Yours + Mine = Ours VCLD Spring Symposium

Intended Audience: K-12 Educators, Adult Education

In the sudden switch to virtual learning, educators did the best they could to ensure student engagement and access. However, now that we have embraced online learning in new ways, we must ensure that our content is accessible to any students who want to learn. Accessibility must be a part of the planning process, rather than an afterthought or a course correction. This session will help you become an accessibility a11y, including color contrast requirements, closed captioning/subtitles, making PDFs accessible and more!

Add to Calendar

Intended Audience: K-12 Educators, Adult Education

This presentation highlights the strategies on how to teach culturally and linguistically diverse students and students with learning disabilities in an inclusive classroom. At the end of this session, participants will understand and appreciate cultural, linguistic, religious, ethnic diversity and exceptionalities, and will be able to apply easy to use strategies for improved teaching and behavior management.

Add to Calendar

Intended Audience: K-12 Educators

For students who have print-related disabilities, access to accessible instructional materials (AIM) and assistive technology (AT) can be a game-changer! Using AIM can positively impact student performance through grade improvement, increased independence, and more. For educators, incorporating AIM in the classroom fosters culturally responsive teaching and inclusive practices. AIM-VA, a grant-funded service through the VA Department of Education, showcases reading resources and assistive technologies available to educators who support the reading needs of diverse learners.

Add to Calendar

Intended Audience: K-12 Educators, Special Education Teachers

The universal design for learning (UDL) framework as aligned with cultural responsiveness are intertwined in this presentation. Cultural responsiveness is presented within a cultural humility framework. We focus on UDL-based instruction that is sensitive and responsive to diversity. Participants leave this session with how to use UDL within their content and grade levels in ways designed to meet the unique needs of diverse learners with LD.

Add to Calendar

Intended Audience: K-12 Educators, Special Education Teachers

Today’s teachers must know the law. Students with disabilities are entitled to specialized treatment in education settings. Teaching is no longer carried out in isolation--the classroom has never been more visible to the public than it is today. There are areas of common misunderstanding regarding special education law in Virginia. This presentation will discuss some of the most problematic areas in the classroom-level application of special education law and include time for questions.

Add to Calendar

Intended Audience: K-12 Educators, Special Education Teachers

Triennial evaluations often appear to emphasize standards-based eligibility rather than student needs. We illustrate the problem with case studies and offer recommendations for special educators and policymakers to reframe the triennial evaluation. Considering the precedent set by Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, we contend that shifting the focus from a student’s eligibility to a student’s needs capitalizes on the proximity of a student’s educational data to the provision of effective educational services.

Add to Calendar

Intended Audience:  Special Education Teachers

Token economies are one of the oldest utilized systems of reinforcement across many different populations and settings. Presenters will impart a better understanding of the six elements of a token economy, display functional variations to the traditional system, and provide data to support the variations used in current ABA sessions. Teachers will learn how to use a function-based intervention that can be individualized to treat alternative behaviors.

Add to Calendar

Intended Audience: K-12 Educators

Students returning to school due to closures from COVID-19 are experiencing challenges from the shifts in learning. Moving from in-person instruction to virtual and back to in-person has left students with disrupted learning experiences from the changes in modality. The U. S. Department of Education and the Virginia Department of Education provide resources for schools to use to engage students in meaningful and enhanced learning. Resources for the state and national level are unpacked and shared for teachers to use in their classrooms.

Add to Calendar

Intended Audience: K-12 Educators

Research suggests that there is a negative correlation between math anxiety and math performance. Students with learning disabilities or with learning differences often struggle with math anxiety and this can make learning math or wanting to learn math more difficult. Teachers often have little training on how to address this issue and struggle to find ways to help their students grapple with math anxiety. In this presentation, we share several research-based strategies to address math anxiety and we also share findings from a study on the use of explicit math anxiety discussion and reflection with pre-service elementary and special education teachers in a math class.

Add to Calendar

Intended Audience: K-12 Educators, Special Education Teachers

The undergraduate special education program at George Mason University is less than two years old. Faculty at the university are adapting instruction for undergraduate students as they learn more about students’ background knowledge and recognize that the unique learning needs of undergraduates are vastly different from graduate students. The university is implementing measures to ensure that it has a pool of highly qualified instructors to teach undergraduate special education classes. To this end, George Mason offers instructional apprenticeships for doctoral students in special education. In the fall of 2021, Dr. Kelley Regan offered such an opportunity to Amy Christy-Davila. The apprenticeship experience included collaborative planning of the course sessions, co-delivery of instruction, and weekly reflective sessions about student learning. While teaching a literacy course for preservice special education teachers, Mrs. Christy-Davila and Dr. Regan discovered that they were continually learning from each other. Their collaboration brought multiple benefits as they offered their knowledge and skills from different academic silos. In this session, the presenters will detail their experiences of collaborating across academic specialties. The instructors of the literacy course will also share the undergraduate students’ perspectives, including what they feel they gained from a class taught by instructors from different fields. Finally, the presenters will address the parallel benefits of cross-discipline collaboration to meet the needs of diverse students in K-12 settings . Attendees will learn how planning and teaching together helped the presenters refine their lessons to meet the learning needs of diverse undergraduate students. They will also discover how the collaboration instilled a sense of confidence among their students that they are better prepared to address reading difficulties and separate reading differences from reading disabilities when working with diverse learners.

Add to Calendar

Intended Audience: K-12 Educators, Special Education Teachers

Professional development (PD) prepares educators to increase practical application of evidence-based practices (EBP); however, there is typically little to no follow-up support (Joyce & Showers, 2002). Consequently, carryover of EBP to the classroom following PD is rarely observed. Fortunately, eCoaching with bug-in-ear (BIE) technology provides teachers with on-the-spot feedback as they are actively implementing EBPs in their classrooms (Rock, 2019). This oral presentation will demonstrate how to implement eCoaching in a classroom. Attendees will leave knowing the “how to’s” and equipment needed to implement eCoahing procedures.

Add to Calendar

Intended Audience: Elementary Educators

This session will highlight proven techniques for vocabulary expansion and improved reading comprehension for students with disabilities, English learners, and typical students. The program presented will demonstrate how to identify and select vocabulary targeting specific groups of students and how to add vocabulary instructional routines into seemingly impenetrable schedules using Word Up.

Add to Calendar

Intended Audience: K-12 Educators

Political rhetoric around public education practices is nothing new in our country. However, as of late, the rhetoric has targeted the implementation of culturally relevant teaching practices. In this session, participants will develop and understanding of the origins of Critical Race Theory as it applies to education (Ladson-Billings, Tate, 1995), analyze how its tenets undergird cultrually relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings 1995), review legislation that restricts what teachers can and cannot say (Tennessee HB 580), and finally the session will allow for peer discussion about how the banning of the tenets of CRT impacts the teaching profession.

Add to Calendar

Intended Audience: K-12 Educators, Special Education Teachers

Mindfulness in the field of education continues to grow as educators from around the globe learn, teach, and apply the practice in their classrooms. What are the benefits for students, teachers, and the broader school communities who are using these tools? What does the research on mindfulness, especially as it applies to individuals with Dyslexia, ADHD, and other executive functioning issues, reveal to us? Join us as we explore the practice together.

Add to Calendar

Intended Audience: Middle and High School Educators

As mathematical learning advances, students face increasingly challenging tasks. This session demonstrates how to implement the worked solution strategy during mathematics activities. This strategy alternates solutions and practice problems to support mathematical reasoning. This scaffolding technique uses worked out solutions during instructional activities and/or practice opportunities to support reasoning and understanding. Scaffolding activities using worked solutions is beneficial for students with disabilities because it helps to compensate for characteristic weaknesses in organization, memory, and persistence.

Add to Calendar

Intended Audience: Special Education Teachers

Participants will: Through instructional scenarios, experience a continuum for adapting Tier 1 instruction. Adaptations are derived from methodologies described by Vaughn and colleagues (2012, 2015,2021). They will: • Recall the definition and requirement for Specially Designed Instruction (SDI) for students with disabilities. • Be aware of methodologies for intensifying instruction. • Understand how to adapt and intensify instruction across a MTSS to SDI. • Apply the methodologies to draft a literacy lesson across a continuum of increasingly supported instruction.

Add to Calendar

Intended Audience: K-12 Educators, Special Education Teachers

We describe application of “tables of specification” (TOS) to unite content standards with frequently assessed skills. By using self-regulated learning (SRL) (an explicit, goal-directed procedure) teachers become more independent in their practice and is the underlying framework behind effective TOS. We provide examples of TOS outcomes, comments by teachers who have developed and deployed TOS as well as clear examples of guiding SRL principles.

Add to Calendar

Intended Audience: K-12 Educators, Special Education Teachers

Co-teachers who assist, circulate, or observe are often relegated to subordinate roles, thus minimizing the presence of two teachers. We propose co-teachers who feel underutilized shift themselves to active roles, some of which do not require preplanning. During this session, takeaways include descriptions of five strategies support co-teachers can use. Examples and nonexamples are illustrated, resource websites are provided, with implementation of at least two strategies next week as a goal.

Add to Calendar

Teachers will: 1. Identify the literature from 2005-2019 of the relation between physical activity and social interactions for students with ASD . 2. Identify and discuss the educational implications for students with ASD in the context of physical activity, exercise, and movement. Experience simple but effective strategies to use physical activity to improve socialization among students with ASD

Add to Calendar

Effective communication with families leads to valuable partnerships. This presentation will walk through the special education process with a focus on when to listen, when to empathize, and when to educate in a way that respects the integral role of the family.

Add to Calendar

The mission of the VCLD Co-Teaching Network is to develop a collaborative network of co-teachers, administrators, and higher educators with the intent of designing an online repository of resources and collegial support.

Add to Calendar

Explore ideas and strategies to design assignments utilizing strategies to aid in organizing and engaging students in asynchronous and synchronous environments. Additionally, describe elements of an Inclusive learning environment by applying diversity, equity, and accessibility. Furthermore, apply assignment strategies and options for submitting assignments as well as assessment strategies for evaluating what students have learned/not learned. Take Aways: Diverse assignment strategies in online asynchronous and synchronous environments, applying equity, and utilizing culturally responsive course materials.

Add to Calendar

Intended Audience: K-12 Educators, Adult Education, Special Educators

In an ideal world, all digital course content meets accessibility standards; however, the reality is a lot of course content fails to meet standards. Knowing where to start with transitioning your documents to meet accessibility guidelines and understanding how to organize your content for adjustment is overwhelming. This presentation will help guide you through how to successfully manage transitioning your digital course content without getting overburdened and frustrated.

Add to Calendar

Intended audience: K-12 Educators

Culturally responsive practices require general and special educators to use culturally sound techniques as they maximize the potential of exceptional learners. Maximizing and Empowering Unity and Diversity will create an inclusive CommUNITY within the school.

Add to Calendar

Intended Audience: K-12 Educators, Special Education Teachers

All good lessons begin with essential questions. For example, How can discipline remain conducive to learning? and In what ways do Culturally Responsive Teaching, Restorative Practice, Socio-Emotional Learning, and Special Education intersect within the classroom? This session will clearly define these terms , explore applicability, and connect their meaning to the daily life of students with exceptionalities and to the programs and co-teachers providing them support.

Add to Calendar

Intended Audience: K-12 Educators

This presentation is an exemplar of best practices and benefits of a new inclusion model based on the philophsy of universal design taking shape at Tidewater Collegiate Academy (TCA), a laboratory school for diverse PK-12th grade students on the campus of Virginia Wesleyan University. Participants will be invited to take a tour of the school at their convenience.

Add to Calendar

Intended Audience: K-8 Educators, Special Education Teachers

Is there more to reading than just word recognition and language comprehension? Yes, especially for struggling upper elementary and middle school readers who need to develop self-regulatory reading behaviors. This session examines alternative reading models to the Simple View of Reading to ensure that learners become actively engaged in the reading process as a means to promote motivation, engagement and self-regulatory reading behaviors. Special attention will be given to ways to support struggling readers.

Add to Calendar

Intended Audience: Middle and High School Educators

As mathematical learning advances, students face increasingly challenging tasks. This session demonstrates how to implement the worked solution strategy during mathematics activities. This strategy alternates solutions and practice problems to support mathematical reasoning. This scaffolding technique uses worked out solutions during instructional activities and/or practice opportunities to support reasoning and understanding. Scaffolding activities using worked solutions is beneficial for students with disabilities because it helps to compensate for characteristic weaknesses in organization, memory, and persistence.

Add to Calendar

 instruction consisting of functional skills and academics, particularly in inclusive classrooms, are predictors of improved post-secondary outcomes for secondary students. This leaves teachers with the responsibility of planning academic and transition instruction amongst the wide array of their day-to-day responsibilities.The Universal Design for Transition (UDT) Framework, an extension of Universal Design for Learning, was designed to bridge academics with functional/transition skills. In this practitioner-focused session, application of the UDT framework will be modeled through an interactive brainstorming session to include both academic and transition components within classroom lesson plans. 

Add to Calendar

Intended Audience: K-12 Educators, Special Edcation Teachers

Are you ready to power-up your lessons? Bring your devices to this interactive workshop and explore a process to provide instruction that meets the unique learning needs of students in inclusive settings. Participants will walk away with the 5 -Step AMP-UP Process and sample lessons for students with deficits in reading decoding and comprehension that leverage HLPS 12 & 19 to utilize technology to provide systematically designed instruction. Also, we have candy.

Add to Calendar

In this content analysis, a research team examined the articles in three electronic databases, resulting in 28 articles that were coded for designs and outcomes measured. These codes were further scrutinized for evidence of a transformative approach within a DisCrit theoretical framework. The findings indicate that transformative indices are present and provide potential for enhanced research and practice as the voices of the marginalized jolt justice through discourses that allow for building of knowledge bases.

Add to Calendar

This presentation will detail how explicit instruction and the use of a technology-based graphic organizer (TBGO+) improved the persuasive writing of an English learner with SLD. The presenters will describe the UDL features that supported the English learner's growth in writing quality, writing quantity, and use of transition words.

Add to Calendar

This session focuses on strategies for educators to teach coding and computer science skills to students with high incidence disabilities. In this session, participants will identify why teaching coding to SWD is important. Participants will identify different strategies on how to effectively teach coding and computer science. Lastly, participants will identify different tools and curriculums available for teaching coding to students.

Add to Calendar

Examine how inclusion classroom teachers support content-area writing. Findings from exploratory observation research regarding adaptions and evidence-based practices that teachers are using in middle school science and social studies classrooms will be shared. Adaptations designed to respond to special needs students can be used with both general education and advanced academic students. Educators are encouraged to share successful practices and areas of growth needed to increase writing performance in content area classrooms.

Add to Calendar

Lunch, Networking, and Teacher Self-Care: Chair Yoga and Visual Journaling

Add to Calendar

Sponsors

Dr. Sue Larkin, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Virginia Wesleyan University

Add to Calendar

VCLD welcomes panelists who will  share their expertise in the areas of co-teaching, social emotional learning, high-leverage practices, and culturally responsive teaching. After a brief presentation from each panelist, the audience will have the opportunity to ask questions of the panel members. 

Add to Calendar

Door prizes and award presentations!

Add to Calendar