Lambie: Chapter 9 & 10

Resiliency & the Village

Team Functioning & Family Involvement

Pragmatic Issues of Collaboration

Interpersonal Communication

Pragmatic Issues of Collaboration

• How to fit collaborative activities into already crowded list of responsibilities– Caseloads

– Class size

– Pullout versus in-class services

– Balancing the needs of the students with collaborative activities

– Itinerant teachers

– Planning time

Stages for Collaborative Program Development

1. Establishing the program and its goals.

2. Planning for implementation

3. Preparing for implementation

4. Implementing the program

5. Maintaining the program

Interpersonal Problem Solving

1. Are the persons who have responsibility and resources for addressing the problem committed to resolving it?

2. What might happen if nothing is done to resolve the problem?

3. Does the problem warrant the effort and resources required to make significant change?

Interpersonal Problem Solving

• Identify the problem

• Generate possible solutions

• Evaluate potential solutions

• Select the solution

• Implement the solution

• Evaluate the outcome

Interaction #1

Director: With Jason enrolling at Lincoln School, we’re going to have to make some modifications so that the building is accessible. Let’s see what do we need to do?

Teacher: A ramp needs to be installed at the entrance to the building. There are three steps.

Therapist: Someone needs to make sure that handrails are installed in the bathroom.

Principal: What about the chalkboard in the classroom?

Director: Let’s make a list of changes to check on and then decide who can deal with them. The carpenters can be here by the end of the week.

Interaction #2Teacher 1: I don’t know how I’m going to get a schedule

made up. Too many people want me to be too many places at the same time.

Teacher 2: I know what you mean. The flexible services for kids are great, but I’m not sure I can handle what it does to my life.

Teacher 1: Let’s start with the givens. We’ve got to have one of us available to cover English classes during first and second hour since there are so many students with IEPs in those classes.

Teacher 2: And we promised that at least one of us would be free to meet with teachers during fourth hour lunch.

Teacher 1: Let’s block these things out on a master schedule.

Interaction #3

Psychologist: We’ve agreed that we need to redesign our programs and services by next year so they increase integration of students. What steps do we need to take to make our goal a reality?

Teacher 1: There has to be support for the classroom teachers. We have questions about identifying students’ needs and setting realistic expectations. We need someone to help us generate ideas and support us in teaching all of our students.

Teacher 2: I’m wondering how the psychologists and social workers could help out. Maybe some of the support could be related to peer groups in classes.

Social Worker: We need to think about the parents, too. And the students. The special education staff, too. Everyone needs to be prepared for the changes we’re proposing.

Reactive or Proactive

Reactive – is responding to a crisis or dilemma

Proactive – when an anticipated situation focuses attention and triggers the problem-solving process before a crisis occurs.

Your role

• Is this a problem I should be involved in solving?

• Should a collaborative approach be taken to this problem?

Factors that affect problem solving

• Are the persons who have responsibility and resources for addressing the problem committed to resolving it?

• What might happen if nothing is done to resolve the problem?

• Are adequate time and resources available to resolve the problem?

• Does the problem warrant the effort and resources required to make significant change?

How do individual and inter-personal problem solving differ?

Interpersonal communication

Effective communication is essential to most aspects of your professional success

The skills of effective communication are critical in the performance of your instruction, administrative, planning, or other intervention responsibilities, as well as in your collaboration with colleagues and parents.

Human communication

• Means by which information is transmitted from one person to another

• Communication IS the process of exchanging information.

• The information is the message or content of the communication.

• It consists of words, noises, facial expressions, and a stance of the communicator.

Communication types

Unilateral – one way, a speaker provides information to the listener

Directive – face-to face when the speaker sends a message to a listens & who indicates receipt and comprehension of the message

Transactional – two-way, reciprocal interaction in which each participant simultaneously sends and receives messages while alternately assuming the role of speaker or listener.

Effective interactions

• Frame of reference

• Selective perception

• Listening

• Nonverbal communication: congruence, individualism (identify your patterns)

• Verbal: concreteness, neutrality

Improve your communication

• Openness (Set aside bias and explore various aspects of a situation before deciphering the message)

• Meaningful (not too little or too much)• Silence (you can learn to determine the

appropriate amount of silence)• Adapt you communication to match the

task and relationship

Chapter 9

• In groups of 4 – write a consensus answer for each of the 3 questions on page 232.

Role –specific considerations in collaboration

• Parents

• Administrators

• Professionals from other disciplines

• General Educators

• Context

Parents:- A continuum of interactions.

• Demonstrate commitment to their children by interacting positively and constructively with the school , follow through with interventions and alert the school staff to unusual family situations or events (Turnbull & Turnbull, 1997)

• Decline to come to school, fail to follow through on even simple requests and never initiate communications with school staff (Fine & Gardner, 1994).

Three types of barriers

• Lack of skills to contribute to the education of their children

• Lack of resources to participate in designing or implementation of educational programs

• Attitudinal (lack of confidence or assertiveness)

Suggestions for fostering parental participation

• Environment that is supporting and inviting• Use a multicultural curriculum that reflects

and respects the cultural heritage of your students.

• Have a folder with samples of the student’s work, copies of forms being discussed, blank paper and pen available for the parents.

• Provide structure for the parents to have input• Maximize opportunities for parents to make

informed decisions.

Administrators

• Dual roles as collaborators but also supervisors responsibility for personnel decisions (evaluation of job performance).

• Your responsibility is to recognize whether you are advising or collaborating and gauge your communication accordingly. You may need to ask for clarification.

• Do not rely on administrative authority.

Suggestions to help administrators

• Share journal articles on pertinent topics (maybe one a month)

• Alert administrator to professional development activities related to collaboration

• Share handouts• Chat about the opportunities and challenges of your

collaborative activities (face to face).• Invite you principal to visit another school to observe

a particularly good collaborative program

Related Professionals

• Different preparation and training

• Limited time in school setting/schedules

• Professional obligations

General Education Teacher

• Limited preparation in collaboration and responsibilities

• Their perception of their role in interactions involving students with disabilities – feel have limited skill

• Few may be uncomfortable working with others because they have no orientation to this approach

• May believe students with disabilities should not be involved in curriculum standards and proficiency testing to determine learning (and to make teachers accountably for the students learning)

• Time constraints

Paraprofessionals

• Frequently excluded from collaborative efforts because of the constraints of their job

• Important to distinguish appropriate collaboration with paraprofessionals

• Teachers often lack preparation for supervisory roles and sometimes overlapping role responsibilities of special educators and paraprofessionals.

Checklist for effective paraprofessional relationships

• Welcome the paraprofessional to the team

• Provide a home base

• Clarify the roles and responsibilities

• Develop mutual student expectations

• Establish routine communication

• Decide procedures and times for review and feedback

Context considerations for collaboration

• The decision to collaborate might be reached by one set of professionals although the implementation of a collaborative effort is the responsibility of a different set of individuals

• Blending of sometimes very different organizations .

Reduce dilemmas of inter-organizational collaboration

• Explain expectations for meeting the student’s needs (within an appropriate educational environment)

• Expect a getting to know you period• Use negotiation skills to clarify any agreements• Recognize that the nature and extent of your

partnership may be determined partly by factors you do not control

Coordinated Interagency System

• Minnesota Statutes, Section 125A.023, Subdivision 3 ©, requires the development of an Individual Interagency Intervention Plan, which is a standardized written plan describing those programs or services and accompanying funding sources available to eligible children with disabilities.

Ethics in Collaborative Practice

• Confidentiality

• Feasibility

• Accountability

General guidelines for family involvement (p.263)

1. Appreciating and valuing parents’ involvement2. Remembering that the family is in the midst of a

typical process of change and at the same time are experiencing an event that is very different from other families.

3. Recognizing that the child’s fit within the family might be a priority concern

4. Respecting the family’s cultural patterns and beliefs

5. Communicating accurately and honestly with parents.

Family Conferences

Table 11.1 Risk Taking Questionnaire

Sensitivity

Climate/Mood

Locus of Influence

Conference planning

• Classroom/conference room planning

• Agenda or format for conference

Encourage family input

• Sharing of family story• Stating their own and their child’s preferences,

expectations, strengths, and needs• Helping to administer non-standardized

assessments. • Collecting samples of student’s work• Sharing their own and the student’s priorities,

resources, and concerns.

Family Involvement and Planning

• Prepare in advance• Connect and get started• Share visions and expectations• Review evaluation information and current levels of

performance• Share resources, priorities, and concerns• Develop goals and objective related to outcomes• Determine placement , related services, and

supplementary aids and services• Conclude the conference (Turnbull & Turnbull, 1997)

Using statements

Statements are central elements of communication.

Statements provide information, clarify information, and sometimes to seek information.

Information can be described in several different descriptive manners.

Descriptive statements

• Descriptive – When Mary left the room during the discussion, several team members looked at each other. You stopped speaking and asked, “Should I wait for Mary to return?”

• Evaluative – You shouldn’t have let Mary leave like that. It upset the team, and you didn’t know whether you should continue.

• Advisory – You need to get everyone to agree on ground rules for participation before you have that team try group problem solving again.

Guiding statements

Advice is a category of information providing statements intended to guide action by suggesting, hinting, or even commanding that someone take specific actions or accept certain beliefs.

Suggestions are statements of gentle advice offered as possibilities for consideration.

Advice may also be given as a direct command that insists on compliance or cooperation.

Seeking information

• Inflection – The books are no longer available?

• Commands – Get the parents a copy of the report. (tone changes and sounds demanding)

• Indirect questions – Do you think it would be helpful if the parents had a copy of that report? (more invitational)

Clarification

• Paraphrasing – restate in your own words• Reflecting – description of what another person

has said and try to capture the affective meaning of the information

• Summarizing – a response to several pieces of information and not as immediate as paraphrasing.

• Checking – perception checking or checking for information.

Characteristics of Effective Interpersonal Feedback

• Descriptive

• Specific

• Directed toward changeable behaviors and situations

• Concise

• Checked for clarity

Feedback is

• Solicited to be most effective

• Direct rather than indirect

• Well-timed

Asking questions

• Seek information

• Provide information

• Clarify or confirm information

Characteristics of questions

• Format:– Open/closed– Direct/indirect– Single/multiple

• Concreteness– Presupposition– Prefatory

Suggestions for Asking Questions

• Use pauses effectively

• Monitor question-asking interactions

• Make questions meaningful

Conducting interviews

• Arrange the seating• Prepare yourself• Introduction

– Establish ground rules– Put all parties at ease

chat, state the purpose, approx. time, thanks, if you are taking notes or audio recording, obtain permission to do so.

Interviews -cont

• Body – order questions and statements, cluster questions by topic, use silence and minimal encouragers, ( the more you talk the less likely you are to elicit the information that you want), monitor time.

• Close – review major topics, clarify any plans, set a time to follow up, ask whether any additional topics should be addressed, indicate what you will do with the information, clarify if information can be shared, express appreciation for their time and effort.

Assignment

• Listen to a professional interviewer on television or radio. Analyze the questions the person asked. How would you rate the interviewer’s questioning and answering skill? Study the interviewer not the interviewee. Did they get the information they were seeking? What types of questions, etc.

Next week -

• Difficult interactions….

• What kind of a collaborator are you????

• Video “Educating Peter”