Pocket Mods Rock!

It doesn't take a lot to get us excited.  Sometimes it is the smallest strategies that make a big difference.  Check out Pocket Mod. We found them from the great folks at Onion Mountain.  The following info is from their site with tons of great ideas on how to use the Pocket Mods. You can create and print one (or many) for free!  Learn how here. 

PocketMods for Older Students 

One of the most popular uses of the PocketMod for the older student will be the base program on line or downloaded for organization. Students can maintain daily, weekly and/or monthly calendars as well as note-taking paper, to do lists, and reference materials. If they lose one organizer, they just print another. The contents of the organizer can be changed from week to week as needs change. Remember, students can write on PocketMods. 

Here are some other ideas for individually created PocketMods for older students:

• Most frequently misspelled words 
  
• Most frequently confused homonyms with meanings 
  
• A glossary of terms with readability appropriate synonyms or definitions, especially 
  
• valuable for new science units or difficult texts 
  
• A rubric check list for note-taking or writing 
  
• A translation aide for foreign language 
  
• A summary of a chapter to be read 
  
• One chapter question per page with room for the answer to be written or the page 
  
• number on which the answer is found 
  
• Important formulas that need to be remembered or could be used on tests 
  
• Software quickstarts 
  
• Dates for a given history chapter in divisions that cover the length of the chapter. 
  
• Students take notes on events within the time period for each of the pages. The result is 
  
• a chronology of events. This is particularly important when info is coming from different books. 
• Data collection “journal” for fieldwork. For example, every page could be a different test or observation that the student needs to make. 

PocketMods for Younger Students
PDF to PocketMod is an ideal tool for creating “little books” for children to carry and use
whenever they want. They make ideal books for social stories or daily living sequences. Create
these books by making an 8-page file in a word processing program like Word or an 8-slide
presentation in PowerPoint. Because the screen or page is going to be shrunk in the book to
1/8th of a piece of paper, be sure to use large enough fonts as well as fonts that match lettering
that the student is learning. (We use 24-36 point as a minimum.) When the book or
 presentation is finished, save it and then turn it into a PDF file. The file is now ready to be made into a PocketMod. In addition to books,
here are some other ideas for K-6 student PocketMods:

• Activity choice books 
  
• Frequently misspelled words 
  
• Vocabulary words for a unit 
  
• Picture/word dictionaries 
  
• Number fact families – especially good for multiplication. Assume they know 1’s and 0’s. 
  
• Use the eight pages for 2 – 9. 
  
• Letters with common objects starting with that letter. Three books will do the entire alphabet. 
• Regions of the US maps (maximum of 8 states can be a little tricky, but it can be done. 
  
• Create with a data base program so that the same info appears on each page 
  
• The eight planets (Thanks to the International Astronomers Society for getting rid of number 9, Pluto!) 
• Weather journals. Each page is a day, or every page is for recording different weather info for a period of time (cloud type and cover, temperature, precipitation, etc.)

Sharing PocketMods
We have started a new section on our website at www.onionmountaintech.com. Email us your
pocketmod creation as an PDF attachment (jsweeney@onionmountaintech.com). We’ll double
check the PDF on both platforms. In your email, be sure to describe the PocketMod and let us
know who should get credit. Then look for the link on our homepage for Download PocketMods. With a single click you can download any PocketMod there and print it out.  

Learn more about it: 

http://www.onionmountaintech.com/files2/PocketMod%20handout%20CTG.pdf

Task Analysis

The following information is from George Mason University
Task Analysis 101

"Task analysis for instructional design is a process of analyzing and articulating the kind of learning that you expect the learners to know how to perform" (Jonassen, Tessmer, & Hannum, 1999, p.3). Instructional designers perform a task analysis in order to:

1. determine the instructional goals and objectives;
2. define and describe in detail the tasks and sub-tasks that the student will perform;
3. specify the knowledge type (declarative, structural, and procedural knowledge) that characterize a job or task;
4. select learning outcomes that are appropriate for instructional development;
5. prioritize and sequence tasks;
6. determine instructional activities and strategies that foster learning;
7. select appropriate media and learning environments;
8. construct performance assessments and evaluation (Jonassen et al., 1999).

How Do I Perform a Task Analysis?

According to Jonassen, the task analysis process consists of five distinct functions:

Classifying tasks according to learning outcomes –
Inventorying tasks – identifying tasks or generating a list of tasks
Selecting tasks – prioritizing tasks and choosing those that are more feasible and appropriate if there is an abundance of tasks to train.
Decomposing tasks – identifying and describing the components of the tasks, goals, or objectives.
Sequencing tasks and sub-tasks – defining the sequence in which instruction should occur that will best facilitate learning.

For examples go to Dr. Mac's Amazing Behavior Management Site:
http://www.behavioradvisor.com/

Here is part of an example of Brushing Teeth:
Brushing Teeth
Pick up the tooth brush
Wet the tooth brush
Take the cap off the tube of toothpaste
Put a pea sized amount of paste on the tooth brush
Brush the biting surface of the bottom row of teeth
Brush the biting surface of the top row of teeth

Shoebox Tasks - Learn all about it!

Data Collection Made Easy

Looking for a way to track behavior easily?

Check out Behavior Notes-

Behavior Notes is a very cool site. The goal is to help you proactively manage behavior rather than reactively track discipline. What a concept! The site is designed to help you quickly document student behaviors- both negative and positive!

Here is a quick overview of the site information:

School administrators and teachers, are feeling increased pressure to manage student behavior. In particular the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) of 2001 requires schools to insure that all students meet a minimum standard.

To this end many schools and school districts have started training their teachers on how to document behavior while utilizing behavior management. The hope and promise of behavior management training programs is that schools will be able to identify students with special needs early on and get students the help that they need. Behavioral documentation provides schools with a record of previous efforts.

There are two critical challenges to successfully implementing behavior management and behavioral documentation.

No Time
The first challenge is providing teachers with a practical, simple way to do the documentation. Teachers who feel overworked and underpaid often feel they are spending more time doing paperwork than teaching. For the few teachers who are willing to invest the necessary time, this usually means writing notes by hand at the end of each day. Hand written notes are time consuming, inconsistent, and sometimes even illegible. With all of these problems, even those teachers who start writing notes with the best of intentions usually stop when they don't see results.

No Reporting and Analysis
The second challenge, assuming that behaviors have actually been documented, is leveraging that information. Simply documenting student behavior is not enough if you don't do something with it. If you can't easily retrieve and analyze the information that has been collected then it doesn't do you any good to collect it in the first place. Handwritten notes, or even Word documents and Excel spreadsheets, are not going to help in identifying and helping students that need special attention.

For behavior management to work it must not only be possible to readily retrieve information about a student, but also to compare that student to their class, school, and grade level. It must be possible to normalize the information on a student by comparing classes and schools to each other. Only then can a behavior management program be effective in bringing teachers, parents, specialists, and administrators together to address students needs.

Have a look for yourself: www.behaviornotes.com

Seizures

Studies show roughly one-third of individuals with autism also experience seizures.
The following information was obtained from epilepsy.com

There are so many kinds of seizures that neurologists who specialize in epilepsy are still updating their thinking about how to classify them. Usually, they classify seizures into two types, primary generalized seizures and partial seizures. The difference between these types is in how they begin:
Primary generalized seizures
Primary generalized seizures begin with a widespread electrical discharge that involves both sides of the brain at once. Hereditary factors are important in many of these seizures.
Partial seizures
Partial seizures begin with an electrical discharge in one limited area of the brain. Some are related to head injury, brain infection, stroke, or tumor, but in most cases the cause is unknown.
One question that is used to further classify partial seizures is whether consciousness (the ability to respond and remember) is "impaired" or "preserved." The difference may seem obvious, but really there are many degrees of impairment or preservation of consciousness.

Links to types of Primary Generalized Seizures:
Absence seizures
Atypical absence seizures
Myoclonic seizures
Atonic seizures
Tonic seizures
Clonic seizures
Tonic-clonic seizures

Links to types of Partial Seizures
Simple partial seizures
Complex partial seizures
Secondarily generalized seizures

Got Probes?

The following information was obtained from http://www.interventioncentral.org/

Information was written by Jim Wright, a school psychologist and school administrator from Central New York.

Curriculum-based measurement, or CBM, is a method of monitoring student educational progress through direct assessment of academic skills. CBM can be used to measure basic skills in reading, mathematics, spelling, and written expression. It can also be used to monitor readiness skills. When using CBM, the instructor gives the student brief, timed samples, or "probes," made up of academic material taken from the child's school curriculum.

Some of the advantages of using CBM are:

Good overlap with curriculum
Because CBM probes are made up of materials taken from the local
curriculum, there is an appropriate overlap between classroom instruction and the
testing materials used. In effect, CBM allows the teacher to better test what is being
taught.

Quick to administer
CBM probes are quick to administer. For example, to obtain a single CBM
reading fluency measure, the instructor asks the student to read aloud for 3 minutes.
CBM measures in math, writing, and spelling are also quite brief.

Can be given often
CBM probes can be given repeatedly in a short span of time. In fact, CBM
probes can be given frequently, even daily if desired. The resulting information can
then be graphed to demonstrate student progress.

Sensitive to short-term gain in academic skills
Unlike many norm-referenced tests, CBM has been found to be sensitive to
short-term student gains. In fact, CBM is so useful a measure of student academic
progress that teachers employing it can often determine in as short a span as severalweeks whether a student is making appropriate gains in school skills.

Below is a wonderful resource which links you to several probes which can be created quickly:

http://www.interventioncentral.org/htmdocs/tools/cbaprobe/cba.php

Enjoy! We hope this information is helpful in teaching and assessing your students.