A Collaboration with American Printing House: Access Academy
December 2020 found my friend Ms. Leanne Grillot and myself doing a presentation for AER on Dr. Karen Wolffe's Skills for Success book. I was assigned to teach the contents of this book to our TVIs-to-be at FSU as part of the social and career class, and I really took to the topic, which made me super excited to have the opportunity to share it with a larger audience. This presentation gave way to a proposition by the fabulous Amy Campbell of APH for this opportunity to collaborate. As many things when one has multiple hot pokers in a fire (or a serious inability to say no to opportunities), the journey quickly took off.
The five webinars were scheduled for once a month for a few reasons. The first being that I was (am) still taking courses, I was supervising eight TAs for an introduction to education course during the spring semester, taught my own class, and because contrary to popular belief that I do not, sometimes I do need to sleep.
March 19th 2021 marked our beginning, which was the end. Ironic, yes. We began with high school, as we wanted to give quick and dirty ideas to those who had 2 months to 14 months left with their high school students who needed to be quickly prepared. Yes, it was a bit too much laws and theory, but we also had some orientation and mobility sprinkled in for post-secondary success. Ms. Casey Webb brought her amazing experiences to the game in-person, and Ms. Julie Hahn shared with us her experiences with her young adult clients from California. Both of these lovely ladies are now colleagues in the field, but we fumbled-bumbled our way through orientation and mobility Saturdays under blindfold and the watchful eye of Dr. Sandra Rosen and Ms. Wendy Sheffers at San Francisco State University. (Our cohort picture is the current banner for the program)
April 30th came quick with the babies. I know, you might think career readiness and babies? I get it, but believe it or not, we need to begin the work early. Foundational skills are necessary for our babes, and this is when we can work with and prepare our parents for the road ahead. See what I did there? We spoke a lot about descriptive mediation or constant narration/verbalization on part of parents to help with concept development. We also touched on the importance of orientation and mobility training in terms of gross motor skills. For this webinar I was connected with Ms. Jeri Hart Baby Whisperer vision specialist, who had worked with babies through Blind Babies Foundation- Wayfinders for nearly (or over?) four decades! We also had the first appearance of our soon-to-become regular cast member Anna 'Nan' McMillan, a fabulous young TVI from Hillsborough county FL. Nan is following in the footsteps of her mother, and her understanding of children with visual impairments reflects this generational understanding.
May 28th brought is elementary school aged students. This is still an age group we often do not think of in terms of career readiness and related skills. Guess what? Everything we do with our student from the time they enter that Kindergarten door, is a foundation for their lives after school. PHEW! Yes, it can be a bit overwhelming. We can easily set our students up for failure if we do not ensure that they have a solid foundation of compensatory, social, and sensory efficiency skills. All three of these areas are essential to self-determination and career education. I am super serious. I will untangle my thinking around ECC in a future post. Nan rejoined me, and shared her amazing hands-on instructional experiences using the cutest pictures of her students in action.
June 25th we discussed middle school. I loved the audience feedback, and it appeared we really spoke to the importance to paying attention to this important transitional period, that might be a challenge for our students. Lots of psychosocial and biophysical changes are happening, which can make or break our students' school experiences. In educational circles those teaching middle school are often believed to love punishment, as it often can feel like this awkward period of the terrible twos in the shape of preteens. Nan's third appearance on the big stage, had her share an excellent tool to help our students learn what work evaluations are about.
July 30th we wrapped this amazing series with our students with multiple impairments. Yes, most of our students with visual impairments often manifest with additional disabilities. They still might be completely functional in an academic sense, regardless, we often forget to plan ahead. Our goal with this webinar was to bring attention to the long-range planning that is required when we are presented with more intricate puzzles. Because that is our job, to figure out how all the unique pieces fit together to create a beautiful, albeit not typical, yet functional puzzle. Think Picasso? Who else could I have invited to join me for this webinar, then the marvelous Ms. Stacey Chambers, the ECC Maven. She can be found on Instagram under: @staceytvi and make sure you check out her monthly ECC boxes!
I hope that if you have not been able to go on this journey with us while we were broadcasting live, you will check out the recordings and the materials provided below.
Should you have any questions or comments, do drop me and email. I am always open to feedback (negative or positive as long as kind are welcome). All the collaborators shared their emails at the end of each PowerPoint presentations, which can be found in the Google Folder. Please reach out, our students need us to collaborate.
“Never do for a child what you believe that child has the potential to do. Anticipate that they can do, and make them prove that they can’t. Begin, by assuming that they can.”
Dr. Karen Wolffe, FAER
Resources related to the series
If you missed any or all of the webinars, you can find them on the APH YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/AphOrg/search?query=road%20ahead
The direct links can be found in the "0: Start Here" document in the shared the Google Folder.
All Accessible Handouts can be found at APH Access Academy by searching for the date and title of the webinar.
If lack of accessibility is not a road block, I compiled more than what we were able to make available through APH in a Google Folder: https://bit.ly/EFTheRoadAhead
Even though I am all about accessibility and making things available to all, some of the documents I complied are old(er), were already copies, and I was unable to alter them. I apologize! I tried my best with all my own documents.
Go to APH Access Academy for previous, and future events: https://www.aph.org/educational-resources/training/access-academy/
If you prefer a calendar format, go to APH Connect Center for upcoming events: https://aphconnectcenter.org/events/
AER, Dec, 2020: Skills for Success Webinar is available on the new professional development site of the organization for CEUs: https://www.pathlms.com/aer/courses/27816
Source(s)
AERBVI. (2021). Building Skills for Success | AER. AER Learning. https://www.pathlms.com/aer/courses/27816
American Printing House. (2021). Access Academy. https://www.aph.org/educational-resources/training/access-academy/
American Printing House for the Blind. (2021). Events Archive. ConnectCenter. https://aphconnectcenter.org/events/
Chicchon, D. (2020, July 2). Photo by Daniel Chicchon. Unsplash. https://unsplash.com/photos/IxdpVW2stJ8
SFSU. (n.d.). Welcome to the orientation & mobility (O&M) program. SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY | Orientation and Mobility (O&M) Program. Retrieved July 17, 2021, from https://mobility.sfsu.edu/
Wolffe, K. E. (Ed.). (1998). Skills for success: A career education handbook for children and adolescents with visual impairments. AFB Press.
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