KIC S1E3 Collaboration for Successful Inclusion - Featuring Nancy Sandlin

Karten's Inclusion Conversations S1E3 Featuring Nancy Sandlin
The conversation between Toby and  Nancy highlights the importance of collaboration, flexibility, and a positive learning environment for all students.

Websites mentioned in the conversation:
 
Understanding by Design

Inclusion Coaching for Collaborative Schools

Inclusion Strategies That Work!

#TobyKarten #NancySandlin #Karten’sInclusionConversations #KIC #Inclusion #InclusionConversations #SpecialEducation #InclusiveEducation #TeacherTalk #EducationEmpowerment #DiverseLearners#TeachingStrategies #StudentSuccess   #ProgressMonitoring#TeacherSupport#EmpoweringEducators #EducationReform #InclusionMatters #TeacherWellbeing #CollaborativeLearning

For more information please visit https://inclusionworkshops.com/

Transcript

0:00

Hi, this is Toby Karten and we're a part of the podcast Karten's Inclusion Conversations. And I could think of no better person that I could speak with that has her pulse on what students with special needs require to be successful, not only in school, but in life. I had the honor of working with Nancy Day Sandlin back in Texas and in embedded coaching. And Nancy, it is a pleasure to be with you here today. And would you tell our listening audience a little bit about yourself? I will. I started out in high school for, I spent two years in high school. Then I went to preschool and then I ended up in junior high. I spent 29 years in the classroom and 12 years as an administrator, and I've played the gamut. And the field has been lucky to have you there because I've seen you in action. And you know, it's just wonderful that we get professionals to do the best practices and that's not always easy. So how do you plan for inclusion in the settings? I mean, you work from preschool to, to, to higher grades. So how do you, how, what do you recommend? Like what does the planning look like in an inclusion setting? Well, I'm going to start with what it looked like when I was in the classroom and that was sitting down together with the inclusion teacher. Cause I was a regular ed teacher and we planned together. We looked at my lesson plan and the teacher, the inclusion teachers had the IEPs and we discussed the plans of how to present the lesson and expectations. What, what constitutes mastery for each student, because it is different that it's very conceivable and most probable that mastery will look different for each individual IEP. Each individual inclusion student. So it was important to me and I work best when I am face to face. However, now a teacher can, can, the teachers can use Google docs. They can use whatever software they want to, and it makes it easier because it doesn't have to be done during the day at school. So that part of the planning we have to be grateful for that we are able, like you said, you know, those Google docs, we could each put our comments, you know, things like that. I love that. And the fact that what you just said, kids with IEPs, you plan for their mastery. That says a lot about how you view and your expectations. And I also, I want to go back to that other part cause it's going to lead to another question. You said you spoke gen ed and special ed together. You discussed, you planned. So we, we worked a little bit also with the co-teaching with the co-teaching practices. So what is the campus leadership expect to see when visiting an inclusive classroom? Did you have some things that as an administrator, and I think Nancy, I don't know if I could always say you were an administrator, but you were also an inclusion coach. I never viewed you as looking as any of the teachers saying, aha, gotcha, but you were always there kind of like cheerleading and offering teachers models, that kind of thing. But when you're visiting a classroom, what were the things that were just non-negotiable, I guess, that were important to have within that inclusive classroom that you looked for? Well, when campus leadership walks into a classroom, what they really want to see is not, not an inclusion teacher sitting with her students, particularly, but one who is moving around the classroom, she's not just there for the inclusion students. She's there for everyone. So inclusion students should not be placed together in one spot. They need to be integrated throughout the classroom. Also, the leadership is also hoping to see teachers asking questions, inclusion teachers and regular teachers asking questions to help lead students to the correct answer rather than answering the question for them. I think that that's one of the problems that education generally throughout throughout all classrooms has, is we have a tendency to answer the question with the correct answer rather than with with another question to help lead a student to the the answer that they look that they need. Kudos. Thank you. Thank you. That inquiry based inclusion classroom, just because they have IEPs doesn't mean that we delete critical thinking skills. And thank you for putting that on our listeners plates to just we know these things. But sometimes I think when I see teachers and I think you'll agree, there's so much in a rush to go over the curriculum that sometimes I myself was guilty of this, too. As a teacher, we spoon feed. We don't allow them to pause time just to reflect. And thank you for reminding us that sometimes less is better if or how we're doing it. So but some students, you know, they have that thing called that SDI specially designed instruction in their IEP, individualized educational program. I have to spell these out because, you know, special ed has several initials, but all of those they keep changing. Sorry. Oh, my goodness. So, yes. And Texas did it to me because you kept calling everything else with different initials. Not that I'm saying one is better than the other. But I had to get the lay of the land when I crossed the border into Texas. Yes. Yeah. But but but the planning for the individual accommodations, like and even assessments, that's so important because I notice like a lot of people, maybe they'll plan for accommodations during the lesson and then they'll give everyone the same type of assessment, the written assessment. So so how do you allow students to absorb the lesson? What do you recommend teachers do to help them to know and grow, I guess is the way we could put it without that spoon feeding, but honoring that when classroom teacher plans a lesson, the mastery expectations need to be first and foremost in her mind or his mind, and you want to create your lessons around those expectations. So your your assessment ideas need to come at the beginning of the planning rather than at the end. And when you're doing that together with the inclusion teacher, then the accommodations will be going in at the beginning as well. So so you will have a richer understanding of the unit. I also want to say that planning together helped me many times in creating not just a pen and paper assessment, but assessments that were much more creative and interesting for the students and the teachers. So that collaboration is so important and helps diversify assessments and the way we assess mastery. Thank you. I love that response because you brought to mind a couple of things right away, you know, and you're going to probably think that as well. When you talked about the lesson at the beginning and you're planning for mastery and you think about the assessment, Wiggins and McTighe and understanding by design working backwards. And people think that teachers, oh, we'll just go in the classroom. But that evidence based practices, it's kind of like if I don't know, you know, it's all about the food and eating. We've shared many meals together as well. But if I went in the kitchen and I wanted to make chicken dumplings and I didn't have a recipe for that, or I thought I would just wing it and do whatever you get my gist, I don't mean to oversimplify it. But what you just said, yes, that collaboration, I couldn't agree with you more. It has a huge impact on outcomes. And I love that you keep repeating the word that begins with an M and that's called mastery and that's non-negotiable, whether the child has an IEP or not. And how we get that from what you're stating here is the planning, the collaboration. But what, Nancy, what if I didn't agree with you as the gen ed teacher, let's say, and you're the special ed teacher. What if we don't agree and we come to an impasse? Do you think that maybe we could make each other better or stronger or have that just like we're having now our conversation? It's a lot easier to to come to an agreement when you're working together. So my suggestion is if you do disagree, then you need to meet and you need to talk it through. And that's especially true with new teachers. Often they have these wonderful ideas that veterans have tried and failed. And and it's we have as veteran teachers, we have to get back past the yeah, but and and the what if and tell tell our our new teachers our experiences and work together to try to overcome the issues that we had had in the past. I found that my teaching was much richer when I listened to them, to our newbies, because they had they have the enthusiasm and the lights are still shining in their eyes. And we need to work with them to make it to make everything work and jive, because they bring to the to the plate a lot of things that that we need to to use and to enhance our our planning. I couldn't agree with you more. I've learned from I remember one teacher I co-taught where there's a first year teaching and she said to me, hey, Toby, it's my first year teaching. I'm going to make a lot of mistakes. And I looked at her and I said, it's my umpteenth year teaching. I don't have an inclusion halo on my head either. But together the kids thrived and and we had fun. Who said learning can't be fun? And I think that's the best part of collaboration. We're not just closing our doors and doing our own thing. I'm learning from people who are, you know, a little bit younger than myself. And I can learn from people older than me. And just like I think education. I think what we just figured out together is there is no age restriction on learning. Right. Love it. Thank you. So so when we talk about learning and mastery, how could we evaluate progress? People always talk about that D word data. How should that look, that progress monitoring and evaluations? Well, it needs to happen regularly, periodically for the younger kids. I'm guessing every week or two for the older kids, every two to three weeks. You you look at the progress that they have made toward mastery and what needs to happen as far as reteaching and restructuring. And and that needs to be done in a regular ed classes as well as with your inclusion, you're with the regular ed students as well as with your inclusion students so that everyone is getting what you need. And the reteaching can be divided up by the regular ed and the inclusion teachers so that all students are able to master. Mastery comes out in successful post-secondary outcomes, whether they're going to college or they're getting a job and and that feeling of confidence, because we set the stage and I like when you also said that they might not be there yet, but which part of that, how are we going to get them there? And that pronoun we is very important, but also the pronoun I is important. So I'm going to ask you a question. You know, you mentioned a lot of things. And I know myself, I'm on different campuses working with different admin and coaching and things. And, you know, not every day is a perfect one. Some of them have that thing called stress. So how do we take care of that person in the mirror? How do you take care of the person in the mirror? What advice would you give for teachers to do that? What what helped you when you're dealing with some things as well? I think the camaraderie with the other teachers have, like you said, having fun. We worked very hard to have fun together and we laughed in the lunchroom. We in between classes running to another teacher. Hey, what do you think about this? Is this going to work far so and so potluck lunches, you know, just whatever we could do to be together. And that helped a lot. We had one teacher who had special names for some of her inclusion students. And we would ask her, hey, how how is Butterball doing today? You know, our how is so you know, it's you do what it takes to make it fun because life is not always fun. And you have to have a place to go that where you can laugh and have a good time doing a very hard job. Nobody is saying that teaching is easy and it's stressful. And in today's world, it hasn't gotten any better. So you have to you have to laugh and you have to decide what's important and what's not. And if it's not important and if it's not going to be important to the kids in five years, you don't hone in on it so hard. The foundational things are extremely important that they're going to build on. But the fluff, not so much in order to take care of yourself so that you're not trying to teach 147 student expectations in in the entire year. You have to focus on what is important for next year. Thank you. Thank you. I have one final question. You ready for this? I don't think you knew this, but I am now appointing you, Nancy Sandlin, as the inclusion emperor of our country. And you have the power to influence students, educators, families, you know, gen ed, special ed. What would you do? What would be one of your first decrees as the inclusion emperor? Tough question, I know I have the educate. Let me start with the education emperor. Education emperor would would do devise a way for education to be very similar to physicians in that they would go through an internship. They would go through a residency. They would they would then be a classroom teacher and they would be paid through this time. And then they would be paid very well when they got to be a solo teacher. That being said, the inclusion teacher would follow the same thing. That way, we're not putting newbies, as I said, said brand new teachers. We're not throwing them into a classroom and an alternative certification teachers. We're not throwing them into a classroom and saying, do this. Our students deserve better and and so do our teachers, our teachers deserve better than that. So anyway, that's what I would do for that for inclusion. I would make sure that that our inclusion teachers are in our inclusion. Students have an inclusion teacher in their classrooms. Oftentimes they don't. As an administrator, I understand where you are, you are going, OK, well, we've got more inclusion students in this class, so we're going to put we're going to put the teacher there. And these two students are hanging out by themselves without it, without a teacher. You you have to go with wherever the need is greatest because you don't have the teachers. That being said, I would have the teachers. The money would be spent where it needs to be like a doctor would need to have assistance to help in an operation. He couldn't do it all himself. I love your analogy. Yes, yes, yes. The anesthesiologist has to be there. So so does the inclusion teacher. We're not working with with anesthesia, but they but the doctor who the surgeon is is accompanied by other doctors. Nancy, it's like triage, honestly. And and I think that everybody collaborating, although, you know, sometimes I equate that anesthesiologist with motivation of priming someone for the last in the same way. We're huge on getting kids to understand things in different ways. And I think that's part of our conversation here is our listening audience to understand inclusion, maybe through lenses that they didn't know. So I thank you for that analogy. I think that's a very worthwhile one. Thank you. You went in as excellent emperor of inclusion education, regardless of your future decisions. And whichever state is lucky enough to have you reside in it will be the good recipient of your knowledge within the field. So Nancy D Sandlin, I thank you for being part of Inclusion Conversations and for for letting the next cadre of professionals gain knowledge from what you have learned in the field and have shared with others and have what you stated, which I love to learn from others. That's the only way that's the best way I have of learning. I am a student of other people's ideas and thoughts, and that's that works best for me. It doesn't work for everybody, but it works best for me. Nancy D Sandlin, thank you so very much. I loved our Inclusion Conversation and so will our listeners. Have a wonderful day. Thank you. And he can feel the stairs and hear the words unspoken, not so unaware of a world that thinks he's broken and who never even knew a kid with a different point of view. No, they never really knew the kid with a different point of view. Copyright MMXXIII Karten's Inclusive Conversations. Thank you for listening. Check out other episodes on all major platforms.