Organization Station-- Classroom Layout

August is in full swing and many of our teams are busy preparing for students to arrive soon. We wanted to focus today's Organization Station on one of the first steps of organizing the classroom and that is Classroom Layout.

When planning your classroom layout, it is important to plan ahead. The classroom should have clearly defined locations for the followng:

• whole group instruction
• small group instruction
• one-on-one instruction
• structured/independent work
• free time/indoor recess/reward breaks
• sensory breaks
• technology

There may be some age-specific areas included in your classroom layout as well. For instance, preschool classrooms may have areas for dramatic play, naps, and sensory play while high school classrooms may have areas for vocational tasks. 

In some classes, an area of the classroom may need to serve multiple purposes such as using a kidney table for whole group or for small group depending on the time of day. Below we have compiled some of the best examples we have seen across the Miami Valley for each location.

Whole Group Instruction

Many teams at the preschool or elementary level have a carpet area for whole group activities such as GoNoodle, calendar, or whiteboard activities.

Angela Crum
Fairbrook Elementary, Beavercreek

Keelin DiMuccio
Fairbrook Elementary, Beavercreek

Emily Ottmar
Stevenson Elementary, Mad River

A large table, such as a kidney table, is also a great place for whole or small group instruction.

Small Group Instruction

One-on-One Instruction

Jessica Ward
Rolling Hills Elementary, Northeastern

Jamie Minnish
Prass Elementary, Kettering

Rebecca Lemons
Miamisburg Middle School, Miamisburg

Structured/Independent Work
Larger classrooms can often accommodate for each student to have their own work space.

Pandy Pugh
Indian Riffle Elementary, Kettering

Smaller classrooms may need to have a designated independent work station if they do not have the room for every student to have their own work space.

Carrie Prickett
Jane Chance Elementary, Miamisburg

Taylor Ruef
Stevenson Elementary, Mad River

Free Time/Indoor Recess/Reward Breaks
Designating where students should spend play and leisure time as well as clearly communicating when they are allowed to play is an important classroom management strategy.

Jessica Ward
Rolling Hills Elementary, Northeastern

Toni Mallott
Jane Chance Elementary, Miamisburg

Taylor Ruef
Stevenson Elementary, Mad River

Jamie Minnish
Prass Elementary, Kettering

Brittany Sword
Valley Elementary, Beavercreek

Sensory Breaks
Many students benefit from a quiet area where they can get a break from the sensory demands of the classroom. In some buildings, this may be a designated room. When a building does not have this space available or when a teacher wants an area that is quickly accessible, they may create a sensory space within the classroom.

Pandy Pugh
Indian Riffle Elementary, Kettering

Kendall Koehler
Normandy Elementary, Centerville 

Keelin DiMuccio
Fairbrook Elementary, Beavercreek

Traci Parker
Forest Elementary, Troy

Bobbi Jo Chapman
Snyder Park Elementary, Springfield

Jamie Zimmer
Kettering Middle School, Kettering

 For some students, a quiet location within the room with reduced visual stimuli is helpful.

Beth Young
Snyder Park Elementary, Springfield

Technology
Some classrooms have a designated location for technology such as a computer station or iPad area.

Jennifer McGowan
Smith Middle School, Vandalia

Peggy Ristau
Brookville Intermediate, Brookville

Other classrooms have technology stored in a designated location and when it is time for students to use the technology they can take it to another area.

Megan Kelly
Beavertown Elementary, Kettering

It is important when dividing up the classroom into clearly defined locations to use visual and physical boundaries. Sometimes these are static such as positioning of furniture or shelving. Other times, we see teams use portable dividers that can be adjusted throughout the day based on the number of locations being used and distractibility of students.

Laurie Maravetz
Schaefer Middle School, Springfield

Ramel Mitchell
Kyle Elementary, Troy 

Marissa Calhoun
Fairbrook Elementary, Beavercreek

Jamie Minnish
Prass Elementary, Kettering

Before moving furniture around, consider creating a layout plan. You can create a plan in Powerpoint or visit one of these free online resources:

Scholastic Class Set Up Tool

Classroom Architect

The Library Story Virtual Room Designer

Around Town Round Up-- Reinforcement for Task Completion

Reinforcement is an essential component to motivating students with ASD and other disabilities. It increases the likelihood that the student will perform a target skill or behavior in the future. Task completion is an important target skill for many students and therefore we have found a variety of great reinforcement systems related to task completion to feature on today's Around Town Round Up. These examples include a variety of ability and grade levels and can be modified to meet the needs of any learner.

Some work completion reinforcement systems use pictures and words to correlate with the tasks needing to be completed. In this example, students complete the activities pictured on the left and move them to the right as they are finished. At the end, they get a free choice period symbolized by the question mark card.

Susie Stoner
Bradford Elementary, Bradford

These picture icons correspond with taskboxes to be completed before the student gets the chosen keyboard toy.

Lindsey Woods
Fairborn Primary, Fairborn

For older students or students with strong reading skills, task lists can be used to communicate what tasks need to be completed.

Robbie Whorton
Trotwood-Madison HS, Trotwood

Emily Ottmar
Stevenson Elementary, Mad River Local Schools

Some reinforcement systems use tokens to symbolize the number of tasks to be completed. Tokens can be removed as the task is finished.

Jennifer McGowan
Smith Middle School, Vandalia

Brittany Sword
Valley Elementary, Beavercreek

Visual Supports provide structure for students to know what items or activities they can work for. Choice boards can be at a designated break location or they may be part of the reinforcement system visual supports.

Emily Ottmar
Stevenson Elementary, Mad River Local Schools

Jennifer McGowan
Smith Middle School, Vandalia

Lindsey Woods
Fairborn Primary, Fairborn

Don't miss out on our other posts for Reinforcement Systems!

• Reinforcement Systems
• MORE Reinforcement Systems

ALIST Spotlight-- Brittany Sword, Valley Elementary, Beavercreek

Another one of our fabulous new inductees into our ALIST (Autism and Low Incidence Support Team) is Brittany Sword at Valley Elementary in Beavercreek City Schools. Prior to our coaching, Brittany already had tons of great supports for her students already in place. There is evidence of best practice teaching everywhere you look in Brittany's classroom so we have so many great ideas to share in today's ALIST Spotlight.

Brittany has done an excellent job arranging her room with clear physical boundaries to help students know where they need to be and to help limit wandering.

Brittany increases this physical structure using flexible dividers which is a wonderful support for students who struggle to stay in the designated learning area or who may be easily distracted by the sensory-rich classroom environment.

In addition to physical supports, Brittany uses location-based interactive visual schedules to help students with transitions and to provide the expectation of where they need to be. Students take a schedule card off their schedules and place them in the cup at the corresponding location.

Her schedules are some of the most well differentiated schedules we have ever seen! Difficulty ranges from matching color cards to the schedule location color, matching picture icons, or matching words. 

Brittany is also a master at differentiating learning activities. For her circle time, Brittany uses the Interactive Calendar Activities from Autism Adventures. These activities range from a simple calendar book, a calendar file folder, or a daily calendar worksheet. The floor desks are a great tool for students who are sitting at circle time and need a surface for completing activities. 

Another way Brittany differentiates is through use of the STAR Program. The STAR program provides monthly thematic activities which Brittany modifies further to meet her student needs. Brittany's students are learning higher level vocabulary through activities they can easily access. For one planet lesson, students matched pictures through individual cards or a velcro worksheet or matching words to pictures through a file folder or a velcro worksheet. Students were engaged and excited and Brittany shared that she provides students with multiple opportunities to work on these activities to increase their understanding.

Brittany's use of the STAR Program carries over to her calendar time through correlating visual supports for the calendar numbers.

Brittany also uses visual supports to communicate activity expectations through the use of visual routines or mini-schedules.

This mini-schedule is used when students work independently in the structured work system area. Students match the picture icon to the corresponding bin or baggy to collect their work tasks for the day.

Visual supports are great for staff too! We love these great fine motor bins that can be used as morning work or anchor activities. The pocket chart shows which bin each student is working on and the easy lesson plan outlines the assigned activities for each day for quick resetting of the pocket chart.

We were also impressed with how effectively Brittany incorporates continuous reinforcement for her students who need frequent motivators. At the start of an activity, the student chooses a toy to work for. The basket has all of their favorite toys so that they are portable and easy for staff to access. While working, the student removes a penny token for every repetition completed. Tasks include materials from the STAR Program, imitation activities, and taskbox activities such as the pictured lunch tray activity. After all 5 pennies are removed, the student gets to play with the chosen toy for several minutes before the sequence is repeated. This quick succession of repetitions and reinforcement makes work time productive and motivating. 

Despite the quick pace of 1:1 instruction and variety of differentiated tasks completed during group time, Brittany also keeps up on her progress monitoring using these awesome data sheets. 

With all of these fantastic supports in place it is evident why Brittany is a great fit for our ALIST!

ALIST Spotlight: Keelin DiMuccio, Fairbrook Elementary

With a newly inducted group of fabulous educators to our ALIST this week, we have tons of great resources to share with you. Today we want to shine our ALIST Spotlight on Intervention Specialist Keelin DiMuccio at Fairbrook Elementary in Beavercreek.

We had the pleasure of coaching Keelin this year as she got started with a new classroom of young learners with autism and low-incidence disabilities. Keelin truly rose to the occasion with this new position and we had so much fun coaching someone who was so eager to implement new strategies! Keelin was an excellent collaborator and problem-solver. 

Check out some of the great supports we spotted in action in Keelin's room!

Visual Supports

Keelin used visual supports to help communicate expectations for her students. We love this simple First-Then board for showing a student what work was expected to earn a sensory bin break. 

Keelin also used visual supports to manage student transitions with these great line-up spots.

Data Collection
Keelin is a master data collector! Her monitoring is thorough and comprehensive. We enjoyed sharing our ABC Data Collection sheet to be paired with the Emotion Cue Cards for Staff.

Sensory Supports
Doesn't this calming sensory space look great!? We loved to see how Keelin dedicated a corner of her classroom to providing calming sensory breaks for her students. We also love the options provided of a bean bag break or tent time.

This was a new support for us! Keelin had a student who responded well to a sensory roller at home so she decided to carry over this support in the classroom. What a wonderful way to provide consistent sensory supports across environments.

Keelin did an excellent job differentiating her circle time seating to meet the needs of her students. The adapted seating options included cube chairs, student chairs, rocking chairs, and even a cube chair wrapped in a body sock.

Another tool we helped Keelin with was a sensory choice folder. Sometimes students may be resistant to trying new sensory supports. Providing choices through a sensory choice folder and proactively embedding multiple opportunities to make these choices throughout the day is a great way to keep students regulated.

Thanks to Keelin for sharing all of her awesome supports and welcome to our ALIST!

2018 ALIST Inductees

It is with great pleasure that we have recognized and inducted 7 new members into the Miami Valley Autistm/Low-Incidence Coaching Team’s “A-LIST”. Our A-LIST stands for Autism-Low Incidence Support Team and is comprised of a regional network of select professionals who exhibit “best practices” in serving the needs of students who have autism or other complex, low incidence disabilities.

Our A-LIST began in 2012 in an effort to recognize outstanding individuals who had exceeded the high expectations of our coaching process, and who represented the best that our region had to offer to students with disabilities. Only a fraction of of the educators we coach each year are nominated. The A-LIST truly represents the BEST professionals in our region.

The goal of the Miami Valley Autism Coaching Team is to build the capacity of our region’s administrators, teachers, intervention specialists, related service providers, and paraprofessionals to serve children with autism and other complex disabilities. The A-LIST serves a critical role in that mission by maintaining a multi-disciplinary network of outstanding practitioners across all 6 counties we serve. We often refer our coaching teams to our A-LIST members for practical, “in the trenches” perspectives, advice, and occasional modeling of best practices.

The 2018 ALIST Inductees include:

Karyn Smith
Intervention Specialist
Tri-Village High School
Tri-Village School District

Heather Costa
Speech and Language Pathologist
Bradford Elementary and Tri-Village High School
Darke County ESC

Keelin DiMuccio
Intervention Specialist
Fairbrook Elementary
Beavercreek City School District

Megan Gilley
Occupational Therapist
Fairbrook Elementary
Beavercreek City School District

Brittany Sword
Intervention Specialist
Valley Elementary
Beavercreek City School District

Jackie Vollmer
Intervention Specialist
Driscoll Elementary
Centerville City Schools

Kelly Sewell
1st Grade Teacher
Kleptz Early Learning Center
Northmont City Schools

Organization Station-- Waiting and Taking Turns

Students with autism and other social communication disabilities often struggle with waiting and taking turns during activities and games. These students often need these skills directly taught because they struggle to pick them up in the context of these social activities. Today's Organization Station focuses on strategies for teaching waiting and turn taking skills to help these students be more successful.

When directly teaching social skills, Carol emphasizes using the 4 Pillars of Performance--Practice, Prim, Prompt, and Praise.

Practice
To start, practice waiting and turn taking in a structured, predictable setting to reduce frustration. For some students, you may need to start with 1:1 sessions and gradually add additional practice partners to start generalizing these skills. Once the student shows success in a structured setting, begin practicing in naturally occurring locations. Sometimes, these skills can be addressed through class-wide structural supports that make turn taking more predictable.

We love this visual for remembering whose turn it is in a preschool classroom. The push pin moves daily to determine who the helper will be.

Jessica Burns
Demmitt Elementary, Vandalia

For some activities, everyone may get a turn but visual supports are needed to determine the order. A fun way is the use of turn taking sticks. All of the sticks can be mixed up in a container and the teacher can build anticipation and engagement through shaking up the container and choosing a stick. When their turn is over, students can choose the next student to go which is a great way to work on identifying peer names.

Prime
When staff anticipates the student will need to wait or take turns, they should prime the student to prepare them. Remind them of the strategies that have been practiced and present any priming visual supports that have been directly taught.

Carol developed a "WAIT" card that can be used to prime students when waiting in line, when waiting for their turn to speak, or when waiting for their turn during an activity. The back of the card lists strategies that have been directly taught to the student to help them cope with waiting. This can be presented to the student beforehand to prime them. The front of the card can be used to prompt the student in the moment to remind them to use their strategies.

Prompt
Visual supports can also be used to subtly prompt students in the moment.

This great visual tool can be held by students while they are waiting to keep their hands busy and prevent them from grabbing materials or game pieces.

Taylor Ruef
Stevenson Elementary, Mad River Local Schools

The staff in Christine Scarborough's class at Tecumseh Elementary use these simple visuals to cue students when playing games. The yellow paper says "wait" and prompts students to stay seated while the green paper says "go" to let the student know when it is their turn.

Christine Scarborough
Tecumseh Elementary, Xenia

Praise
Once a skill has been directly taught, students should be praised and reinforced for using the skill during practice sessions and within the naturally occurring locations.