Episode 8: First Weeks of School with Heidi Turi

Transcript

Welcome to BLaST the Airwaves with BLaST Intermediate Unit 17. Here at BLaST Intermediate Unit 17, we strive to transform lives and communities through educational services. On this podcast, we will provide you with educational solutions for all, no matter the learning environment. So teachers, administrators, caretakers, what are you waiting for?
What would happen if we started questioning, what if? What if we had a positive perspective on education? What if we flip the switch on education? What if we were the solution?
Hello listeners. We are excited to blast the airways with you today and provide educational solutions for all. My name is Rebecca Gibboney, and I am the Curriculum and Online Learning Specialist here at BLaST Intermediate Unit 17. I am thrilled to welcome you to episode eight of BLaST the Airwaves, and I’m even more thrilled because today we have a surprise guest on the podcast.
During this episode, we will talk with Heidi Turi from BLaST Intermediate Unit 17 about her first weeks of school. We have spent the past couple of episodes discussing procedures and management. Why not hear from an expert in the field? So, let’s get started!
Heidi, thanks so much for joining us today to discuss educational solutions for all. Specifically, we’re going to be discussing your first days of school. Are you ready to BLaST the Airwaves, Heidi?
Yes, I sure am. Thanks for having me.
So, why don’t we start by, maybe, you can tell us a little bit more about your role here at BLaST Intermediate Unit 17.
So, I am an early intervention developmental teacher. I work with students ages three, four, and five with disabilities ranging from developmental delays to some emotional issues and autistic children, ID, all. It ranges from, you know, very, very significant things that, you know, in their learning, to things that just, we need to work on some like emotional pieces and social pieces with them.
Great. So do you have one whole class at a time, or do you visit certain students throughout your day?
So, I am itinerant; so, I go place to place and we deliver instruction for 30, between 30 and 45 minutes, depending on what it says on the IEP. And, I am primarily located at the Headstart program. We just typically have a full caseload there every year, but I go in between Headstart buildings from class to class. I also do a console piece with the teachers, teaching them how to progress monitor their children. We sit down together and come up with good goals that will work both in the classroom. And then we’ll pull them out one time a week. And just kind of monitor where they are and come up with some fun activities for them. And then we share those activities with the teacher. Sometimes I’ll model a lesson for the entire class. So it just depends on what it is of the teacher, but we keep that open line of communication going, just so that we can make sure that we’re meeting the needs of just not just the students, but the families and the staff.
I love it. You guys continue to work with families and students and staff. It’s that whole like loop and bringing everyone together. I think that’s fantastic. You said you mentioned earlier when we were talking, but you guys are all remote right now, correct? You’re all still virtual.
So currently, yes, we’re seeing students via zoom, one time a week. We’re still maintaining their IEP goals and seeing them for that direct service. And, we’ve also opened up a Google classroom for each student. So, we place activities in there. I do a weekly attendance in there just to make sure that parents are signing in and taking a look at the activities. Some stuff is just for fun, like parents working with their kiddos. I posted an activity this morning for this week. That was a brain break. Get your kiddos moving. Teaching them, you know, jumping and walking and talking and talking about the actions and we just put a little bit of information below there for them and, you know, it kind of gets everybody moving, because we’re trying to really make sure that we’re not only working on like the academic goal for the kids, but you know, this social-emotional piece during this time has been really difficult. So, we want the kids playing games with their families and siblings, and as well as doing that learning piece that comes along with it.
Yeah, that’s a huge focus right now for the state, the socio-emotional piece. So that’s great that you guys are interacting or integrating that into your lessons as well. So heady, we all have our stories. Can you share one of your feel-good moments from the first weeks of school here?
Yeah, actually we’ve been working with a student. And, when I say we, I’m talking about the speech therapist and I do some co-teaching. And, we’ve been working with the student who is autistic and he is nonverbal. And before we left our program in March, we were working with him on using a picture exchange system to request items, um, for getting dressed for using the potty for eating and things like that. And, you know, we would send session notes home to the family and we would send, you know, short little videos of us modeling it for them; but, this virtual time that we’ve had with the parents sitting down with them and being able to actually coach them while they’re using the picture exchange system has been awesome. And seeing how much progress they kids are making because the parents understand it and know how to apply it has been amazing. I actually got so teared up during the session and, you know, the student said, “look, you made Miss Heidi cry” because, you know, it’s something that we don’t get an opportunity to do because we see our kiddos are in their programs. So. You know, we communicate with the parents, but it’s a different thing seeing them in their home and being able to really teach them how to use this skill that’s going to affect them for their lives. You know? So that’s been definitely a feel-good moment for us.
I love that you bring up some of those silver lining moments because not everyone, you know, we try to look at a lens and take a perspective of “all right, the pandemic has really been hard on many of us, probably all of us, but there are some silver linings through it. So that’s a great one to point out for us. But of course, it’s not always those rainbows and sunshine. There’s those twists and turns. We are all human and I’m asking you to be a little vulnerable right now. So if you feel free to like, feel free to pass, if you don’t feel comfortable. But, could you share with us, this community here, a failure that you’ve had in the first couple of weeks and how did you get back up?
I don’t want to like to consider it to be a failure, but, the work-life balance has been very difficult for me. So, I don’t feel like we’re failing our students. I feel like that’s been going really well. But, trying to find a balance between working with your own children while they’re home. My kiddos are home here working on a hybrid schedule. So they’re in the house with me, you know, a couple of days a week and I’m still trying to work and have my zoom. I feel like it’s hard to balance, like having to tell my own children, like, “I’m sorry, but I can’t right now and you’re going to have to figure it out on your own.” Finding that, that’s been difficult, but, um, Checklists, like I have AM checklists for them and PM checklists for them. So that they’re like growing independently and you know, it’s what it is right now. You know, we can’t be perfect and we can’t do everything all the time. So, that’s something that I’ve had to come to my own realization with myself. It’s not going to be a perfect across the board. Nobody’s going to get all of us, because it’s not the situation. So.
Yes. I love that. We keep saying, you know, nothing’s going to be perfect right now. I just actually bought my mom a shirt, because she’s a teacher as well. It’s a t-shirt that says perfectly imperfect, right? So, wonderful. And you just touched on this a little bit, but in the Distance Learning Playbook, which has inspired this season of our podcast by Fisher, Frey, and Hattie, they focus on the importance of procedures in the past couple of episodes, we’ve talked about procedures and management. I’m sure, like you said, you have some procedures in place, like checklists and things like that. If I were to walk into your classroom, even just the virtual one, what kind of procedures would I find? What do you have with your kiddos?
Well, this year for our professional development portfolio, we’re working on green screen activities. So I have, if you saw my classroom, right this moment, you would see a green screen behind me. And I have my planner sitting to my left, that has the schedule of kids that I see and at what times. And, then I’ve created a binder of progress monitoring quick sheets. So, I have each student that I see on Monday, their name, a space for the date, and then whatever goals I’m working on. So while I’m working with them right in front of me, I can just jot notes. Like, were they able to count, and how high? And, what colors were they able to identify? And I take notes of things that the parents have said, so I have that in front of me. So when I go to update their Google classroom with their, you know, session notes, so to speak, they can take a look at that and see what they did last week and what they need to work on for the following week. And I’ve also created a whole binder of materials. And within that binder, I have pockets that have, animals are in one section and letters are in another and numbers are in another. So when I’m working on the goals, I can pull the folder, and then I can have them on my green screen so I can Velcro them to the back. So, I have my material right in front of me and organized, because it does get pretty daunting to go between kiddo to kiddo, pretty much back to back, and make sure that we can put something in one spot and grab for the next kid or the next. So definitely there’s been a new kind of organization. So, it’s going really quite well. And they’re definitely staying engaged with the green screen activities. So that’s been another little, a light at this time. So.
Wow. That is super organized. That, I want to pop in one of your sessions to see what it’s like. Cool. That’s awesome. So you mentioned this a little bit earlier, but we’d like to do some questions from the field here, and right now, as educators versus really the big question is how are you surviving? Like, how are you finding, you mentioned you’re struggling a little bit with that balance between work and home. I think we all are, in general, no matter your occupation, but how are you surviving right now?
Honestly, I have, you know, with, with all the planning that comes into play with being a teacher, the one thing I’m just telling myself every single day is like, Each day is different and the changes are coming so rapidly, as I’m sure that you probably are seeing. So for me, I am a planner and I like to plan things out for longer periods of time so that I, my kids know what to expect. My students know what to expect and I can make sure that things go as planned. And, and that has been thrown out the door. So I’m, I’m trying to take the new strategy on, like one day at a time. Plan for tomorrow and don’t plan beyond that, because it can change and you put all this time and effort into something, and then it’s like, oh, that’s not exactly how I was expecting it to go. Or now they want us to do it a different way. So I’m trying to, you know, just really trying to be flexible and not plan too far ahead is kind of, what’s keeping me afloat at this point.
That’s great. Everyone has their strategies. I love it. So now it’s time for our favorite part. It’s called our blast five, and we’re going to blast you with five random questions for you to quickly answer, and it can be professional or personal, just to get to know you. So your favorite app or website?
Oh, lessonpix.
I’ve never heard of that one. Can you spell that for us?
Yeah. It’s L E S S O N P I X. It is a place where you can make all kinds of visuals. You can make them into you can choose what you can do like picture cards, you can do sentence stories. You can do games. Bingo, Dobber pages.
Wow!
Wonderful, wonderful resource. You can create your own little icons by cutting and pasting things. You can add real-life pictures and make them into and like add things onto those pictures. So, it has been actually a lifesaver, right.
And free?
Actually, the early intervention program was nice enough to purchase it for us. So I want to say that it’s very reasonable. They’ve purchased it for us to use like fully, so I don’t actually know what it costs.
Yeah, no, that’s perfectly fine. I love how I said rapid questions and I’m asking you questions on top of the question. Favorite strategy.
Oh, at this point, probably the day by day, taking it one day at a time and a little less planning.
Perfect. Favorite read?
Oh, I know The Woman in Cabin 10 I just read recently. I love that stuff. Yeah.
Awesome. And favorite TV or Netflix, binge or Hulu or whatever binge you’re doing.
Oh gosh, we just finished watching Outlander. I enjoy that one. It’s interesting, little back in time and forwards to the future. It’s neat.
Nice. Interesting. And your favorite self-care activity.
So definitely getting massages and pedicures.
Where do you go to in this local Williamsport area or up North?
I actually, “The Healthy Touch Day Spa” I’ve been to. But I really, I’m going to one in Harrisburg that does a really pampering full day kind of thing called “polished”. That’s my favorite.
Oh, interesting. Yes. We can’t forget to pamper ourselves. Right?
Right. That’s for sure. Alright. Awesome. Well, Heidi, we cannot thank you enough for your time today. And we know our listeners enjoyed it too. I’m sure they might want to connect with you further, especially, you know, if they’re early interventionists, what are the best ways to, for our listeners to contact or, and connect with you?
Definitely, probably via email. I have an IU email. It is H Turi and it’s spelled H T U R I @iu17.org.
Alright, perfect. And we will definitely add that in the show notes for them as well. This has been a blast, Heidi, no pun intended, but you know me, I, again, thank you for taking some time today.
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