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Implementation

We were able to implement portions of our action plan. We used the information from the "Inclusion Needs Survey" and being identifying resources to share with teachers to address some of their concerns. We also wanted to have some short-term opportunities for educators to work with students with both sensory needs at once. One way we addressed this goal was to work with the Indian Education for All coordinator and the staff preparing the White Cane Day celebrations to think about creating groups for their whole school activities that were not divided into abilities/disabilities but were mixed populations of students needing both DHH and VI supports. White Cane Day typically celebrates the unique needs and skills of individuals with visual impairments. For this year's White Cane Day, staff and students were mixed and taught to play the recreational activity of goalball. Goalball is a team sport specifically created for athletes with visual impairments. It was a great way to introduce our DHH students (and staff) to acknowledging (and hopefully appreciating) the unique needs of students with visual impairments when in active settings. We worked with orientation and mobility instructor for this event to prepare groupings and identify accommodations for the Deaf. Accommodations for both sensory needs were shared with participants in advance so they would know how to communicate with one another. For the IEFA craft activity, students and staff learned to work together to produce tactile art with a Native theme. Staff were provided their groupings in advance and given opportunities to seek support by Jen Wasson, myself and our IEFA coordinator on how to facilitate the projects. The majority of the learning occurred on the day of the event as we learned how to use accommodations to help support one another. Evidence A below shows a few pictures from this events.

EVIDENCE A (Do)

Successes

We had positive feedback from several of our stakeholder groups (teachers, students and administrators) on how much they enjoyed having experiences with the mixed sensory need groups. Success for the ultimate goal of creating more mixed classrooms was ultimately halted by the change to distance learning. For the five teachers that were able to have some mixed sensory classrooms this year, we gathered some evidence through email questionnaires. We asked these teachers to share what worked, as well as ideas of things they would change (Evidence B below). We hope to use this commentary to help guide the effectiveness of future changes for how instruction is delivered at MSDB with mixed sensory populations.

EVIDENCE B (Do)

Competences in Action

• Overarching Competency #1, Personal Effectiveness. Completing these short-term events allowed for my skills in this competency to move into the 'performing' area as I worked to encourage others to see a shared vision of true "whole group" activities.

• Overarching Competency #2, Adult Learning. Our collaborative events with both departments allowed for my growth in this competency area to extend to helping 'performing' as I helped lead learning activities while also implementing strategies for the staff to utilize areas of expertise for the events.

• Diversity, Equity, and Cultural Competency (Cultivate Socially Just Learning Environment). Pre-work and organization of our short-term events allowed for 'developing' skills such as exploring ways to improve the learning environments tied to these events and understanding issues that would potentially impede their successes.

• Instructional Leadership Competency (Facilitating Collaborative Relationships). While working with staff on some of these short-term group events with dual sensory need learners, I was able to progress into areas of 'performing' for this competency by connecting and supporting colleagues and improving existing programs.

Obstacles

The biggest obstacle for this project was the immediate switch to distance learning in March. Due to COVID-19, some of the additional in-person training that we had hoped to provide did not happen. We did have one opportunity in mid-March to work with staff and address accessibility challenges of distance learning. We also shared some ideas for instruction via emails, phone conversations and videos as distance learning progressed. Evidence C shows pictures of myself delivering information on using accessibility features within Google Classroom for distance learning (training given March 18th to full educational staff) and a screenshot of Jen Wasson delivering a distance learning math lesson live to both DHH students and a VI student simultaneously.

EVIDENCE C (Do)

Future Changes

We hope to continue training and would like to look at extending the number of mixed sensory need classrooms in the future. Of course, all of this will be dependent on upcoming educational decisions. Having now had some experience with distance learning, if we were to conduct a survey in the future, we would want to also include questions related to what needs teachers could foresee having if distance learning becomes the platform. Training would also need to morph so that all teachers have an understanding of how to provide audio descriptions, captioning and live interpreting to their distance learning platforms.