TRANSCRIPT
The Role of the TVI in Active Learning
2-9-26 

>>Scott: My first love or my first experiences in the field of VI education was with students who were -- back then we used to call severely and profoundly impaired. I think the term we use now is complex access needs. Sara also has an extensive background and it's really a first love for us. And so that's why we want to present this information and really specifically to talking about Active Learning and how it can be applied or how it could be applied in the itinerant setting. So, why don't we go on to the next slide, Sara. So why Active Learning? You guys -- I think most people have some familiarity with it at this point. But what stands out for me in using it is that, number one, it was specifically developed for blind children. Lilli Nielsen, who came up with the approach, she worked with blind and Deafblind children. And so she developed specifically for those kids who, say from birth to 4 years of age. Or birth to 4 years developmentally. It's very, very specific. It's not something that needs to be modified from a different curriculum. It's specifically for children who are blind or visually impaired. It was based on typical child development. So all of us in education, we've all got a background in child development. We know kind of how children go from birth up through years 1, 2, 3, 4. So it's based on that. So it follows along that same pathway. So it's not really anything incredibly different, when you really look into it. It's not something -- and this is a thing that I've heard people say. When we're talking about Active Learning is they seem to think that you can only do Active Learning, that Active Learning is applied to the exclusion of other approaches. And that's simply not true. You can do Active Learning and you can do other approaches. You can do functional routines and Active Learning. You can do pre-vocational-type routines and do Active Learning. You can do living skills. You can do calendars. You can do early literacy. It can be paired together. So that's not -- it's not a once overall approach to the exclusion of everything else. And it's very holistic. There's an evaluation part to it. There's a curriculum part. There are materials associated with it so it's really a nice sort of package that you can use for addressing the needs of these kids with complex access needs. So that's kind of the spiel, just to convince everybody that Active Learning is great. Let's move on to the next slide. Okay. Here's where we have audience participation. So the screen says: As an itinerant TVI, what challenges or successes have you experienced serving children with complex access needs? So you can please share that in the chat or unmute, if you want to unmute, if you're more comfortable talking, that's great too. So it doesn't necessarily have to be with Active Learning, per se. If you have an Active Learning experience, yes. But also just, in general, what are some challenges you face in trying to work with kids who are in the sort of self-contained classrooms? 

>>Sara: Deidre says that carryover is challenging. Mary says that follow through with caregivers or staff. So it seems like, yes, role release is another one. Getting follow -- yep, yep. Getting follow through with staff. Sounds like it's overarching. Communication. When working with nonverbal students, it's hard to know how much the student is learning. That's another challenge. 

>>Scott: Anybody else? I'm sure got some other challenges. Attendance. 

>>Sara: Attendance and zero to 3 years, follow up with parents. It depends on the situation and medical stuff. It can be overwhelming for them. Somebody said determining volition. I guess that means what is the student motivated by. Students who wouldn't reach beyond their own body. That was a challenge. But this person made an Active Learning smock and the student became receptive to reaching out to explore. So that was a success. Yay! And Tracy says I work with some amazing staff so have no problems with communication or carryover. Awesome. Consistency across disciplines has been a challenge. Medical absences. Staff changing from year to year. Oh, yeah. Having to start over. That's a big challenge. Motivation, levels of arousal and engagement. I think Allison is talking about the student, not necessarily the staff. [Laughter] So thank you for including that information. We appreciate that. 

>>Scott: Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. That is certainly all things that I came across. I mean, you guys mentioned a lot about the lack of consistency or the lack of carryover and role release in the classroom. That is a big one and we'll talk about that a little bit more when we get further into the presentation. Does anybody -- just for fun, does anybody want to unmute and say something? 

>>Sara: You know, I don't know if they can unmute in the Coffee Hour, Scott. 

>>Scott: You can't? 

>>Sara: I don't think so. Yeah. They just have chat. 

>>Scott: Oh. 

>>Sara: All going to be typing. 

>>Scott: I'm sorry. I got everybody's expectations up. Well, thanks for sharing, everybody. That's great. Yeah. I certainly, when I was an itinerant, I dealt with that as well. A lot of the problems I had had to do with that. Had to do with the difficulty of getting there to be follow through in the classroom when I wasn't there. And sometimes that was -- it's difficult because as an itinerant you don't have a lot of power in that classroom. You know, you have no power, let's put it that way. And so it's very difficult to try to get that carryover or get people to do what you're asking them to do. 

>>Sara: Yeah. Getting the multidisciplinary team to read the accommodations. 

>>Scott: Yeah, it's all very hard. Another thing -- and I'll point this out. This was an issue for me when I was an itinerant. Typically, these children receive very low service hours . Typically with these kids, I would see them getting -- a real typical time, an hour a month consult. Sometimes you would even see 30 minutes a month. I had a couple of kids that were on an hour a semester consult. And so looking at that, it was very, very difficult to have any sort of real impact at that kind of time. That was another real constraint I felt. And, you know, there's reasons for that, that it's that way. Having to do with the massive caseloads that we all have. But anyway, let's go to the next slide. Okay. So our role with these kids is critical. You know, what we do, what our role is as a TVI, is to ensure access. You know, we don't teach subject matter, we teach access. So if you have a student who is blind and they need -- a blind academic student. We teach Braille. We give them access that way. That's what we're all about. Since our children don't have use of their vision, which is, let's face it, perhaps the primary mode of learning and the way it's taught in the public schools. Auditory being an important second one but it's very reliant on vision. So we do things to ensure that our children can use their sense of touch to access the same things that sighted children can access through vision. So that's a real important role that we play. The second thing to think about is we are trained or we have a background in knowing how vision affects learning. You know, that's why we have that accommodations page. So we can go in and explain to the staff, to administrators, to teachers this is how vision is affecting what this child is learning. This is the accommodation that needs to happen and this is the reason for that. You know, we're not just pulling this out of the air, there are reasons related to child development and reasons related to sensory development that are impacting this child. And we are the owners of that knowledge. No one else learns that, really. 

>>Sara: I suppose that should say explain the impact of visual impairment on impairment. 

>>Scott: Thank you for finding better words for me. The third bullet is accommodate for changing needs. As kids go from the beginning of their school career, starting at age, you know, say they're entering at age 3 or age 5. By the time they get up to third grade, things are different. Then they get to sixth grade, things are different. We have to constantly be accommodating and changing what we're teaching. [Indiscernible] [ Audio breaking up ] And that goes for our students -- the next slide. 

>>Kaycee: Scott, this is Kaycee. I think there was an internet glitch for a little bit where we lost your audio for the last 45 seconds. If you want to recap. 

>>Scott: Oh, you did? Well, okay. That was very life-changing information. I'll go back. Our role in accommodating for changing needs and we can't go in with a Braille student -- I'm going to make that analogy again. If you have a Braille student, you don't teach them, say, first, second, third grade and then leave. You're not done because they'll have differing needs. They'll have differing situations that arise, say, in fifth grade, seventh grade, tenth grade. So we have to monitor and follow that child and accommodate for those changing needs and ongoing fashion. Okay? Sara, we seem to have gotten a lot of chats. 

>>Sara: Mostly they were about the audio that had dropped out. They couldn't hear. You're back. It's all good now. 

>>Scott: Sorry, guys. Let's go to the next slide. Okay. So we put this quote here: Vision is not the primary impairment. I don't know if any of you guys have heard this stated with these children. But I knew numerous times I ran across that when I was talking about working with children with complex access needs. I was told, you know, vision is not really their primary impairment. What's really causing them the problems is the intellectual disability. What's really causing them problems is the mobility issues, the physical impairments. But this quote from Lilli Nielsen, she said the impact of combined disabilities is multiplicative, not additive. So what she's saying there is when you add a visual impairment to, say, intellectual disability, it's not simply one more thing you have to deal with is vision. It's like the combination, the intersection of the visual impairment and the intellectual disability multiply themselves. So think about it this way. Vision is the primary way people learn. Sighted people learn that way. If you don't have vision, you're missing out on a lot of information. Whether or not you're an academic student or a complex access needs student. The loss of vision is going to make everything that much more complicated. So you can't really say, you know, oh, if this student didn't have a visual impairment, they would still be intellectual disabled. Well, yeah. That's true. But if they're intellectually disabled and they have a visual impairment, it's much, much more difficult for them to learn, if they don't receive the needed accommodations. Which are provided through us. So anybody -- see if there's any chat there. 

>>Sara: Not yet but I always wonder about this. Because if somebody's lacking access to information because they can't move. They can't see. Nobody can really test their hearing to know whether they can process auditory information. You know, what information do they have to organize? Could that be the cause of what appears to be an intellectual disability? I mean, it's so difficult to say that somebody has an intellectual disability if they really aren't getting any information. You have to have something to work with in order to, you know, use it. 

>>Scott: And that's a really good point, Sara. That's a really good point. If they're not getting -- and particularly these children we're talking about. Most of them have been born, from birth they've got a combination of disabilities and there's intellectual, movement. You know, some sort of limitation on their movement. And vision. So from the get-go, they're not getting information. They're not getting information and so it's really hampered their learning. And learning builds upon itself, right? What you learn when you're one year old will affect what you can learn when you're 2, what you can learn when you're 3. If you haven't learned those basic things from birth to 2 years of age, you're at a very, very big disability right there. Okay. So let's go to the next slide then. 

>>Sara: Somebody said they've heard similar statements in their Deafblind training because of dual sensory loss. 

>>Scott: Yeah. I don't think we can minimize the extent that vision impacts learning. As TVIs sometimes we think if you're a Braille student [Indiscernible] but what we tend to think with these complex access needs kids, these other things are really the problem and vision is just icing on the cake. But it's really not. It really is a major part of why they're not learning. So this slide says sensory efficiency is access. So what we're getting at here is that we assume children will naturally use their sense of touch. Because babies in the crib, they're doing these reflexive movements and they just naturally start to touch and naturally start to learn to use their sense of touch. And if they don't, people assume that's just not -- that maybe that's related to their intellectual development. But really it comes from not getting information. They've done studies with children -- Lilli Nielsen did a study where she looked at kids who -- blind children when they were born were engaged in the reflexive movements that kids do at that age. But after weeks of not getting information, if they move their hands they wouldn't see it or touched something, they didn't notice a reaction, they would stop to move. They have not learned how to use touch. Many times with these kids we'll say, well, they're not moving. They're not touching things and they're blind so they must be an auditory learner. And this is a really -- this is really not correct. This is not really the way it is. What you can get from auditory information, what you can really learn from it is very limited by whether you know what the source of that information is. So anything that's happening at a distance, if you're hearing a noise occur at a distance, you don't really know what that is unless you can confirm it with your near senses, with your touch. So children may -- often people say, well, he really likes to listen to stories. He really likes to hear songs so he must be primarily an auditory learner. That's an important sensory mode for them but it's not really how they're getting useful information. Information they can use for learning. It's more like entertainment. They're getting entertained by it but they're not necessarily learning skills that they can use. So keep in mind the last bullet says, you know, they can learn to use touch and movement. Even children who seem to have really involved, be very involved physically and not show a lot of movement. Not show a lot of reaching out and touching, they can learn if they're provided that information. You know, it's not static. You know, the lack of using touch and movement is not static, it develops. Just like everything else with children, goes through developmental stages. Touch and movement go through developmental stages. And one gains skills in the early areas will contribute to gaining those skills in later areas. If they're not taught to learn touch, yes they may end up not moving and not touching things and they're going to have a very difficult time learning after that. 

>>Sara: Yeah. Another thing to think about with auditory learning is that, you know, in order to make sense of information, you need to be able to act on it. And since we -- I mean, even the eyes. You can move your eyes and look in the direction of, you know, certain things and hone in on it a little bit more, if you do have vision. With the ears, it takes a while to -- you can't -- unfortunately, we don't have that wonderful way of controlling our ears like dogs and cats do. We can't really aim our ears and locate the sound source and get more information on it. So it can be very passive and very random seeming to a child. They might be entertained by it, like Scott said. But it's very important to know just laughing at a sound doesn't necessarily mean it has meaning. 

>>Scott: Yeah. So anybody got any more comments? Anybody want to comment, argue? 

>>Sara: Quilley was agreeing with Melissa. She said if you can not see or hear, your learning is on hold until proper interventions take place. That was from the previous conversation. 

>>Scott: Okay. I'll give it a few minutes and see if anybody pipes up. I mean, just in general, what do you guys think about the concept of, you know, we, as TVIs, are charged with providing, ensuring that our children, our students have access? And how that -- why sometimes that seems to apply more to certain students than to other students. For example, an academic Braille student. We all agree that student needs access and is deserving of pretty extensive services on our part. Whereas a complex access needs, someone who is nonverbal, who has significant cerebral palsy, who is pretty much just locked into their body, not reaching out. Not touching things. Those people sometimes are not seen, are not provided quite the level of training and support. 

>>Sara: Scott, I would say this falls into the deep thoughts category. Might not be easy to get a quick answer on a chat. 

>>Scott: Well, it was rhetorical. 

>>Sara: Ah, okay. 

>>Scott: That is one thing -- that is a question that I have dealt with as an itinerant and I continue to deal with. It's a question I have asked myself many times. Why is it this way? Am I truly providing access to all my students? Is there a way that I can start to provide better support and access for some of these other kids who are kind of at the low end of the -- typically end up on the low end of service time. There's a comment. A book I want to read called out of my mind, about an 11-year-old girl with CP. My son read it and said it was really good. I actually started reading that -- it's not actually from the perspective -- it's a make-believe story but it's nice, as far as empathy building. And then Julie said part of what we do is raise awareness amongst the staff so that they feel more confident in providing access, while TVIs are not able to be in those buildings every day. Many of us are spread thin within our schools. Tracy said there's also a movie about Out of My Mind. It's a Disney one. Cynthia said I have seen that if a student is quiet, it is easy for the SPED teacher to not pay attention and to think that the student is okay. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, that's for sure. We want to teach our kids to be squeaky, if we can. 

>>Scott: Going back to Julie's point about being spread very thin -- again, this is just -- you don't have to answer. You can answer if you want. But looking at your own caseload, you know, what percentage of those students are complex access needs? You know, as opposed to what percentage is, say, academic students? Low vision students? Blind students? I know my caseload's typically tended to be at least half students with complex access needs, if not more. 

>>Sara: There's a question or maybe a rhetorical one. How can we address this idea in the LMA that a student possibly doesn't have a primary learning medium? I would say that most of these students that we're talking about are tactile. That is their primary. Even if they do not move their body that that's where we come in and provide access, by bringing things close to their body and specializing the things we look at for them in working with the team. Kaycee said when staff are overwhelmed with caseloads, they sometimes prioritize the students who will make quick growth, and that's often not this population. Quilley said if we do not make access a priority for various curricula compensatory access, then all else falls by the wayside. We are the front runners to help staff and teams open the doors for our champions who are complex, unique, and exceptional. For example, a student with ROP, level 3 ASD, sensory processing disorders, and low muscle tone. A spokesperson for the cause. Thank you. 

>>Scott: Yeah. Let's go to the next slide. So we wanted to -- in addition to me pontificating about the role of the TVI with complex access needs, we need to provide some ideas and some resources that may be of help. I mean, it's a huge mountain to climb. You know, we're not trying to minimize that or say you should do this. You should do that. The situation right now, in general, is very difficult -- in education in general it's very difficult. And for our population it's always been difficult. There are a lot of challenges. But here's a few things. We looked at some of the challenges and thought about, you know, here's some things to think about or here's some things you might try that could help, at least a little bit, to help us in providing services to this population. So we'll look at the first one. 

>>Sara: Next slide. 

>>Scott: So we talk about a knowledge challenge. You know, limited experience. Limited experience, limited knowledge. You know, there's a lot of people who have not worked with kids with this type of child very much. I don't know, you know, it's awesome that we've got guidance from all over the country here. And I don't know how your teacher prep programs are. But I know when I was going through teacher prep, I didn't get a lot of information about complex access needs students. Even in my VI prep, they didn't talk about that -- I mean, there were entire classes devoted to Braille and abacus and these types of things but there's very little information given about complex access needs students, multihandicapped students. In addition to that, a lot of people may not have knowledge about Active Learning itself. And so when you go into classrooms to try to explain it, it can be a little bit challenging. Here's a few things that might be able to help. Let me go on to the next slide. Okay. So, you know, we can better educate ourselves. If you're in a situation where you feel you don't have a lot of information about Active Learning, you'd like to learn more so you'll feel more comfortable in working with the classroom staff. There are training modules on the Active Learning space website. And these are free. They're self-paced and there's a lot of them. And they go into a lot of detail about Active Learning. It's a really good resource to use. So I highly recommend it. You can present parts -- if your staff has time or inclination, they could look at maybe -- not even look at all of them but you might pick out certain parts of it to share with staff during trainings. It helps them wrap their minds around what is Active Learning and how can it apply to my children. You can also, here in Texas we have the Educational Service Centers, regional service centers. Those people, the VI specialists, they may be able to come out and help you and collaborate with you on helping to build a program for a student. Also here at TSBVI Outreach, we do consultations and we can come out and help you to, again, collaborate together with you and your team to kind of specifically look at what we can do for this child from an Active Learning perspective. 

>>Sara: Yes. And we hope that you have access to something like that in your state as well. If you're not a Texas person. 

>>Scott: Yeah. We come out -- we'll come out to your school and actually do a hands-on visit. Or we do a lot of stuff, just looking at video. Sometimes that can be a really helpful thing to do. You know, the thing about these kids -- you know, when I go out and I'm talking to classroom teachers, teachers in self-contained classrooms, those guys are so isolated. If you're in an elementary school and you're a third grade teacher, you've got three other third-grade teachers just down the hall. If you're a kindergarten teacher, there's a couple of kindergarten teachers. If there's something you're not sure about or you need some help with, you can go down the hall and check with those people. Hey, tell me what's going on here. What should I do? If you're in a self-contained classroom, if you're working with these populations, you probably will be the only one in your school. So these guys are really isolated. Even in the high school you may have two classrooms, in my experience. So they're very, very isolated. So it's really -- I think a lot of times the training is not really geared to them as well when they do district-wide training or school-wide training. It can be really nice, really helpful to share this information with them. And just get on the same page about things. 

>>Sara: Sometimes if you know the administration well and they have something planned for their staff development days and you can offer this up, because it is applicable -- can be applicable to all the students in their class, even if they don't have visual impairments or don't have a diagnosis of visual impairment. Some of the stuff is going to be applicable to all of the students -- all of it is probably going to be applicable to all of the students in their class. They may be able to use the online training modules instead of something that doesn't apply to their classrooms. So that might be something to think about, because they also can get CEUs for that. 

>>Scott: Yeah. You get credit for it. You know, Active Learning, it looks very different than what we typically think of as teaching. So sometimes there's a little bit of resistance because people just don't know what it is you're doing exactly here, because it's so based on student interest and it's student-led. And initially it may look like you're not doing very much. It may look like the child can't make progress. And so a couple of videos here under "educating team members." There's Rylan, before and after and Jack's Progression. These two videos can be powerful in showing what the potential of Active Learning is. I want to be real aware of the time. Why don't we just look at Jack's Progression. 

>>Sara: That's the long one. 

>>Scott: Maybe we can hop through a little bit. Yeah, let's look at that. 

[Video] 

>>Scott: So very, very little. 

>>Jack lies on his stomach with a support bench with his hands in a tub of water full of stones. He moves the stones in the water. He brings his right hand to his mouth before returning it to the stones in the water. New video segment. Jack lies on his back on a mat with chimes suspended above him. 

>>Scott: David, maybe jump up to two minutes. 

>>On a carpet on the floor at home, he wiggles. He rolls on his side and back to his back. He rolls on to his stomach, then all the way over to his back again. New video segment. 

>>Scott: Almost the end. Yeah. That's good. 

>>He bends his knees and draws his legs up to his chest. He puts his feet on the floor, pausing with his legs crossed. He lifts his legs high and forward, rotating into an upright position. 

>>Scott: Okay. So that could be a really powerful video to show staff or administrators or parents. Because you see Jack goes from just lying, kind of lying on his face, really not moving significantly at all. To being able to sit up and verbalize and use his hands to manipulate objects. We show that video all the time and I never get tired of it because I think it is just -- I think it's over a two-year period? 

>>Sara: I think it's a three-year period. 

>>Scott: Yeah. And it seems like a long time but if you're looking at him going from not doing anything to what he's doing, it's worth the investment. And last of all, there's an Active Learning planning sheet that will help people sort of start to assess where a student is and to think about how to, you know, how to start applying Active Learning. It's sort of a simplified version or it's sort of a streamlined version of getting up and moving. I find that Active Learning doesn't work -- doing a lot of philosophizing and thinking about it and planning is only so helpful. You have to get in and do it and use that information to build your program. And that's where the Active Learning planning sheet is. I'm not going to look at it now, just because I'm worried about running out of time. But it's in your notes. There's a link to it. You can go check it out. So let's move on to the next challenge. 

>>Sara: Yeah, the Active Learning planning sheet is a great way for you to start to look at the child and try to look at the child's perspective on things. Look at things from the child's perspective. Because the child is the one who's going to teach us. They're the one who has the key to their own learning and that's what it starts to focus a person on. So, that's why it's so great. 

>>Scott: Yeah. So we call this the control challenge. The TVI has little oversight or control over the classroom. The classroom staff is resistant or unenthusiastic. You know, they've got a way that they're doing things and, you know, they don't really want to hear what you have to say. Or, you know, they don't really want to follow through with what you're doing because they've got their own program going on. It could be many times they've got their own sort of program up and running. The school is forcing them to work -- in Texas we call it the TEKS, which is the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills. I'm sure you guys in other states have your own versions of that. But anyway, these classrooms are sort of required to look at TEKS and sort of make that fit, make what our kids are doing fit with it, even though it's more of an academic approach. You know, it's -- what do you call it? Looking at vertical alignment. Even vertical alignment all the way from first grade to kindergarten may not be appropriate for these kids because they are, developmentally, at say six months or 12 months. So a lot of times they've got this going on. The classroom is sort of focusing on these areas, functional skills, prevocational skills, work jobs. Pseudoacademics. That's what they want to do. And the third bullet, the current system seems to work. They have been doing this a long time. They have gotten through a lot of years doing what they're doing without you, thank you very much. So we're just going to keep on with our program. I mean, I literally had somebody say that to me when I gave some suggestions. You know, I made my point -- and I think I made a really good point. I pretty much nailed the explanation. And the person responded. They go, well, we've always done it this way. And I was like, well, I can't argue with that. So that is a real thing. That is a very real thing. Let's look at maybe what some -- the next slide. 

>>Sara: I think maybe the word you were looking for was prerequisite skills? 

>>Scott: It might have been, Sara, but that boat has sailed. 

>>Sara: A long time ago. 

>>Scott: So here's the tools we suggest. Okay? So you've got a lot of kids on your caseload that fit this description. And somebody -- I know in the chat somebody said I have a wonderful classroom with wonderful staff. They're banging it out. They're going to town. Very happy with it. And they run the gamut. You've got the classrooms in which it's really difficult to get people even to sit down and listen to you. It's really difficult to get somebody, convince somebody to start to -- role release, start to use the activities that's shown them. And then you've got the great classrooms. What we would suggest, look. So you've got six classrooms, self-contained classrooms of complex access needs kids. I wouldn't try to hit all of those with an equal amount of energy. I would pick one or two classrooms -- and preferly those classrooms that seem to have a little bit of a spark, that seem to have a little bit of openness to trying something different or trying something new and focus on that classroom. Within that classroom, you may have more than one student in that classroom but maybe focus on one or two. What you want to do is kind of get a model up and running. You want to get, you know, a classroom in which Active Learning is able to work. A student who is using Active Learning in a consistent way. So it's sort of like marshal your resources, conserve your resources. You have a certain amount of service time that you've got to provide each kid but it may behoove you or it may be helpful to provide a little bit more in these certain classrooms. Because you got to have the long game. The kids are going to develop slowly. The school culture is going to be a little bit resistant. So take the long game. Play the long game and think about trying to get something built, establish something that you can use in the future. Build a success that you can use in the future. Let's go to the next one. Is this another challenge? Oh, the materials and space challenge. So lack of materials. You don't have Active Learning materials. Active Learning materials are expensive. You don't have space for Active Learning materials. Those classrooms are full of stuff. They don't have space. So what are some things you can do? Let's look at the tools. 

>>Sara: That would be the next slide. 

>>Scott: Thank you. Okay. One thing that we've always asked people to do is to build a library of Active Learning equipment or materials. You know, in your AI department or maybe in your district or maybe in your school you can develop this sort of library. Active Learning uses a lot of found objects. Just real objects, not toys. Not things you buy. It's a lot of stuff you can just find. Clear out your junk drawer. There's a lot of random things in there that kids can take advantage of to learn. There's "buy nothing" groups. You can go on Facebook and they will give you things that you can use. I always made fun of Sara because she would put a box in the break room that said Active Learning donations. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between the Active Learning donations and the trash. 

>>Sara: Recycling. 

>>Scott: A lot of these materials, things made out of metal, things made out of wood. Things made out of plastics. Things made out of different materials. Things that you may not think these are actually educational equipment but it works. Because we're talking about kids that are just using the very early stages of sensory development. Just learning touch. On the Active Learning space there's this link called "things you can make." Active Learning equipment is quite expensive but you can go here and there's an entire page that talks about how you can make stuff for very low prices or even for free. You don't have to buy a $3,000 Little Room or an $800 support bench to do Active Learning. No. You can do it on the cheap, a lot of times. Finally, the Education Service Center or your Regional Education Service Center may have a library or materials. If you're in Texas, you can borrow Active Learning equipment from Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. If you have a child that you think would benefit from using a Little Room, a support bench, a resonance board, any of these things, you can borrow it from us and check it out. Let's go on to the next one. 

>>Sara: The last challenge, I think. 

>>Scott: The last challenge is fragmented team challenge. Oh, yeah. The team doesn't work together very well. That's -- well, yeah. There's a lot of service providers just do pull out or they just come in and sort of -- individually, you know, like the PT will come in and leave. The OT will come in and leave. The speech person will go in and leave. You'll go in and leave and it's all these sort of random or, you know, kind of information from little silos. If you can get people to come together, if you can work with them to be a little more combined on your approach, you know, don't spend too much time complaining about it. Let's go to the tools. 

>>Sara: Next slide. 

>>Scott: Okay. So here we've got -- the Active Learning planning sheet can be a way to bring everyone together because it's got parts for everyone to fill in. There's parts for each member of the team to use their expertise. Right? There's also an area on the Active Learning space that's specific to related services and therapies and talks about how they can address what they're doing through Active Learning approaches. There's even a section for administrators to look at that will give them information about how and why we use Active Learning for these students. It can be overwhelming for people so we wanted to provide a little bit of information at a time. Let's go on to the next slide. So final words. What did we say here? Things don't change overnight, but rather through many small, incremental acts. Yeah, these kids are going to learn slowly. Keep the faith. Don't think just because things haven't worked out that you're not doing good work. You know what you're doing. Believe in yourself. Keep at it. There's small, small victories. Be diligent. Keep your mind positive. We are helping. We are making a difference. I mean, I think sometimes that's the most difficult and maybe the most important aspect of working in this field and particularly working with children with complex access needs is staying positive and, you know, having the feeling that you're moving forward. 

>>Sara: Yeah, you know, even when you aren't able to come in and do these things all day every day with a child, even your once a week time with that child can be very influential on how that child sees themself and that will influence whether they're going to reach out into their environment. Whether they're going to shut down.