Closing Meetings with a Focus on what's Important

— Nancy in Lux (@NancyinLux1) June 29, 2024

This post on X got me ....

Let me start over.

This Tweet on Twitter got me thinking. I was thinking about how our inclusion learning support team conducts meetings and staff meetings overall.

Our faculty meetings use a two-column meeting agenda. In one column is the issue, and in column 2, is how it is responded to. Our SEN team adopted that same template in the beginning of last year. 

That meeting agenda did not work for me because it didn't always have an action item.

So, I looked around and found a template that had an additional column for action items. We ended up adapting it.  

I am still looking for a better meeting agenda template. I think for the time being, we need to put these items on the calendar.

before on the left and after on the right

Back to the Tweet. 

I really like these suggestions from Nancy. 

Every decision we make should be about the students or about teaching. I think it is good practice to reflect on them.

I guess I'll need to make a fourth column.

Please, please, add the agenda to the calendar event.

My Experience Spacing Out in a Lesson

I have been taking tennis lessons for over ten years here in Japan. I initially started to improve my Japanese ability, and it eventually grew into a "love of the game".

Photo by J. Schiemann on Unsplash

It's been more than 10 years off and on of this Japanese language learning strategy. It is helping me understand more vocabulary in tennis and kinesiology, but it is also reinforcing what good, inclusive teaching looks like; albeit through non-examples.

Definition from DuckDuckGo, attributed to Wordnik

Non-examples are examples that are shown for a clearer example, ie, it's not this, but this. The first time I saw it was in the Frayer Model and I think it fits in well with this tennis lesson since the lesson was not designed to be inclusive.

In this lesson:

Non Example 1 - Not using Visuals

The coach mostly spoke his directions and pointers. Occasionally he would draw on the sand to show positioning, but that was for whole-group instruction.

Non Example 2 - Not Modeling

Only occasionally would the coach actually do what the skill was we were practicing. Modeling how to move your body when you hit the ball, where on the racket to hit the ball, and where to position yourself on the court are all things that I think could have helped me understand.

Non Example 3 - Long Explanations

Sometimes the explanation went long. During these times I found myself thinking about other things -- important things I might add -- and suddenly, we were told to get into position. At these times, I was often lost. It made me think about how often I get mad at students who are not "paying attention" in class. However, since transitioning to a learning support role, I have noticed how long explanations have been in some classes. Teachers could be more effective if they limit their delivery.

Non Example 4 - High-Level Vocabulary

Along with long explanations, using high-level vocabulary is a way that can confuse learners. It has happened, that I will be in a lesson, and the coach will use a word I do not know. Sometimes when that happens, I try to understand the word I did not understand. This happens to some students as well. 

Non Example 5 - Not giving us time to practice

Sometimes I will be corrected in how I hit the ball. (Actually, this happens often.) When this happens I need to practice what I had been shown to try to understand the coaching. It does not always happen and I am often left to try to remember what was said.

Non Example 6 - Low Volume

The tennis club I attend has three, indoor courts. With the fans, AC, and other lessons happening when the coach is speaking, I can sometimes miss what is said. Modeling and using other non-verbal methods of teaching could help with the low volume during the lesson.

What they do well - 

The above aside, I have learned a lot from the way these lessons are run. The two best methods they use are station rotation and repetition.  

Station Rotation Model

The tennis lesson is broken into 5 parts.

1. Warm-up - stretching
2. Warm-up - hitting
3. Station Rotation - one of the stations is the "teaching point" for the day where the coach can "confer" with the participants.
4. Rotation Game
5. Game

The majority of the lesson uses a kind of station rotation model. This gives students a chance to practice many skills in a shorter amount of time. It also gives the coach a chance to confer with students and give them more individualized instruction. 

Repetition

Each lesson follows the same structure - the station rotation model I outlined above. This helps me to predict what will happen in the lesson and decrease the cognitive load I need to understand the directions. 

While I think that repetition is important, I also it is important for students to maintain their cognitive flexibility. 

This post was meant to help me better think about UDL and how it could fit into my own experience.

A Second Look

I am currently taking the Senia Certified Educator Level 1 series of courses. In the last course, or maybe it was longer ago now, we were asked to make presentations we could take to the staff to give them more information about different disabilities (autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dysgraphia, etc.). Since we [inclusion support teachers] are taking the Senia course as a team, internally we divided the topics so we could start building a library. 

I was hoping to get dysgraphia, but when I chose, last, there were only a few left. I don't remember what they were off the top of my head, but I ended up with executive functioning.

I made it for the course, but when it came to what I was going to present to the staff, I had to think of how to make it effective with the 5 minutes I was given to talk. 

Yeah, 5 minutes to talk about executive functioning skills and how to teach them. 

When thinking about how to organize my presentation, I wondered how I could be most effective. How could I convince my colleagues to act on what I was telling them. Afterall, unlike the other presentations about learning needs, this was something a little more actionable than just to sit and listen.

My flow was along the lines of:

1. Introduction where I showed why they are important
2. Showed the data that teachers had been submitting themselves
3. Made the connection for them that if you keep submitting requests for support for a kid who doesn't have organization skills, maybe it is time to start teaching them
4. And hey, organization is an executive funcation
5. Here are some other executive functions

My intent was to grab their attention and convince them to look into the data they are collecting on their own students. A few teachers told me they enjoyed it. I was uncomfortable giving it to them because of how it might be taken. 

So, if I were to do it again, I might rearrange the presentation to lead teachers to their own conclusion then nudge them toward my conclusion. 

After:

Overview

Why they are important

Talk about them

When you look at the data, what could you look for?

Do you see any EF you could teach to?