Following are brief descriptions of some of Mary's workshops and their time allocations. Please note that these sessions will be tailored to meet the needs and interests of the participants. If you do not see a session that addresses your present needs, contact Mary-she covers many topics that are not listed here. • Booking sessions: contact Mary with tentative dates as early as possible. Her yearly schedule fills up quickly. • Equipment required for all workshops: overhead projector and side table. The Simply Math workshop requires a blackboard/whiteboard and very definitely, a room set-up that provides tables for participants. • Fees vary as to services provided. • In order that sessions are relevant and practical, Mary requires
contact information of a liaison person with whom she can discuss session
format and goals, and the needs and interests of the participants. Mary lives northwest of Edmonton, Alberta and works as the teacher/coordinator of an outreach school. She conducts many workshops and conference sessions in western and northern Canada and the United States, working with teachers, educational assistants, parents, and special interest groups. Mary’s workshops are energetic, interactive and packed with information. Her use-it-tomorrow practicality, reflective focus and wry sense of humour are evident in all her work. Mary is the author of several publications, including The Accommodations Book, a collection of instructional and management information and suggestions to aid school staffs in meeting the diverse learning preferences and abilities found in the inclusive classroom. Her five-volume series, Success...in Entering the Workplace, targets life competencies based on the “Assume Nothing Approach”. The series is a recommended resource for Saskatchewan’s Practical and Applied Arts Program, and Alberta’s Integrated Occupational Program (IOP) and Career Transitions, part of the Career and Technology Studies (CTS) program. Mary is also the author of The Paraeducator’s Primer, a book of essentials for educational assistants and teacher-assistant teams.
Visual organizers are not new. They are an incredibly valuable learning tool that we need to revisit and use in a systematic, purposeful manner. Obviously, visual organizers allow us to record our thinking in a systematic way, so we can see our thoughts. In addition, we can use specific organizers to teach specific kinds of thinking skills. The visual organizer is a simple tool that allows students to work with data. It doesn’t require full sentences, capitalization and punctuation; it doesn’t matter if the spelling isn’t perfect—its purpose is to target ideas and thinking skills. A map organizes and records, and becomes the springboard for discussion and more complete written expression. The five visual organizers discussed in this session can be used to
present and explore concepts and information at any grade level, in
any subject, starting in Grade One! They should not only be used with
students but taught to students as an organizational strategy to enhance
their learning and thinking skills. Visual organizers are a foundational
“good teaching” tool. Literally, no day should be without
them!
The practical techniques and teaching/learning ideas in this intensive 2-2 ½ day course were originally designed to target the needs of students who have been “left behind” in math, but are equally applicable to meeting math learning needs of ALL students. Simply Math may be incorporated into “regular” math classes to help clarify concepts and skills at hand, used to troubleshoot specific areas of difficulty for one or more students, and/or form the basis of an entire functional math course. Who are the students for whom math has become a “black hole”? They are the ones who after several—or many—years of instruction, are unaware of math patterns, cannot compute one-step calculations successfully, or use math reasoning in story problems or real-life applications. As the curriculum, teachers, topics and classmates move on, these students flounder in a hodgepodge of partially understood concepts and skills; they develop no math wisdom or competence and are left math illiterate. Often, schools do not immediately and consistently address these students’ deficits. Each teacher tries to provide these “bottom end” math students with some individualized help on the unit at hand, often using the same learning materials and strategies used with the rest of the class. Usually, there are few if any longitudinal, developmental plans or alternate instructional strategies. Viewed over time, these “extra help” arrangements are sporadic, disjointed solutions that do little to address functional numeracy. Math literacy does not grow from isolated, helter-skelter bits and pieces! At grades nine or ten, after years of these students clearly demonstrating math deficiencies, schools may finally modify or adapt programs, or place students in some form of senior high life skills math. In many cases, the students entering the latter courses still have only primary level math knowledge and skills! Clearly, they had not been provided an explicitly taught, planned, purposeful, developmental math program that allowed them to be, at the minimum, mathematically functional. Simply Math is a task-analyzed, systematic, cumulative math program. It provides teachers with a framework for planning individual or group goals, emphasizes best instructional practices based on current brain research, and employs concise strategies for bringing along students’ math literacy. Participants explore simple, effective foundation strategies for approaching and teaching all math concepts, patterns and calculations. “Real-life scenarios” are absolutely foundational, and are “embedded” in the students’ daily personal math development. Participants learn that certain topics can be used as “vehicles for learning”, others are best tackled through the “slow and steady” approach. All concepts and strategies are built with an eye to “the whole of math”, and at the same time, to reducing complexity. The foundation concepts and strategies are used to “repair”, replace and expand students’ knowledge and application of numberline concepts, whole number operations, ordering and rounding numbers, statistics, data display, order of operations, decimals, fractions, percent, basic algebra, ratio, geometry and integers. Who should attend? Teachers from Grade 3 to high school and educational assistants. Math expertise is NOT a prerequisite! A mixture of individuals from many grades is by far the ideal, as participants share teaching and presentation ideas, and discuss issues concerning student learning difficulties, modified content, topic selection, order of presentation, measurement, criterion levels, and accountability. A tremendous bonus of multi-grade participation is the development of a keen awareness of the inter-grade connections of themes, vocabulary, concepts, skills and applications that run through the entire math curriculum from primary levels to upper level mathematics. Please note that at this time, the Simply Math manual is available only to participants. More detailed information is available about this program and the workshop
arrangements that maximize the benefits for all participants. Contact
Mary for a Simply Math brochure.
Reaching and teaching students having a wide variety of learning styles, abilities, backgrounds and skills is a daunting task. To address this diversity, we try to use a wider variety of materials, techniques, activities, management strategies and tests. Seems logical, but...is anyone overwhelmed not only by the immensity of the task, but also of this solution? Another answer to meeting diversity is to become more generic in our approach; in other words, use a small arsenal of simple, effective, adaptable strategies that reach most students. In addition, these strategies should be ones that students can learn to do on their own, to enhance their study, comprehension and application skills, their critical thinking abilities, metacognitive awareness, and their independence. Pie in the sky? No. This session focuses upon simple, very effective
“generic” strategies that are applicable to all grades and
all subjects. By using these strategies in a planned, purposeful, consistent
way in all subjects and grades, you will reach and teach more students—better.
During the session, you will practise applying the strategies to your
courses
Teachers and educational assistants have greater diversity and complexity of roles and responsibilities than ever before. In order that we successfully address the wide variety of student needs we have in our classrooms each day, the in-class team of teacher and assistant is essential. In this session, participants examine the duties and responsibilities
of teachers, assistants and the collaborative team in a variety of school
settings and circumstances. Job descriptions, inservice training, education
and future trends will be discussed. This session is definitely interactive!
Schools’ expectations of educational assistants are becoming increasingly diverse, changeable and challenging. You may be assigned to a specific teacher, class, grade, to an individual student or group of students. The environment may be an assigned room, inclusive and/or specialized classrooms. Responsibilities vary immensely. We will explore the roles and responsibilities, skills, knowledge, attitudes and focus that lead to successful experiences for all concerned. Bring your questions! Time Required: 1.5-3 hour session
There are many types of documentation and records that school staff create and maintain with regard to special needs students. In this session, we address anecdotal records and data collection, and examine and create sample documents. We will explore what kind of data should be involved, how to design effective records, what to say and how to say it, when records are advisable, and why we keep data in the first place. What is too little? What is overkill? Bring your questions and practice paper! Another
of our topics: we will discuss the essentials of documenting your own
education and experience!
You are teaching your students to create great resumes and portfolios, and to complete a variety of application forms. They know what to expect during an interview and have practiced personal presentation skills. All of these are important for job search, but what are we teaching students about maintaining that job, and surviving and thriving in the work world? Some of our students obtain jobs, then lose them—over and over again. Rather than a lack of job-specific skills, their job losses may be due to little understanding of the invisible protocol, customs and conventions of the workplace. These are the items that get our students in the door and keep them there! In this session, we will explore many of the “invisible”
knowledge bits, skills and attitudes of the workplace that aren’t
on a job description or in a company handbook—ones that trainers,
employers, teachers and parents often assume are “common knowledge”.
We are not meeting our students’ needs unless we are purposefully
teaching and applying these “invisible” skills to every
circumstance and context possible!
Many of our goals and activities revolve around our students understanding what they hear and read. Everyone works daily with students who have mild to severe comprehension difficulties in listening and reading. There are many types and combinations of comprehension skills required to truly understand the information in our everyday coursework. When we say, “Johnny doesn’t get it”, it is important
to know what kind of comprehension skills we are expecting. Also, at
times, we may unwittingly emphasize certain types of comprehension in
our activities and tests, without touching upon other equally important
skills. • identify the factors that have significant effects upon listening
and reading comprehension
We often work with students who lack planning and organization skills. Their difficulties may include time awareness and management, and little concept of order or sequence. These deficits may incredibly detrimental to students’ school and workplace success, despite their being very knowledgeable and skillful. Disorganized children often receive much negative attention from frustrated school staff and parents who feel that they could do so much better if they could “just be organized!” If planning and organization skills are so crucial to self-esteem and success in school and life, then we must take the time and effort to teach them, practise them and reinforce them on a continual basis. We cannot necessarily “cure” the disorganized child, but we can definitely teach survival skills. An added bonus is that all students benefit, not just those with what one teacher described as “terminal disorganization”. In this session, we explore the cluster of characteristics that often
accompany “disorganization” and focus upon practical strategies
that help the disorganized child better handle the demands and expectations
of the classroom and life. |
