Orientation Night

Welcome to the Walt Whitman High Schools PAES Lab. PAES stands for Practical Assessment Exploration System.  PAES is an age-appropriate, research based functional skills curriculum.  PAES has an embedded formative assessment of vocational potential and employability skills for each student. What does that mean: it means that utilizing a formative assessment student workers, as they are known in the PAES Lab, can identify their own strengths and weaknesses and target these areas that may need work, with the help of their supervisors, or teachers.  

PAES is a research-based assessment system that identifies student workers 1.) aptitude for community based employment, 2.) their levels and abilities with functional skills 3.) their own interests, 4.) their work behavior strengths and any barriers getting in the way of their own success. PAES is conducted in a classroom that is set up as a simulated work environment.  The students work on simulations of actual tasks performed on community based jobs.   

In addition to the PAES Lab our LSVP students have the opportunity to learn functional daily living skills in the apartment attched to the PAES Lab. 

In addition to the PAES Lab I am actively utilizing the wonderful tools offered within the Unique Learning System research based curriculum.  The Unique Learning system is a very useful on-line program specifically designed to give students with complex learning styles meaningful and functional access to daily living and transitional curriculum.  

The Unique Learning system is highly differentiated giving students with more intense needs the same content as those students that may not need as much support. For example, while reading about the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg or the victories of the Tampa Lightening Hockey Team in our current events section of News 2 You the same article may be written with extensive details in multiple paragraph format, or a bit more simplified for other learners without so many details.  Some of my readers benefit from text supported by pictures so I can share the same article with all three level of learners.  

The Unique Learning system offers extensive activities for transition as well.  It helps give students more ownership of the transition process.  We have begun working on the transition passport .  This binder includes, but is not limited to Job Interest Surveys, evaluations, interview techniques and visual supports as well as resume templates and work environment check lists.  I truly enjoy using the Unique Learning curriculum because it transforms the general education curriculum to meet the needs of my  very special learners while maintaining the standards provided by New York State.  There are many interactive activities that help motivate my students while maintaining their attention. The love of learning never stops and this is a concept that I promote while the students spend their time with me here in the PAES Lab!