Mary Scott in Texas: May 31, 2007
My statewide group of education
specialists at the 20 service centers have been conducting a
project of the past few years around Active Learning. We created
60 teams and provided them with the Functional Scheme Assessment
and the FEILA Curriculum. They were asked to identify targeted
students, do the FSA for gross and fine motor skills, and begin
using the curriculum. WE also brought them all together for 3
days in January 2004 to hear Lilli Nielson present on Active
Learning. Many of these teams, with the support of their service
centers began purchasing active learning equipment (from
LilliWorks).
We continued to support these teams with tele-conferences on
active learning over the next couple years. We brought in Patty
Obzrut from Penrickton School in Michigan and she did a full day
tele-conference for our teams. Many of our teams shared their
success and methods with others in their regions through
in-service trainings that they did or participated in. Many
service centers conducted various trainings to support this
approach.
We have just concluded this project and I wanted to share
some of the data and success stories with you both. As with
projects of this sort, we have lost teams and students along the
way. Many of these students changed classroom, teachers changed,
some students passed away, so our numbers in the project have
declined dramatically. Hope you find this information helpful in
your continuing work support Active Learning materials. Please
find the data and notes attached.
Mary Scott ESC
Statewide Leadership Function:
Three Low
Incidence Disabilities
Region 3
Education Service Center
1905
Leary Lane
Victoria, Texas 77901
Data: 3 A’s of Active Learning Project Data Summary Fall 2003
through Spring 2007
|
3 A's
Project Data Analysis |
2003-2004 |
2004-2005 |
2005-2006 |
2006-2007 |
|
|
Baseline Year |
|
|
|
|
Teams
in Project |
60 |
57 |
53 |
15 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Students in Project |
123 |
94 |
62 |
29 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Functional Scheme Assessment |
|
|
|
|
|
Showed
Progress on skills: |
|
|
|
|
|
Gross Motor Skills |
|
74.50% |
75.8%
(47 students) |
79.3%
(23 students) |
|
Fine Motor Skills |
|
70.20% |
64.5%
(
40 students) |
65.5%
(19 students) |
Anecdotal evidence:
- Jan from Harlingen: Here is our data. I
know it doesn’t look like the kids progressed much, but they
did! And the others in their class. WOW!
- Brenda from Tyler: I
think knowing about Active Learning and Cognitive Routines has
helped our school tremendously to come up with some very
creative TAKS-ALT activities.
- Bonnie from San Antonio: I just
wanted to thank you for all you did and are doing to get Active
Learning into our classrooms and to students across the state.
What a huge job, and you have done this so well. I have learned
a LOT and will continue using Active Learning strategies
throughout my educating career!
- Tish at TSBVI: Our targeted
student has VI, AU and SI labels and has made nice progress this
year in his social/emotional skills. That has been the strongest
area of growth for most of the students in the active learning
classrooms. Thanks for all the assistance your project has given
our school over the years.
- Pat from TSBVI: The training provided
by the 3 A’s Project has made a huge impact on our programming
for our students with visual and multiple impairments who are
functioning below developmental levels of 3 – 24 months. Our
teachers have worked hard to integrate Active Learning with
their previous model, based on the work of Jan van Dijk, Barbara
Miles, and Millie Smith. It’s been a challenging but successful
endeavor.
- Debbie from Amarillo: This has been an invaluable
training experience! I was doing some of the activities and
strategies that we have covered but wasn’t sure I was doing the
right thing. The training we have received validated things I
have been doing for years. Our students are showing progress and
we are so excited.
- Gloria from Fort Bend: Just to let you know.
My district has bought into the sensory learning materials for
all severe profound students in the district. They will be
getting training for all VI, OT, PT, and facilitators in the
district. I am really excited that this is happening. It’s taken
me two years to get people to look at it and see the benefits.
- Gloria from Fort Bend: I wish you could see this little guy. He had over 100 marks
on his Little Room recording sheet today. He is making
purposeful movement. His teacher and nurse told me that they had
been really skeptical about what I had asked them to do (no
talking, no rattling of the toys) but like real troopers they
listened and did and are SO impressed with what he is doing.
They told me today that they really believe what I told them and
that he is doing things they had thought he would never do. I
just did a CVI Scale on him and compared to this time last year,
it is short of amazing. Tim from McAllen: My targeted student is
doing much of the same things as before except she is doing them
more often and more intensely (she kicks her legs to turn toward
the music while in the hopsa dress and turns her head back and
forth towards the speaker when she is in between two people
having a conversation). She really isn’t doing anything new, but
more remarkable she has not regressed. Betty from Humble: I
can’t resist bragging about a student. He entered my classroom 2
years ago and did not crawl, stand, or bear weight. Over
Christmas break his Mom called me to report that he was walking
all over the house. We had seen some of these first steps. He
began crawling in our Eggplant swing and walked to the office
with the attendance folder daily, first with a walker and then
with holding an adult hand. The secret is definitely – EVERYDAY,
several times. He has been and continues to one of my best
teachers of Active Learning. Thanks, for all you encouragement.
