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31: Q&A Episode
449 Plays1 year ago
I answer your questions from Instagram: all about my caseload, case managing, service minutes, and more!
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Transcript
Allison Fors Hearing Loss Clip Art
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Transcript
Introduction to the Todd Pod and Deaf Education
00:00:05
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Todd Pod, a podcast to support itinerant teachers of the deaf and hard of hearing, SLPs, and other deaf education professionals. I am Deanna Barlow from Listening Fund, and today we're doing an Ask Me Anything episode as our last episode of 2023.
Ask Me Anything: 2023 Edition
00:00:22
Speaker
I figured this would be a fun chill way to end the year, answer some questions, and the Pod will resume on January 1st with new episodes.
00:00:31
Speaker
So just gonna jump right in.
Managing Caseloads and Early Intervention Groups
00:00:33
Speaker
I got most of these from Instagram. How many are on your caseload? Right now I have 14 on my caseload plus I facilitate our baby and toddler groups which is three hours a week. So it's on the lower side because it's all one hour long direct service. Mostly weekly but also some two and three times a week kids.
00:00:50
Speaker
I have a lot of early intervention on my caseload. So the kids age out during the year and I pick up new ones. So I have room to maybe pick up one or two right now depending on their frequency.
Union Benefits and Workload Management
00:01:01
Speaker
I'm very lucky to work in a state with a strong teachers union who advocates for strict contract hours. So a full caseload for us is probably 20 to 24 hours of service a week-ish depending on how close everything is together.
00:01:16
Speaker
Two years ago, my schools were so close so I could see a lot more students like within my contract hours. But this year with mostly EI, I am so spread out. There's way more travel time than I've ever had before. And I just can't physically see as many. I'm super grateful to work where I do because I feel like my workload is manageable.
Caseload Comparisons and Challenges
00:01:36
Speaker
Before working here, I worked for a small private agency that specialized in hearing loss and
00:01:41
Speaker
i really liked that it was like tight knit and there was a lot of independence but the hours were a little unsustainable for me even though i never had more than like 17 or 18 students i think a lot of them had like higher service frequencies like i had two kids that i saw five days a week which is like a whole other thing but i hear stories of people with like
00:02:01
Speaker
40 to 50 or more students. And I just don't know how that works as an itinerant. Is it consultative? Do you not have contract hours? If this is you, please DM me. And if anyone wants to come on the pod and explain how they manage this, I would love to hear it because it's totally foreign to me.
Supervisory Role in Caseload Distribution
00:02:18
Speaker
How is your caseload determined? It is determined by my supervisor who manages all of the TODs caseloads.
00:02:25
Speaker
I'm on a team of over 20 TODs, so she's the one doing it. It's by location and availability. Mine personally is a little different because of all the early intervention. Only like three of us really do early intervention. So sometimes we can coordinate amongst ourselves if someone's aging out and someone has availability in certain areas like as kids pop out throughout the year. But like I'm not actually in charge of
Role of Teachers of the Deaf in New Jersey
00:02:48
Speaker
my caseload. How many students am I the case manager for?
00:02:52
Speaker
In New Jersey, the TODs are not the case managers. I know different states do this differently, but here, the school psychologist or the school social worker is the case manager. Like, case manager is their job. So, like, special ed teachers aren't case managers. TODs aren't case managers. The case manager is the case manager. So, they run the meetings. They do the paperwork. I just report on my own goals and give input regarding, like, accommodations and placement and things like that.
00:03:21
Speaker
If you're a case manager and like a TOD case manager and you want to talk about it, let me know. I can only talk about things that I have done myself.
Work Structure Across Multiple Districts
00:03:28
Speaker
All right, the next one is do you work for state, county, private and PA? We work for intermediate units, not district. So I work for a special services school district, which is similar to like an IU in Pennsylvania. New Jersey is weird because it's made up of like a million tiny towns, all of which have their own school districts.
00:03:44
Speaker
and are run completely independently of each other. So a lot of them don't have the numbers to support hiring a TOD. So if they need one, they can contract with my special services school district to come in and serve as the TOD. So I work for the special services school district, and through them, I am personally placed in four different school districts. So I am a public school teacher. I get benefits and a pension and all that. My district is just tied to the county, not to a particular town.
00:04:13
Speaker
Although that's a little misleading too because towns and other counties can contract with us too. The counties in New Jersey are not that big. I'm actually in four different counties through early intervention and the schools, but they're all relatively close together.
Benefits of a District Job in a Specialized Program
00:04:27
Speaker
So I like this setup because I have the benefits of working for a school district in terms of
00:04:31
Speaker
the benefits and a union, but I'm not the only TOD. I'm still in a specialized program. My district is huge and they cover more than just deafness. They have autism programs, multiple physical disability programs, a bunch of different continuums besides hearing loss.
00:04:46
Speaker
And the hearing loss continuum itself has us, the itinerant TODs, and like I said, there's like 20 of us, so it's great to be on a big team. But there's also the school-based program. So there's a signing program, there's an auditory oral program. So it's nice that we as itinerants don't get stuck with kids that are misplaced and need a lot more support than an itinerant can provide. There's a placement option for those kids, whether signing or oral, and it feels very comprehensive. So anyway,
00:05:14
Speaker
Anyway, I like it. I think it's good. If you have any plans to move to New Jersey, feel free to DM me. It's expensive to live here and the taxes are very high, but great place to work, so highly recommend.
Creating Teaching Materials: Graphics and Clipart
00:05:24
Speaker
Next is what program do you use to get pictures slash cartoons of hearing aids, cochlear implants, FM's, etc.
00:05:31
Speaker
So I make a lot of my own graphics for my TPT products. I make them in PowerPoint or on the iPad app Procreate. I also buy clipart on TPT, and there's two clipartist sets I can recommend to you. There's one from Allison Forres of hearing equipment, and there's one from Stacy Krause of like hearing aids and CI's and Baja's and all that. I can link them in the show notes. They're not free, but they're very high quality images. There's also plenty of Google images if you just want them for like personal use.
00:06:00
Speaker
For TPT, though, I need a license to use them in my products. So when I started making resources, neither Allison or Stacy had made their clipart yet. So I just learned how to draw them. But honestly, those are probably better. All right, next is how often do you assess students?
Assessment Practices in Early Intervention and School-age
00:06:15
Speaker
In early intervention, we assess every six months.
00:06:18
Speaker
With school-age kids, I do more informal progress monitoring throughout the year. I probably take data at least once a month or so, depending on how often I see the student. Formal assessments are not a part of my role in the schools. The SLPs do the formal assessments that include communication, and I just give input as necessary.
00:06:35
Speaker
Alright, next says, as an itinerant TOD, how do you know what to teach?
Core Focus Areas: Listening, Language, and Self-Advocacy
00:06:40
Speaker
There's no scheme of work. I stick to the main areas, assuming this is a student who's listening in spoken language, of listening, language, and self-advocacy. I consider that to be my scheme of work. Vocabulary falls within language, and vocabulary can often look like supporting academic work. So if a student needs help with algebra, I can help them with algebra.
00:07:01
Speaker
But I'm focusing on making sure that one, they have the language needed to understand the work, the directions, the instruction, all of that. And two, they have the accommodations needed to follow along in class, especially if they're struggling. So adding a note taker, getting notes before class, like whatever is needed.
00:07:20
Speaker
So I'm helping them learn algebra, but I wouldn't say algebra is in my scheme of work. It's through the lens of why is this student with a hearing loss struggling with algebra? And can I address the root cause, whether that's through language or acoustics or accommodations? I have a podcast on this, episode 20, explaining the role of the TOD that goes into more detail about this, especially the accessibility piece and making sure that students have that in place. Okay, next.
00:07:46
Speaker
How do you figure out service minutes? Is there a correct way to decide how many minutes per week? So I use the Karen Anderson hearing itinerant service rubric as my main guide. I can link it in the show notes. I can speak very generally on what I tend to see in my area. This isn't like set in stone by any means. There's a lot of individual factors to consider. Why work? We only offer 45-minute sessions because it's unreasonable to travel for anything less.
00:08:12
Speaker
So, keep that in mind. But preschoolers, they tend to get two times a week because they need a lot more listening, language, self-advocacy support. And that's often a mix of push-in and pull-out services. But it can be more, it can be less. As they get older, it tends to be less as they need less support. So maybe one to two times a week for elementary, depending. By the time we get to middle school,
00:08:37
Speaker
maybe twice a month. High schoolers tend to be once or twice a month. If a child needs more support because of a change in hearing, then it would be more. Sometimes if a child gets a lot of other services, it might be less. There are some very young students with very low service frequencies because they only need self-advocacy support.
00:08:55
Speaker
I personally like to keep direct usually weekly service until the student is able to demonstrate that they're consistently advocating for themselves if they didn't hear something, using their equipment appropriately and independently and just generally doing okay or well academically. But like I said, it's kind of like a rough, rough idea of what I tend to see, but it totally depends on the individual. And I find that rubric I mentioned to be very helpful.
00:09:19
Speaker
What app do you use for planning? I just plan in Google Docs. For my school kids, I have one doc per kid. And then I just have one little section for each session, like a table. And this also serves as my session notes that I update after the session. So it's just like a running document. I can see what I did prior, what I'm going to do next. I also use Google Keep to keep myself organized. And I have an episode coming about that in January.
00:09:44
Speaker
All right, next, do some IEP teams forget to include you and how do you navigate it? Yeah, that's happened before. Obviously not great, but it's happened. When I worked in New York, all of the IEP meetings were in the spring. So around March, February, I would talk to all the teachers and ask about the IEP meeting so they'd remember to include me.
00:10:07
Speaker
in New Jersey, the IEP meetings are held all year round so I have to be more on top of it. I try to look at when their IEP was held last year and just make sure I touch base with the case manager if I think they're in danger of forgetting me to make sure I'm included. A lot of them I have more high contact with so I know they won't forget me because they hear from me all the time because part of my job for especially the older kids is emailing the teachers different tips and suggestions and things and the case managers get those emails too.
00:10:35
Speaker
So for the case managers that I have more high contact with, I'm not as worried, but for the ones I haven't talked to in a long time, I'll try to see when the last IEP was and try to touch base with them beforehand just so they remember that I'm part of the team. It's not the best system, but usually the more contact I have with them, the less likely they are to forget me. Alright, this will be the last one for today. If a student has many areas of growth,
00:10:57
Speaker
How do you prioritize goals? So I feel like in these cases, a lot of times they're probably being supported by a special ed teacher and an SLP. So if that's the case, I will tend to focus on what is specific to me. So probably auditory skills or ASL, depending on the student and self advocacy. If listening goals are what they're working on, I would just start at the most basic level of the auditory skill hierarchy and work my way up. I talk about this in depth in episode nine.
00:11:26
Speaker
if they're using listening and spoken language, having strong listening skills will be the foundation for everything else. So I would probably focus on that to make sure they don't fall even further behind. For self advocacy, I start with them learning some basic information about their own hearing loss, how to change batteries or charge equipment, kind of like the day to day taking care of it, what they need to do to have like a successful day that is accessible to them through their equipment.
00:11:52
Speaker
Also, I would add in vocabulary. Even if it's just through reading books or through classwork, I would definitely make sure they have enough functional vocabulary to get through the day and also to access what they're learning in class.
00:12:08
Speaker
Even if I can't teach them a lot of new things because of time restraints, I at least want to make sure they're accessing the vocabulary in class by previewing, reviewing, stuff like that. Basically, in any area, I would just look at what would be the most useful and easiest next thing for them to learn. If something's too far away, I might focus on something a little more functional, a little more something that I can be successful with faster. That way, I can actually make progress if there's a lot that needs to be done.
00:12:36
Speaker
But I would probably leave a lot of the academics to the SPED team, teacher, and even a lot of the language stuff to the SLP outside of vocabulary and collaborate with them. Really depends on the case, but I would probably try to do what is specific to my specialty and not waste my time doing things like worksheets and things from class unless I am supporting the vocabulary.
00:13:00
Speaker
Alright, I'm gonna call it there for today. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast and supporting Listening Fund this year. It means the world to me that teachers like all over are using my resources with their students and listening to this podcast and I just really appreciate all the support. I'll be taking the next two weeks off from the pod for the holidays, but like I said, we'll be back January 1st with the new episode.
00:13:22
Speaker
I am super excited for 2024 and all that is to come. As usual, a transcript and show notes can be found at listentotapaw.com and I'll put all the links I mentioned. Have a great week and Happy New Year! Bye!