Sharing Gifts: Navigating Special Education with Vision and Unique Perspectives

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What if you could turn a perceived weakness into a strength, transforming it into a unique gift to offer your students? Welcome to a world where every student thrives, a universe sculpted by understanding, empathy, and mutual respect. Your hosts share an inspiring story of Sarah, a visually impaired special education teacher, and her student Emily, who navigates the world with the same challenge. This episode is a testament to the power of harnessing individuality in the classroom. We unearth strategies to work with visually impaired students and tips to create an inclusive environment. 

Imagine a classroom where assistive technology is not an afterthought, but a key component of the learning process. We delve into resources designed specifically to foster this inclusivity, shining a spotlight on the tool JAWS and the online library Bookshare. These tools are instrumental in creating dynamic learning spaces for individuals with print disabilities. We encourage you, our listeners, to keep this conversation alive, push the boundaries of innovation, and champion for a special education system where every student is celebrated. So, join us in this journey of empowerment, acceptance, and resilience.

Transcript

Speaker 0: 0:00

Hello friends and welcome to the Fast 15, a podcast for special education teachers where we're offering expert advice, motivational tips, strategies and real world stories to create an engaging learning environment in just 15 minutes. We are special education teachers for teachers, and this is a podcast to support all other stakeholders in the field of special education. So welcome and here we go for a Friday Fast 15. I want to start off this episode by sharing a special story with you that we read here at SDS just recently. It's about a new special education teacher named Sarah, and we know her as a wonderful new addition to the school where she just started teaching in a life skills program, a functional academics curriculum based program, and she brings a unique gift into her classroom as she has a visual impairment herself and despite being partially blind, sarah has an extraordinary ability to comprehend the sensory world and really understand how students with disabilities learn best. And Sarah's teaching journey started in a state school for the deaf and blind, but more recently it unfolds in a life skills secondary classroom in a public school. And this classroom where she's teaching she has students with a diverse range of abilities. Their disabilities can be quite complex. Her students face various challenges and they rely on their teachers really heavily to provide the intensive support needs that they have.

Speaker 0: 1:43

And in the heart of November 2022, just before Thanksgiving, a new student named Emily walked into her classroom and Emily, like Sarah, carried her own gift. She had visual impairments herself and had a condition that affected her visually, but she also had a really exceptional creativity and understanding of the world around her. From that very first day, at the very start, sarah and Emily formed a bond that, obvious to everyone else, really transcended ordinary. They quickly discovered that their shared gifts allowed them to perceive and appreciate the world in extraordinary ways. Sarah's limited sight really did provide deep insight into daily struggles that her students faced, while Emily's creativity, and her own abilities and challenges as well, provided unique perspective and offered innovative solutions that came from the students perspective. And so, together, sarah and Emily began a journey of learning and growth, and they navigated the world with limited sight, unveiling inventive techniques together to really enhance the sensory experience for all of the other students in the classroom. And Sarah's passion for teaching, combining with Emily's innate ability to make friends, interact with others and build community in the school in general, really fostered culture and a classroom filled with warmth, with understanding and inspiration, and everyone in the class really benefited by their unique perspective and gifts shared together. And as words spread about their extraordinary classroom experiences, other teachers who either started to hear about their connection or just saw them laughing in the hallways they began to recognize and appreciate the gifts inherent in special education teaching and classrooms were being recognized for the amazing culture that they were building, the empathy and the support for one another Such a beautiful example of what's possible. And their story really resonated with teachers throughout the district and community that they served. It really sparked a wave of inspiration and I know they participated in food drives and partnered with their district craft fair during the holiday season. And Sarah and Emily shared gifts that really became a symbol of unity and resilience and proving that true learning really surpasses textbooks and tests.

Speaker 0: 4:27

So, teachers, let's take a moment to think about this story, but think about your own journey and reflect. Just like Sarah and Emily, each of us bring unique gifts into the classroom, so I really want you to embrace your own strengths. Take a good look at all of the wonderful things that you bring into the classroom to also celebrate the diversity of your students, and together we can create a world where every student not only survives but also thrives when we are celebrating their individuality. So I want to give you some tips for special education teachers who are working with students who may fall into this category and and have qualities like this maybe with low vision. So you want to make sure that you understand the student's vision profile, gather information about the student's specific vision condition, their visual acuity and any other visual challenges that they might face. Understand as best you can what their condition is and how they are experiencing the world. This information really will guide your instructional approach and help you know how to set up your classroom to be most effective and to know that you're doing the best you can to meet their specific needs. You also want to create an accessible classroom environment. Like I said, setting up the environment the right way can make all of the difference. Make sure that the classroom is really well lit and has consistent lighting.

Speaker 0: 6:11

You also want to make sure that you're using large print and high contrast materials in your teaching. Make sure that you provide materials in large print and the text and the background colors are well suited to your students. You want to use bold fonts and simple, clear layouts for handouts any worksheets that you're providing and other written materials that you have. You also want to introduce and integrate assistive technology tools. So if you have an instructional or an assistive technology specialist in your district, make sure you're reaching out to them to consult with you and make sure that all of the tools that you have in your room are well suited and well tailored to your students. You want to provide as many hands-on experiences that you can to reinforce the concepts that you're trying to teach.

Speaker 0: 7:03

When you are teaching using visual aids on a screen or however you're showing your visuals, make sure that they're bold and that they're large enough for your students to be able to see from any point in the classroom, and then also consider incorporating tactile graphics. If you have access, make sure you can get some raised lettering on your handouts and make sure that any classroom organization is set up well. You want to provide consistent routines that are predictable for your students, so every day should have a predictable routine when a student comes in, and those are routines that aren't just time bound, but they're also to map out where things are in your class and keeping everything in the same place. We also want to encourage peer support. You want to make sure that you're fostering a supportive classroom with peer-to-peer relationships and make sure that you're building up those programs with your counseling centers. You want to also educate your students, classmates, about the students visual condition, if that's appropriate and allowed by the families that you're serving. Those abilities to understand stories is so amazing to see those connections formed.

Speaker 0: 8:22

But we want to make sure that we're really careful with the type of information any confidential information that you're sending out. You want to make sure that that's carefully delivered and that we have permissions to share the information. Here's another tip or strategy that would be really helpful for students who experience the world with low vision. You want to allow additional time for completing tasks and assignments. This is similar to all of your students, but make sure that you offer resources like audio books or large print books, digital materials, to support independent learning. We will have some information in the show notes today where I will be providing some links to some really great resources that you might want to check out with Bookshare and some other places that you can get some large print books. And also we want to make sure that we're closely working with the O&M, the Orientation and Mobility Specialists, vision Teachers and any other support staff in a real solid team approach to make sure that comprehensive and coordinated approaches are provided to the students' whole education, their whole experience, and we want to walk closely with those ongoing through the school years to make sure that we're aligned in the services provided.

Speaker 0: 9:43

Additionally with self-advocacy, one of the most important things for all of our students is to encourage them to communicate their needs, to make sure that they're the ones voicing what they need, what they want, all of their preferences and their challenges. We want to make sure that we're teaching them the strategies to be able to become great self-advocates, not only in elementary school, middle school, high school, but on into their adulthood, post-secondary opportunities and into their careers as well. We want to be able to provide opportunities for them to develop those skills so that they're doing that on their own once they leave our school settings. We also want to continuously assess the effectiveness of all of the strategies that we're providing. Make sure you're making adjustments along the way and, if needed, call an IEP meeting. Make sure that you're making the amendments needed to the IEP to match the students' need and to be able to show progress and report that progress through each of the reporting cycles. Also, we want to maintain open communication with the student for sure, and the parents and any of the professionals who are working with the student.

Speaker 0: 10:57

Remember that the individual approaches that we provide are key. They're so important to working with students with low vision and students with disabilities in general. Regular collaboration with the student, the family, specialists and all of these team members will contribute to their success and help to provide an inclusive learning environment. It's so critical to go to the general ed classes, the teachers that they may be engaged in and enrolled in. We want to make sure that they have just as accessible of an experience out in the general education classrooms or any other extracurricular activities that they may be joining in on, and we want to always this is the key get functional. We want to make everything that the students are doing meaningful for their life, both now and in the future, outside of the classroom experience. So what really is the point of teaching what we're teaching? We need to be asking that question all of the time. We want to ask will it lead to our students becoming the most independent adults as possible when they leave the school system? Those are just a few of the tips and tricks that we're thinking about for working with students with visual impairments and students in general in your classroom can benefit from things like these tools and strategies that will help all of our students.

Speaker 0: 12:27

I want to emphasize the importance of incorporating accessible educational technology tools with your students in general, students who have specific and unique needs, but also students with visual impairments. In our ever-evolving digital landscape, these tools really play a pivotal role in ensuring inclusive learning environments, and I know for a lot of teacher friends that I have. It's really difficult to embrace yet another tool, but there's so much out there that specifically meet the needs of our students. One of those that I learned about is called JAWS. It's Job Access with Speech. It's developed by Freedom Scientific. It's a leading screen reading software designed to make digital content accessible for individuals with vision impairments.

Speaker 0: 13:18

You can find more about JAWS in our show notes, including a link to their website. It provides Braille support. It's a robust support for Braille, allowing users to connect with a Braille display for tactile interaction with digital content. There are customization options. It's very compatible with a wide range of digital formats, pdfs, different file types and then also helping with web navigation, effective interpretation of reading web content and enhancing the browsing experience for users. It also really supports students who need multilingual support and caters to students with a diverse linguistic background and environments that they come from.

Speaker 0: 14:05

In addition to JAWS, there are also some really valuable resources to explore, such as Bookshare, which provides access to a vast online library of eBooks for individuals with print disabilities. That link will be in the show notes as well. Remember that each tool that we incorporate is a step toward creating an environment where every student can thrive. So until next time, champions of special education, keep inviting others into the conversation, keep innovating and making a positive impact. Well, time's up for us, but stay tuned for more insights and strategies in the next Fast 15 episode. Take care and all the best to you on these last few days before the end of the year. Take care, everybody. We'll talk soon.