About Our Class:Here you will find important information about our class!
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Staff:
Lauren Marshall: Teacher
Patti Phillips: Classroom Paraprofessional Danny Riera: 1:1 Paraprofessional |
Beth Longshore: Speech-Language Pathologist
Amy Moore: Occupational Therapist Erin Smith: SSA |
Curriculum:
The standard curriculum for all the AU – Integrated (GAA) classrooms in Cobb County is Unique Learning Systems. Unique Learning Systems is an online curriculum that staff and students have access to that offers standards-based academic content, a weekly differentiated newspaper, symbol supported communication tools, skill-based learning activities, self-regulation solutions and professional development. Unique offers differentiated curriculum to meet the needs of every student and we use it every day in our classroom. For more information you can visit their website at www.N2Y.com. Your child will receive an online log-in to access Unique/N2Y at home.
Independent Living Skills:
In addition to the Unique/N2Y curriculum, we are working on teaching students real-world “Independent Living” skills daily. Independent Living skills, also known as Functional Academics, are skills that allow students to succeed in life skills at home and in the community. Generalizing learned life skills is so important, especially at this age! Students will cultivate practical life skills through activities that are incorporated throughout our daily schedule, such as: reading and following a class job schedule, completing independent workboxes, traditional clerical work (e.g. filing and shredding documents), data entry on the computer, composing emails, following a recipe, etc. Additionally, students will be able to utilize the NEW Life Skills Lab.
Community Based Instruction:
Community Based Instruction, or CBI, is an instructional strategy designed to target the development of functional skills in natural, non-school based environments. Our class participates in CBI once a month. On occasion, your child will need $10 for an outing to purchase their lunch. You will be given adequate notice if your child will need money on any given CBI. You will need to sign and return a permission slip for your child to go on CBI outings.
Token Economy/"Reward Bank":
We use a token economy system in our class, what we refer to as the “Reward Bank”, as a way to promote positive behavior. A token economy is a system for providing positive reinforcement to a student by giving them “tokens” for completing tasks and/or for behaving in desired ways. Students in our class earn “dollars” throughout the day for positive behavior (e.g. following directions, completing work, being a good friend, etc.). Multiple times a week at the end of the day students are allotted time to “spend” their money on snacks or treasure box-like items (Unsurprisingly, the snacks are the most popular!). If a student does not have enough money to afford the item they want, they must save their money for the next day – a functional way to teach students about budgeting! Because the snack bin is the most popular, we are always accepting donations! Juice boxes, snack-sized chips or cookies, small candy etc. – these are all items that our students typically enjoy, and that we would greatly appreciate being donated to our class