequence of multi-step tasks. They may still need to focus on completing a multi-step task in a structured work format. Luckily we see lots of examples of these tasks as well so we have gathered them in today's Taskbox Time.


Food Service Tasks
ALIST partner Brittany Wendling at Valley Elementary in Beavercreek shared some of the food service tasks her students practice. including organizing food on a lunch tray, sorting foods by food group, and sorting utensils.

Clerical Tasks
Brittany also shared a variety of clerical tasks including filing index cards by date, creating packets, and stuffing envelopes.

A very special thank you to Brittany Wendling for sharing these awesome vocational tasks with our team!



For more vocational task ideas don't miss our previous post:

Taskbox Time: Vocational and Life Skills Tasks

And check out our favorite book of vocational tasks: 

Tasks Galore for the Real World

Around Town Round Up-- Vocational Activities at School

Often when we work with our middle school and high school teams they are planning ahead for their students' vocational needs. It is important that students have a variety of opportunities to explore and practice vocational skills before they graduate in order to determine their career-readiness. Most of our teams implement a mix of community and school-based vocational activities. Today's Around Town Round Up will focus on some of our favorite school-based activities.

When first implementing vocational activities, many of our teachers use a rotating system where they provide a pre-determined number of activities or jobs and students take turns each week completing the assigned tasks. 

Lisa Bauer's students at Northmont Middle School collect and organize box tops, prepare crayon baggies for Frisch's, and crush cans for recycling. 

While the students in Allysson Rudnicki's classroom at Tipp High School work together to run their classroom coffee cart. Each student wears a lanyard which provides the steps one needs to complete for each job. 

As students become proficient in the vocational tasks, some teachers begin an interview process where students are allowed to choose what they want to do based on a provided job description. This further develops their independence and prepares them for life after graduation. 

At Tri-Village High School, Karyn Smith provides her students with job descriptions that can also serve as task lists once the student is hired. 

In Robbie Whorton's class at Trotwood-Madison High School, job descriptions are posted for students to interview. Then, each day they need to check off their time sheet to ensure they are paid for the work they complete. 

The team at Springfield High School recently implemented the Practical Assessment Exploration System (PAES) Lab which is a highly structured, pre-made system of tasks and assessments to determine career readiness in a variety of fields including: Construction/Industrial, Processing/Production, Consumer/Service, Business/Marketing, and Computer Technology. Student progress is tracked and used to create employment profiles that can be used during an interview with a potential employer.

Each task is color coded in a designated box. Inside each box contains all necessary supplies as well as a task card.

For more information about the PAES Lab visit their website: Practical Assessment Exploration System (PAES)


For more ideas on vocational tasks and classroom jobs, check out our previous posts:

Organization Station: Classroom Job Displays

Taskbox Time: Vocational and Life Skills Tasks

Taskbox Time: More Vocational and Life Skills Tasks (accessible 1/30/2020)

ALIST Spotlight- Jackie Renegado, MCESC

The Autism and Low-Incidence Coaching Team had the pleasure of working with MCESC Occupational Therapist Jackie Renegado when she was working at MCESC Learning Center West in 2014. At that time our team was so impressed with Jackie’s ability to advocate for her educational team, prioritize sensory modulation in meeting student needs, and leadership in creating fantastic sensory rooms at LC-West. For these reasons, Jackie was nominated for our A-LIST (Autism and Low-Incidence Support Team).

Since becoming a member of our A-LIST, Jackie has continued to serve MCESC in a new capacity as a Social Emotional Specialist. Jackie shared that the goal of the MCESC SEL Program is to help organizations create trauma informed/integrated social emotional learning environments where ALL students and staff feel safe and supported, where relationships become the driving force to heal and build resilience and where social emotional learning can be a center of focus. 

Current Role

Specifically her role includes supervision of MCESC SEL consultants assigned to area districts, leading professional development, and consulting with school district teams to create TI/SEL systems. 

The work of Jackie’s team is guided by:

1. The National Council for Behavioral Health
2.  The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL)
3. The Neuroscience work of Dr. Perry and the Child Trauma Academy.   

Governor DeWine’s Pediatric  Mental Health Summit on Trauma Informed Schools
facilitated by Oh Education Supt Paolo DMaria (Sept 2019)

Strategies

Jackie shares that TI/SEL systems center around implementation of strong foundational tier 1 whole child supports such as: 

1. Nurturing and responsive environments that focus on stress management/calming the stress response system
• Examples:  meeting basic physiological needs, supporting sensory systems, implement mindfulness/breathing techniques, using rhythmic repetitive movements, and establishing clear expectations with visual supports

2. Creating attuned relationships and connections between adults/adults, adults/students, and students/students
• Examples: restorative practices, community building circles, student voice/surveys, greetings, check-in/outs, and co-regulation

3. Modeling/teaching the CASEL SEL competencies  of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationships, and responsibility decision making through implicit/explicit teaching of the ohio state standards

·         Examples: SELLA, Zones of Regulation, Second Step, emotion wheels, upstairs/downstairs brain

Student Population

Trauma informed/SEL integrated systems are not just for students who are currently experiencing or have experienced adversity or trauma.  Jackie explains that this framework develops skills necessary to build resiliency so that individuals are prepared to face future adverse situations. 

   

We are so excited to see a member of our A-LIST go on to advocate for students in a new position in such powerful ways. Congratulations, Jackie!

Organization Station- Learning Center Rotations

When coaching teams we often encounter teachers who are struggling to meet the diverse needs of their students are various academic levels. Often, we recommend implementing learning center rotations for part of the school day so that teachers can plan differentiated instruction for small groups of students to ensure individualized needs are met. An added benefit of small group instruction during learning center rotations is higher engagement in learning and frequently it makes managing behaviors more effective and less disruptive. Today's Organization Station provides some of our favorite examples from across the Miami Valley. 

Effective implementation of learning center rotations requires planning. For ideas on planning for staff and students check out our previous post on Scheduling Center Rotations.

Once a plan has been determined, provide students with visual supports to help with knowing where they need to go. For some students, a basic list of centers and labeled locations provides enough information for them to transition successfully.

Janel Speelman
Preble County ESC Alternative School

Shanon Vance
Valley Forge Elementary, Huber Heights

Laura Boyd
Valley View Elementary, Valley View

Kleptz ELC

Some teachers make interactive displays so that student groups and locations can be changed each day. 

Mandy Guilmain
Stevenson Elementary, Mad River

We love how the example below shows the general class rotation schedule and also a mini-schedule for a student who needed more individualize support to help with transitioning to the correct location.

Pam Locker
Washington Primary, Piqua

When a group of students need assistance with transitioning during rotations, implementing a location-based schedule can be beneficial. A location-based schedule requires students to take an icon (such as the colored shapes or colored name strips shown below) and match it to the designated location during the transition. 

Jackie Vollmer
Driscoll Elementary, Centerville 

Robbie Whorton
Demmitt Elementary, Vandalia

For more great examples of ways to organize learning center rotations check out our previous post:

Organizing Centers Time

Communication Corner: Peer-Mediated Instruction and Intervention (PMII)

Peer-mediated Instruction and Intervention (PMII) is an evidence-based strategy used to teach neuro-typical peers how to support and engage in social interactions with students who have Autism Spectrum Disorders. The goal of PMII is for the student with ASD to acquire a broader range of age-appropriate social skills by increasing peer interactions within natural contexts such as playgroups, lunch or recess. There are multiple programs for implementing PMII, but all involve systematic training and coaching of peers in various strategies for engaging in social interactions with students with ASD. In today's Communication Corner we will explain the 5 steps to building an effective Peer-Mediated Instruction and Intervention.

Step 1

Select an available and willing student (or students) who will model good behavior, communication and social skills. Some teams look for volunteers interested in helping others. It can also be helpful to find peers that share common interests with the student being supported.

Step 2

Train the selected peer(s), how they can best support the social interactions of the student with ASD. Some of the training may be general information about autism. There are a variety of great books available to introduce common characteristics. We particularly like the following for young students.

  



For older students, the following titles are great.

 


In many cases, it is recommended that the peer training includes specific information about the student whom will be supported such as ways they communicate, any unexpected behaviors that may arise, and information about special interests.

Angie Kleinhans
Stebbins High School, Mad River

Step 3

Provide ongoing feedback to the peers and give additional supports, such as scripts as needed. Give peers the opportunity to brainstorm ways that can further support their student. 

Rachel Engle
Horace Mann Elementary, Springfield

Also use feedback to plan for additional instruction to the student being supported to assist them in interacting with their peer buddy. 

Annette Baker
Miami East Elementary, Miami East

Nancy Cera
Brookville Elementary, Brookville

Taylor Ruef
Stevenson Elementary, Mad River

Step 4
Implement the practice sessions through a variety of settings and classroom activities. We love this example of an interactive art activity where students provide directions to peers on how to do an apple rolling pin project using AAC and picture-supported communication.

Step 5
Teach the student with ASD to transfer and generalize the learned skills across the day to a variety of natural situations such as jobs, daily routines, recess time, or sensory breaks.

Emily Ottmar
Brantwood Elementary, Mad River

For more information, visit and view the PMII Modules at www.autisminternetmodule.org and https://afirm.fpg.unc.edu/