Week 15

Nov. 18-22, 2013

At the start of the week, I observed Steve Hinkley for the first time at Nina Harris (an ESE school in my area). I asked Bryan if I could observe him on this day, b/c I am highly interested in this population of kids and for some reason, I kept thinking this was my last week of interning. After Bryan and I reviewed the master calendar for the internship, we realized my last week of interning would be after the first week of Dec. Yay! I get a full week of observing Steve and Nancy after the Thanksgiving break!

I observed Steve work with 4/5 students that day. 1 student was absent. It was so good for me to see his teaching approach and teaching styles with the kids. His students reminded me so much of our students at Paul B. I kept referring to them as a mix between "this student" and "that student". I really appreciated Steve's strength, ability to encourage the students toward the develoment of determination, and his creativity. With this one student, he had her walk to his office (independently), find the frisbee on his desk, walk out to an open field, and throw it back and forth to each other. It was fun for all of us and such a good lesson for me to observe the student's contrast vision, fine and gross motor skills, peripheral vision, central and peripheral vision,  and more. One of the things I also learned about this experience was that Bryan sure has a much harder and much more interesting caseload at Paul B. Stephens. I found out after observing Steve's students that Bryan has some of the hardest students (Dino, Sarah, and Andrew) that even Steve has ever dealt with and this was encouraging for me, b/c I was blossoming with these specific students.

This week, we had another QPVI meeting, which they mentioned might be ending after the next one in Dec. I learned so much at this meeting about professional conduct, character, paperwork requirement for TVIs, and desires for management over the vision program of Pinellas. At this meeting, I was able to introduce myself to the teacher I will be working with in May for my TVI internship and Beverly Bennett (Lighthouse of Pinellas representative). Beverly gave a speech on the transition program provided at the Lighthouse and educated us on what they offer for students who qualify for that position. I was shocked to see Beverly, b/c I was planning on going to see her personally right after the meeting to ask her about a position I am interested in at the Lighthouse. I was able to introduce myself to her and ask her more about the position. The position is working with babies and the requirement would be to be TVI and O&M certified with an ability to get training in 2 early intervention Visas. She told me there was a gentleman flying all the way from CA to interview, but if that did not work out and the position was still available in May, she would consider me.

Another O&M Specialist, Nancy Montcalm asked Bryan if I could assist her with her American Teach-In lesson at her daughter's school (Anona Elementary) on Thurs. This was so neat and I'm so glad she asked me to do this with her. Nancy has been teaching a little longer (22 yrs) than Bryan. She arranged such a neat lesson for the class. It was also interesting to observe her teaching style in comparison to Bryan's and Steve's, b/c she is a woman. I was most impressed by her speech and her little activity for the kids to learn braille. She had me pass out 6 skittles to each student and she had an activity for the whole class to place each skittle on a braille cell (ditto). Then, she instructed everyone to move the skittles around to certain dots, to eat ones on certain dots, and she told them how each of these different arrangements made different letters. By the end of the lesson, I have never seen so many 4th graders so excited about braille! After this, she arranged 11 different stations in the room for the students to experience. She had Perkins braillers, braille books, maps, touch-and-feel bags, canes (which I instructed and prompted students to use outside the classroom), magnifiers, telescopes, talking and graphing calculators, and more! I hope I get the privilege of doing something like this in the future for a gen ed school.

After her presentation, I observed Nancy work with a high school student (blind and autistic), which was good for me to see (especially since I will be working at a HS resource room from Jan-May for my TVI internship).

When Nancy and I met Bryan at the mall for a community lesson with Jon and Alex, it was interesting how our lessons took a different twist and turn. This happened when we were walking in the mall toward the ice skating rink and skylight and found a helicopter in the dead center of its perimeters. The helicopter was advertising flying lessons/tours and the assistant allowed the students to get in the helicopter and feel all its parts. That was the coolest thing ever! What are the chances? That's when Bryan and Nancy told me about the importance of going with the flow and not getting upset when the lesson doesn't come out as planned.