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40: Tips for Itinerant Success with Stefanie Kessen
564 Plays1 year ago
Stefanie Kessen from the Online Itinerant discusses caseload organization, strategies for organizing materials, and other tips unique to itinerant teaching!
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Introduction to Top Pod
00:00:05
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to the Top Pod, a podcast to support itinerant teachers of the Deaf and hard of hearing, SLPs, and other Deaf education professionals. I'm Deanna Barlow from Listening Fund, and today we're talking with Stephanie Kessin about the secrets to success as an itinerant. Thanks so much for being here, Stephanie.
00:00:21
Speaker
I am so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
Stephanie Kessin's Journey
00:00:25
Speaker
Can you tell everyone a little about yourself and your background? Absolutely. So my name is Stephanie and by trade, I am a teacher for the deaf and hard of hearing. I've been in the field for a long time now, more than 25 years. I was trained to be able to teach at a residential school. So bilingual, bicultural was kind of my first love. That was my primary philosophy, graduating from college. I went to school at Ball State University.
00:00:50
Speaker
in Muncie, Indiana. And at that time, while they had a very strong emphasis on the bye-bye philosophy, they also gave us a big push to be able to experience working with kids with auditory oral background and also C2, Sign Exact English 2 experience. So even graduating from college, I had a number of experiences in my back pocket. But when I graduated, I taught in a self-contained classroom.
00:01:20
Speaker
And then I always like to say I kind of evolved to the itinerant model, kicking and screaming, that I had a strong philosophy about. I didn't really believe in it, but that was what the trend was. And that's where they needed me. And so that's where I went. Of course, there was no real manual on how to
Becoming an Education Specialist
00:01:40
Speaker
do that. So I just sort of was taking what I knew about the needs of deaf students and implementing that through the itinerant model.
00:01:47
Speaker
I took a few years off from teaching. I became a sign language community interpreter. I worked really closely with families. So I've got a lot of that on my resume in terms of experience.
00:02:00
Speaker
About halfway through my career, I became the education specialist for DHH students through the state of Wisconsin, and I worked at a statewide level through our outreach program. And with that position, my role was to go in and support other teachers and help them kind of identify the needs of their students and be able to support those needs.
00:02:20
Speaker
And of course, most of those teachers at that time were itinerants. And so I had the opportunity to kind of get this bird's eye level of what was happening for itinerant teachers across the state of Wisconsin, what their challenges were. And I was really blessed to be able to be trained by, in my opinion, some of our just great mentors in the field. So I had, you know, special training with Kieran Anderson and Kristen DePeri and just some really great
00:02:49
Speaker
pioneers in our field that were really kind of blazing the trail for us and I was able to take that training and then bring it to the teachers and then support them which was really a really great learning experience for me to be able to have this in
Founding the Online Itinerant
00:03:04
Speaker
my backpack. My own children entered the school system and when that happened I couldn't travel anymore for my work so I went back to teaching as an itinerant teacher
00:03:13
Speaker
and was able to bring all of those tools that I had gathered all of those years as these education specialists and then I was able to apply them myself as an itinerant teacher. But then what I ended up realizing is that the challenges and the things that people were experiencing in Wisconsin was not isolated to Wisconsin. And I had all of these tools now in my toolbox and I had all of this knowledge
00:03:36
Speaker
And I realized that the best way for me to be able to impact students was to be able to better empower the teachers that worked with them and their parents. And so that's when I established the online itinerant with the goal of being able to provide all the things that I had realized that I needed in my toolbox and be able to provide that for other professionals and other teachers along
Transitioning to Online Platforms
00:03:58
Speaker
the way.
00:03:58
Speaker
So that's how I got to where I am now. That's just a little bit about my background. That's pretty cool. I didn't realize you had so much experience in so many different settings and it's so neat that you're able to take that consultative work you did for the state and apply it to an online platform like the online internment because I feel like that's just so valuable. Not everybody has a consultant like that in their state who can come in and coach. So it's so cool that you were able to translate that.
00:04:25
Speaker
seamlessly into like an online platform so that itinerants who need support like have a place to find it because I mean wasn't really much else. There was a few things but not that much in terms of support if you needed it as an itinerant.
Limitations and Support for Itinerants
00:04:40
Speaker
Exactly and that was one of the roadblocks that I came in came into as the education specialist for the state is that we would we would come in we'd spend a huge amount of time with the student then and then with the teacher
00:04:53
Speaker
And then we'd give recommendations and we would give them a piece of paper and we'd say, okay, good luck. But then we had to leave and it was up to the teacher to be able to implement these recommendations. And they could call us if they had questions, but our services and support was a little bit cut off after that. And what I realized is that people needed, they not only needed the next step, but now they needed the support for the step after that and the step after that. Or suddenly there was this new challenge, this new barrier, and they couldn't really actually make the step that they were
00:05:23
Speaker
trying to do. And, you know, itinerants, we all need this ongoing support.
Continuous Resources and Community Support
00:05:29
Speaker
We need this community. We need these resources all the time. And that's one thing that there's just not a lot of access to. So when I created the online itinerant, I had that really firmly in mind to be able to prepare for people.
00:05:42
Speaker
Absolutely. Especially because you think you have it under control and then you get a student totally out of left field that has nothing to do with any of the other students you've been working with. And you only, I felt this way. I only had experience with the students that I have had experience with, but I have like these random gaps where I just like never had a student who fit that mold. And I'm like, I had nothing to pull from. So it was like, I'm lucky that I worked in a place where I had mentors available to me, but I relied on them a lot. So it's so nice that there's more resources out there now for people.
00:06:10
Speaker
including this. So we're going to get into some of those things to help people get organized and just set them up for success sort of thing. So we're going to go over a couple different things, starting with scheduling, organization, all that sort of thing, especially for a larger caseload. Do you have any tips for being successful for those people that have those big caseloads that are a lot of consultative hours or far away, all of that big stuff?
Three-in-One Scheduling Model
00:06:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:37
Speaker
And we're seeing this more and more because there's such a shortage in the field. So our teachers are, the caseload is getting bigger, the drive is getting further, and now there's less time in front of the computer to actually be able to catch up on IEPs or emails or anything like that, which just makes us all spread so much more thin.
00:06:58
Speaker
You know, in terms of scheduling, there are a couple things that I feel is really, really helpful. And, you know, I do sometimes have people say to me, like, literally, I've got a caseload, you know, we're down two teachers, and I'm now doing the job of three teachers. I've got a caseload of 80 students. What do I do? You know,
00:07:17
Speaker
And realistically, you are only one person. I mean, we can't magically clone you. And there are some times where you're just really putting the pieces together the best that you can. But when you have a caseload, I really personally love the three in one model.
00:07:38
Speaker
which is the, for every fourth session that you have with the student, they're observation minutes. So this gives you a little bit of flexibility that you can take these observation minutes and you can manipulate them to maybe it's before a session, one of the other sessions that you have with a student, or maybe it's after a session that you have with a student, or if you didn't get to see them one day,
00:08:04
Speaker
Um, or you come in and like this week, suddenly we've got all kinds of different holiday events and you don't want to pull them from the Christmas party because nobody told you that it was a party. But now you can use your minutes as observation minutes, gives you a lot more wiggle room inside of your IP minutes.
Google Calendar for Itinerants
00:08:20
Speaker
SLPs have been using this, this for years. And I feel like it's been, it's really helpful.
00:08:26
Speaker
It also has a lot of impact on how well you can support your student. I guess it's different everywhere, but I'm able to write my services flexible, push in, pull out. Even though I pull out a lot of the time, it's like if I need to push in because it's a Christmas party or because I want to observe the student for any reason, really, I'm allowed to. It just gives you that little bit of flexibility or even if you just want to push in for 15 minutes because they're doing something worth being there for.
00:08:53
Speaker
like you don't feel like oh I have to take them from because I'm only here this day and like just having I like the three the you know three direct one consultative if you have to write it like that but if you're able to even write it like just flexible sometimes that's even better because then you could just do whatever you need to do to support that student because it's very um give and take
00:09:14
Speaker
Absolutely, absolutely. And to be able to write your minutes, like sometimes it's sometimes people write them so many minutes per week. If you can write the minutes per month, then that gives you a little bit of flexibility as well, because it always happens that students, something comes up where they're not in school and suddenly you've driven there and and whatever is happening is happening and you can't see them.
00:09:39
Speaker
Now I keep my calendar and everything I keep it on a I am a Google girl. So I use like Google calendar me too. And I love this because I can very easily I just set up I set up my calendar as an event.
00:09:53
Speaker
And if something is happening that I need to change, I set my schedule that it repeats every, you know, whatever the scheduling is. If it's once a week or if it's every five days, you know, schools have crazy rotation schedules and we can set it up, right? I know.
00:10:14
Speaker
That's where it gets crazy. Like you've got one student that's on an AB schedule, but then you have another student that's on a one through five schedule. And you're like, you can only see the student on A days and you want to see them on the same day because they're in districts next to each other. And how do you make that work?
00:10:32
Speaker
When you do it in a Google Calendar, then you can manipulate the days really easy and adjust the schedule really easily without having to, you know, if you're an itinerant teacher and you're still using a paper calendar, I don't know how you are surviving. I don't know how you are surviving. I definitely want to go digital for that.
00:10:53
Speaker
for those kids that a lot of times I would see them at different times because I wanted to see them in different classes because I would observe a lot of times if they're in high school a lot of times I'm doing more observing and things and I want to go to different classes so I can't even do a recurring event because it's like different so I would just have it recur like whatever like on a random time but I would make it yellow yellow is my like pending color
00:11:14
Speaker
So anything that's like, um, pending is yellow. Everything else is blue. I don't do like different districts, different colors or anything. I keep it like everyone's blue, except if it's pending, then it's yellow. So then when I look at my calendar, if I, something is yellow, then I know I have to confirm or I have to move it or I have to like, there's some things that there's a step that needs to be done before I show up at that building because it's not, it's not like finalized yet. And that helped me so much because then I didn't have, like it was recurring on my calendar, but I knew I had to move it.
00:11:40
Speaker
or I had to fit it in. I just did it at the beginning of the month. I went and looked at the weeks of the month and bit in everything for the next four weeks or whatever. But for me, that really helped because I wasn't creating the new event, but I wasn't stuck with it in that reoccurring flat if it wasn't a reoccurring flat type of kid.
00:11:57
Speaker
which drove me crazy but for me keeping things or if like I had to change something I'll make it yellow and that's my reminder I have to email the case manager or whatever so that's like I know people do all sorts of crazy color coding but for me like whatever is the simplest is the easiest so like everything's blue except if it's a meeting then it's green or if it's pending then it's yellow and that's it.
00:12:17
Speaker
Me too, me too. And I set up an email, if it's a meeting, if it's an IEP meeting or something like that, I make sure to set up a meeting reminder for myself, like a week in advance, five days in advance. And so I make sure that I've got my paperwork and everything ready and complete ahead of time and have that. So I love that idea of keeping it, putting the pending stuff as yellow. That's fantastic. Yeah, I do something very similar.
00:12:44
Speaker
I do that as well. Let's see
Hybrid Models for High School Students
00:12:47
Speaker
it. The other scheduling thing that I am starting to come into quite a bit is the hybrid model of service delivery. And for kids that like
00:13:00
Speaker
really hard to see or my high school students that maybe their schedule is just crazy or maybe they are they're not comfortable. They don't want me to pull them out of class or anything like that. Being able to come see them but then setting up a hybrid session for them has also been really really helpful because it's kept me from having to drive.
00:13:21
Speaker
for some students. So that has been a big game changer for me. And another thing I've been very slow stepping into, kind of like the itinerant model, I was like, no, this will never work. But then I'm like, oh, for some kids, actually, this might not be so bad. Maybe I need to figure this out. So I've been working on that as well.
00:13:42
Speaker
Interesting. I never thought of doing it in a hybrid way, but I could definitely see how that could work. I just I did an episode with a tear in and she talked all about like remote teaching and for some of the kids that it really worked for and I could see it working for some of those high school kids who can. Yeah. Would kind of prefer to zoom with you and you could probably get a lot more done in a quiet environment on a nice zoom as opposed to like trying to work in the library or whatever.
00:14:04
Speaker
Well, and for our high school students, it's a great transition skill because it's kind of likely that they're going to be having some online classes if they're going to school. They're going to college afterwards. More and more colleges are having online labs, online courses, online meetings with their other students. So it's actually a great transition opportunity.
00:14:24
Speaker
teaching them how to implement captioning online and anything AI and get an interpreter and getting store instance set up and getting everything set up. So it actually allows us to do a lot that we wouldn't be able to necessarily do face to face.
00:14:39
Speaker
Yeah, totally, that makes sense.
Organizing Student Materials
00:14:41
Speaker
All right, so moving on from scheduling, let's talk a little bit more about organizing materials, organizing your notes, just keeping track of all of the info that needs to be kept track of for an itinerant teacher. I'm a Google Keep girl myself, that's what I use, but I love hearing what other people do because I feel like that works for my brain, but there's so many other systems and I just like to hear what people do.
00:15:05
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I have a training that's one of the most popular trainings on the online itinerant and it's called taming the itinerant beast.
00:15:12
Speaker
And it's like as an itinerant teacher, now I am naturally not the most organized person. And so that was my biggest challenge stepping into an itinerant role was having all my materials with me when I needed them and being able to find them easily and getting organized in that way and doing that for a huge caseload of kids that had such a variety of needs and getting myself organized and knowing where everything was.
00:15:40
Speaker
So I do this training called Taming the Itinerant Beast, which is really kind of some secret hack that has been key to my survival in terms of all of that. And again, I use Google, but I actually do a lot through my Google Calendar.
00:15:58
Speaker
So when I've got my students scheduled on my Google calendar, I have the direct link to their IEP. I've got their audiogram actually linked to their time in my schedule. I have my IEP goals listed atop of this event.
00:16:17
Speaker
And then I even have, I call them NTKs, my need to knows. So for example, when does their IEP do? How many minutes, when do I see them? Is it once a month or is it twice a month? Do they have a unilateral loss? And if so, which side of the year is it on? Like what classroom am I pulling them from? If it's a high school, I always forget like, where am I finding them right now? Or I'll link their schedule.
00:16:43
Speaker
So I actually link all of that and even my lesson plans and where I left off. I actually link all of that inside of my Google Calendar event. So then when I'm getting ready to see my student, I can go directly there and click on it. And the nice thing about that, of course, is through now all of my schools allow me to use Google. I think Outlook has a similar cloud, a similar system that you can do.
00:17:09
Speaker
and then I can make lesson plans accessible for other people to see or not. I can make my data collection accessible for other people to see or not. So that's been a huge game changer for me, just being able to stick it right in my calendar events. So are the files housed in the Google Drive and you're linking from there? Yes. Got it. Yeah, that's really cool.
00:17:29
Speaker
Yeah, or they're typically typically housing the Google Drive. So then what's really nice is then I can also access it from my phone because I'll be at a red light. And I'll be like, Oh my gosh, I'm headed to go see Johnny. What were we gonna you know, I looked at this already, but now I've already forgotten what what are we working on today. And then I can go straight to my phone and I can access it.
00:17:49
Speaker
from my phone and I put all my data collection, I put everything on there that has to do with my students so then I can access it anytime, anywhere.
00:18:01
Speaker
Yeah, that's such a good idea. I feel like that's really helpful to have it. Like, that's kind of what you need is you just need to find a way to have it available on your phone in like two touches. Like, you know what I mean? Like, like, it's great to have it in your Google Drive, which is like where I keep a lot of information, but it's like a lot of clicking to get to that information. Like I have so many folders and so many kids and it's just like, I really need just like an at a glance system. So that's why I feel like
00:18:26
Speaker
The calendar works really good, Google Keep works really good, just like the Notes app I used for a long time before I discovered Google Keep, but it's just so nice to have a two-touch system where it's like, I click my phone, I click the app, I see the information, and that's it.
00:18:42
Speaker
like kind of faster like that. I also always write down for we have case managers so like I always write down the case managers name and email because I always forget like I have to email them something and I'm just like I'm looking in my email and I'm like what is their name so I could start typing it in so that way the rest of their email pops up and I just like can't remember everybody's case I only meet them one time usually thing of the year. So just like having their name readily available is like.
Essential Information for Itinerants
00:19:10
Speaker
Exactly.
00:19:10
Speaker
So helpful. That's one of my need to knows. Yes. That will put the case manager name and email. And the other thing I always put in my event is the kid's birthday because so many of my students, A, they don't even know when their birthday is. They have no idea when it is or they know the month but not the day or
00:19:30
Speaker
And I'll have kids that'll be like, my birthday's coming, my birthday's coming. And I'll be like, really, when is it? And I'll look and it'll be like six months from now. They don't have that time concept, but it never fails. I will run into, I'll be walking down the hallway on my way to the next school and I'll run into somebody who's got a question. And they've got a question about the student's hearing loss or they've got a question about the IEP due date or minutes or something like that.
00:19:57
Speaker
And it's just really convenient to be able to to be able to say, Oh, yeah, let me take a look at this and be able to, you know, access it easily and have it right there. Yeah, I have one little like note to have just like the list of everyone on my caseload, because like sometimes like, it's just nice to be able to like look at it all. Like, even if it's just like a list, and I just have to like scroll through it for a second. Sometimes it's just helpful just to like, have like a bird's level, bird's eye view, bird's level view of all the information. But
00:20:25
Speaker
OK, great. Any other like organizing like materials or anything like
Collaboration with SLPs and Schools
00:20:31
Speaker
that? Because I have I don't know. You don't want to look at my desktop right now. I've talked about this before. Like I feel like I like sometimes I feel like I'm succeeding in one area and not succeeding in another. Like I'm doing great teaching, but my desktop's a mess. Or like I have like a great idea, but like my bag is a mess. Like it's just like.
00:20:48
Speaker
can only do so much. So I'm always looking for tips on how to keep my actual materials organized. Because like I said, I try to keep it simple, but I find it difficult to stay consistent with or keeping my things organized. And luckily, because I make a lot of my own materials, I in my head know what I have because I made it. But it still would be easier if I knew where it was.
00:21:06
Speaker
Yeah, you've got great materials, by the way. I just love them. I love what you have here, what you produce. It's just fantastic, fantastic resources. Well, and of course, when I created the online itinerant, I created it with that thought in mind of like, okay, because again, that's my problem. Like knowing what I have and where it is and how to access it and where I stored it. And so I created the teaching toolbox as part of the Professional and Friend Academy.
00:21:34
Speaker
so that everything is right there and easily accessible to be able just to go in and find it and save it. You can star it as your favorites. And then, of course, if I'm working on it with a student, then I can link that exact lesson plan inside my Google calendar. So I just have all of my lesson plans in there as well. But that's been helpful to keep me organized. But here's another thing that's been, you know, I used to load my trunk
00:22:00
Speaker
I used to load my trunk at the beginning of the day or the beginning of the week with all the games and materials that I needed. And then I would get so frustrated because I would get to the school that I was working at. And either I would walk into the building and I would forget the materials that I had thought so hardly and organized so much to put in my trunk, or I will have actually not packed that game for that day or that material for that day. And I just was constantly like, shoot.
00:22:26
Speaker
I'm not keeping up. It's a very frustrating feeling to feel like you are not keeping up with your own goals and with your own intentions. I actually have stopped packing games into my trunk and trying to take them. The reason is I have become best friends with the SLPs at my school districts, and they have all the same games, or they have different games that meet the same language goals or whatever. I have built this great relationship with them that I can say,
00:22:56
Speaker
You know, can I sneak into your game closet for the day? And instead of me and every one of them is just wonderful. Sure, absolutely. And maybe I'm blessed in that. But it saves me from having to think ahead, fill my trunk, haul stuff, lug stuff in, lug stuff out. So being able to find the people in your building that have similar resources and tools that you can just connect with them instead of you having to load it and bring it every single time.
00:23:26
Speaker
Yeah, that's one of the things I do when I have I a lot of times have a lot of preschoolers on my caseload and I bring stuff because I wanted to be fun, but like I will borrow heavily from the classroom because I just like don't have like I don't have if I adjust preschoolers, maybe that'd be different. But I can't I can't just think about the five preschoolers. I have to think about all the other kids, too. So I borrow heavily books, toys. I mean, it's nice because you can like preview stuff with them, too. So there is like a functional component to it.
00:23:53
Speaker
as well. But I do, I should probably borrow from these more because I do talk to them all the time. They're super helpful. They're super nice. I'm sure they wouldn't mind at all. But that would be another one to like, use as a resource when you're there. I try lately, I've been trying to like, I like put a bunch of different things in my car, but not something in mind for any particular student. And then like, I'll just like swap it out with different stuff. So it's like I just have I just leave different stuff in the car. So that way I can like,
00:24:18
Speaker
look at it, think about it while I'm there, and then just pick one or two things. That works until I forget to take stuff out of the car. Which is I think where I'm at right now because you can tell it's almost Christmas because I'm like piling. So I definitely feel like that's an area I couldn't prove in.
00:24:37
Speaker
Well, you know, we get to start feeling like we're gypsies and like we're living out of our car and like everything, you know, we can't put anything else, you know, oh, sorry, we have to go on vacation.
Using School Resources
00:24:48
Speaker
I've got to empty out my entire trunk of games and toys so that we can put our own luggage into our own car. Like, sorry about that. You know, I just, I just feel like
00:24:57
Speaker
That's hard to live out of your car. We don't want that. We want to live out of our home. We want to be able to have our tools and resources accessible to us, wherein every school should be our classroom community. And pulling from the SLPs or from the classroom is great, because the other thing that we're doing with that is those are probably materials that the child may
00:25:21
Speaker
be using in those other places in the classroom. So I love to pull from the preschool like the food, the food that they're using or whatever bins they have to be able to provide that activity so that they can then go back in with the kids and use that in their own, you know, in their own classroom.
00:25:39
Speaker
So yeah, if I had somebody say, can I look inside your trunk? Can I look inside your teaching bag right now? And I was like, I don't have anything in there right now. It's all on my computer or else at a school that I'm at right now. I use everything as, you know, those two places. And I no longer live out of my car, which is a great feeling. Yeah, you couldn't pay me money to show you my car right now.
00:26:03
Speaker
Sometimes it's empty. Not right now, it's not, but you know. But anyway, moving on.
Self-Care and Communication for Itinerants
00:26:13
Speaker
Did you have any other like tips, secrets, things that you like to tell people that help them just overall be successful as an itinerant teacher? Because it's so different from regular teaching.
00:26:26
Speaker
Yeah, it is. Well, for one, I like to say, just give yourself grace, because especially if you are working with a student, sometimes we're asked to perform miracles. We're asked to work with really challenging students. For example, I was just chatting with somebody today
00:26:48
Speaker
who has a 14 year old student who moved in from Mexico who has no Spanish and no English and now they're in you know the middle school classes and they're asked to work with them for 45 minutes a week that's it to be able to make this child fluent in English
00:27:07
Speaker
and this child has zero language. I've been in that exact situation before. Yes, we all have. I want to tell teachers, I want to say, we can't perform miracles. We can only do what we are given the opportunity to do. Give yourself grace,
00:27:29
Speaker
and to be willing to have the conversation with administration to say, okay, can I meet with you about this because this is really a difficult situation and to be able to open up those lines of communication. I think so often we're afraid to talk to parents and we're afraid to talk to administration. We don't want to say the wrong things. We don't want to say something that would be
00:27:53
Speaker
For parents, we don't want to ask questions that's too personal. For administration, we don't want to look like we're challenging their authority or anything like that. But more often than not, I think when we ask people just to come to the table with us so that we can brainstorm ideas around the challenging situation that we have because we all want what's best for that child.
00:28:16
Speaker
I think people in general are willing to come to the table to have the conversation. So that's one of my tips. Just ask to have the conversation. And more likely than not, people will be willing to have it. And don't expect yourself to be able to perform miracles. You can't make a child fluent in English in 45 minutes a week. You can't make any child fluent in English in 45 minutes.
00:28:40
Speaker
Let alone a 14 year old who has extreme language deprivation because they haven't had any access to language for all this time. Yeah, that's really good advice to just like keep in the back of your mind and remember because I know I feel that way sometimes like I just think about certain kids like they keep me up at night. But you have to remember that we just do the best that we have, you know, reach out to people who can help if they can. And then that's, that's really all you can do at the end of the day.
Learning Difficult Conversations
00:29:06
Speaker
I haven't got a little story for you about that. I had an aha moment a number of years ago. I was young in my teaching career and I was working, I was teaching preschool and we had this little girl come in. She was three years old and she had just been diagnosed with a severe hearing loss. So she'd had her first three years with no hearing aids. And so she came in at three and she didn't have any language.
00:29:31
Speaker
and we didn't really know what the background or anything was except for we had just learned that her dad had died of cancer and her mom came in and her mom we were
00:29:42
Speaker
You know, initially her mom, her mom was really struggling with the diagnosis of hearing loss. She had said, well, I think prior to the official diagnosis, she said, well, I think she might not be able to hear, but not so bad that she has to wear those things from her ears. I would be devastated if she ever had to wear those things in her ears, you know? And so here she comes, she gets diagnosed with this significant hearing loss.
00:30:02
Speaker
And this little girl, she wasn't potty trained yet, but she was wearing diapers. She'd go into the bathroom. She'd take her diaper off. She'd throw it under the bathroom stall, have somebody else hand her a diaper, and she would put her own diaper on. Oh my gosh. She wasn't potty trained, right? Well, we have so many things we wanted to ask her.
00:30:19
Speaker
this mom. We wanted to know what happened to her dad and what's happening with potty training. But we were so afraid to ask the questions because it just seemed so sensitive, so sensitive because it was such a hard conversation. Okay, fast forward 13 years later, I was then teaching high school and she was my student again.
00:30:43
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Actually, I had to get back. I became the outreach specialist. I was the education specialist, and I was called in to work with her on a case. So she was in high school. And I called the mom to have a parent interview. And I said, I don't know if you remember me, but I was her first teacher. She was our very first teacher. And her mom said, oh, how I wish you would have asked me those hard questions.
00:31:04
Speaker
Everybody tiptoed around me. I was in such denial. I was a super young mom. I was doing it by myself and nobody could tell me what I needed to know. I was so scared. And I thought, shoot, you know, I was afraid to ask those questions. And yet she really needed somebody to walk alongside of her and help her along that way. So that for me was an aha moment. I looked back at me as a young teacher of how afraid I was to just
00:31:32
Speaker
walk alongside that mom. And now I really pour into parents and I really try really hard to walk alongside of them. At the time I was very critical of her. I thought, and I'm embarrassed to say this, I thought, what kind of mother is she? She hasn't given this girl hearing aids. She hasn't even potty trained her yet. Here she is, she's three. Come on, mom. I was kind of thinking that. And then when I realized this mom, I think she was 23.
00:31:58
Speaker
So she was super young with a three-year-old child and she was a widow at 23. So anyway, the lesson is to have the conversation, to be willing to kind of just open that up and talk to our parents and talk to our administration.
Building Confidence with Parents
00:32:10
Speaker
Yeah. And that definitely I think gets easier the more you do it because I remember the first time a parent cried in front of me about something and I was like a deer in the headlights. I was like, Oh my God, I don't know what to do. I don't know how to, I don't know what to do. I'm so sorry. Like, please stop crying. But I, um, you know, like you, you've figured out, you learn, I've found it very helpful. I mean, obviously I did my, my little certification so that I could, you know, be an, uh,
00:32:37
Speaker
more knowledgeable in that area, but a big part of that was parent coaching. So even just like with all parents, even kids who are in auditory oral, I just got so much better at like talking to other adults, like talking to parents in like a very coachable and like empathetic way. So that way, you know, it helps you recenter things. So that way I wasn't jumping to automatic judgments or like trying to fix problems that didn't need fixing and just offering like support when they needed support and strategies when they need strategies and just like kind of figuring that out.
00:33:06
Speaker
But that definitely took time at the beginning. I was just like, oh my God, please stop crying. It got better as I feel like I practiced it. And as I purposely looked into help with dealing with that, I do a lot of early intervention on my caseload. So I deal with parents very closely compared to a lot of people. So I feel like I had a little crash course in it. And now I feel totally fine talking to parents about anything. Because when you're in their house, they share all sorts of information with you.
00:33:36
Speaker
if they were. So it definitely is something that I feel more comfortable doing now. But it's also nice that when we have these communities for teachers of the deaf that if you run into a situation like that, where there's so much going on and you want to be respectful and you want to be sensitive, maybe bouncing some ideas off someone else before you dive in could be
Online Communities and Peer Support
00:34:00
Speaker
super helpful. So that way you don't feel bad for stepping on their toes, but you're there to offer the support.
00:34:05
Speaker
that they need. I see posts like this all the time in my Facebook group or your Facebook group of people posting anonymous, like, I have this situation, how would you deal with that? And people have some really nice, insightful comments.
00:34:15
Speaker
Oh, you're so right. You're so right. Being able to connect with other people and see what other people have done or how they would approach it. We just did a Power Hour today with an online itinerant. And that's that discussion. That's the other tip to success for itinerants is have other people, have that community that you can bounce things off of. If you have to post it on a Facebook post, just kind of get that insight, get that experience from other people. It's so valuable.
00:34:41
Speaker
So speaking of, can you share a little bit about the online itinerant, what you all are working on right now, like where you can find you, all that good info.
Offerings of the Online Itinerant
00:34:50
Speaker
Awesome. So yes, go to www.theonlineitinerants.com and you'll see what all is going on. So inside our most popular offering that we have is the Professional Academy.
00:35:06
Speaker
Inside the Professional Academy, we've got over 40 different on-demand trainings for people. One of the things that you mentioned is
00:35:13
Speaker
especially as an itinerant teacher, the deaf, you know what you've experienced, but it never fails. You have something new pop up for you, and all of a sudden you're supposed to be working with this kid. And our plates are so full. We only have the capacity to get the information that we need at the moment. So this was always something that happened to me. There would be a training on, let's say, working with deaf and autistic kids.
00:35:38
Speaker
And I would say, yeah, but I don't have any deaf and autistic kids right now. So that training is not going to benefit me right now. And then a month later, I would get a deaf autistic kid and I'd be like, shoot, now I need the training. Where did the training go? Now I need it. So the online itinerant offers over 40 hours of on-demand trainings that you can access when you need it and when you've got access to it.
00:36:00
Speaker
And we have it on an app, which is nice because everything is broken into 15 minute increments. So you can literally listen to a training while you're headed to that school to work with a student. So we've got those trainings. We've got the toolbox that I mentioned that has bazillion assessments and handouts and activities and everything specific towards meeting the needs of our kids and our IEP goals. We have power hours.
00:36:28
Speaker
So that's the opportunity to come together and have these conversations. And then we have a whole parent program. And if you're a member of the Professional Academy, then you get your parents in for free and then they get all of those things. So they get somebody just like what we're talking about, walking alongside of them, supporting them along their journey.
00:36:46
Speaker
And I do the work for you instead of you doing it. I know your plate. I know our teachers, our plates are so full. We just don't have the capacity to do it. So I support you in that. And that's in the Professional Academy. Then we've got the Friend Academy, which is that parent program. And then we've got all of those things you can just get one training at a time.
00:37:06
Speaker
We had an awesome training last night about progress monitoring using Avenue PM. That was with Sue Rose from University of Minnesota. She's phenomenal. So anyway, that's the online itinerant. We've got opportunities to bring people together. So they've got community. They get the trainings that they need on demand. They've got the teaching tools and resources and they've got the opportunity to connect with others. Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing
Closing and Resources
00:37:29
Speaker
all about that. I will link
00:37:30
Speaker
to the online itinerant. I'll link to any other links you give me, Stephanie, so that way people can find it nice and easy in the show notes. All these links, show notes, transcripts, all that will be out. Listen to Toddpod.com. And I hope you have a fantastic week, and I'll see you next time. Bye. Thank you for the opportunity. Bye.