Danielle Hemmid and Jess Obercon
Welcome to the 2019-2020 school year! Jess and I are excited for the upcoming year and we wanted to take a minute to share with you what we did over the summer. A teacher’s work is never complete and we are always on a quest to learn new and innovative teaching practices as well as to share our knowledge and best practices with others, too.
After attending New Tech Network’s (NTN) annual conference in 2018, Jess and I both felt energized by the collaborative environment. We met and learned from so many people from all around the country and what we found, is that Special Education, when effective, can be a deciding factor in the success of many students in a PBL classroom. We know that what we provide at TVHS is proven to help all learners in the classroom and we wanted to share our expertise with those in the network. This inspired us to be presenters at the annual conference in 2019.
During our session at NTN conference this summer, we took a deeper look at the NTN Agency Rubric to examine how it can provide guidance for teachers of students who struggle with Executive Function (EF) skills. We introduced methods and tools that we have implemented to help special education students succeed in a PBL classroom. We shared various organizational and time management techniques that have proven to be successful for our students. Additionally we discussed effective consultant teaching methods to help differentiate PBL for all learners. For example, we explained the importance of working with administration to make sure we have common planning time with all the teachers whose classes we push into, which we found is rare for other schools. Being able to share our strategies with others in the network allowed us to showcase how success Project Based Learning is for all students, particularly those who receive special education services. If you have any questions about what success for all students looks like at Tech Valley High School, feel free to reach out to us at dhemmid@techvalleyhigh.org and jobercon@techvalleyhigh.org.