Maryland Common Core frameworks for Web viewOur Maryland Common Core frameworks for braille do not...

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Webinar transcript: The Maryland Common Core Frameworks for Braille Presented by: Lisa Wright and Heather Johnson [not part of recorded webinar] Please stand by for realtime captions. [ Captioner has not be admitted to Adobe event; if there has been a change, please contact Caption Colorado at 800-590-4197 or [email protected] ] >> Shortly we will provide a question and answer space on the screen and we encourage you to post your questions as they occur to you at the and during Q&A. If you are logging on now you may have seen a pop-up screen how you would like to receive audio. Thank you, captioning is back in. You can minimize or cancel out how you would like to receive audio. Were using this virtual meeting room. We no longer use a telephone conference line because it has reduced dropped calls. You do have individual controls for your own screen so you may choose to enlarge certain parts of the screen, for example the captioning area or the video when we bring it on to the screen. You also have audio controls for your speakers and part of the goal is to give you time to make these adjustments. The main -- you may find that the video on screen and the audio are not in sync. This is a function of your connectivity and can be troublesome on wireless connections. You can minimize the video or hide it off your screen if it makes it easier for you to follow. We do record these webinars and that will be available to you if you'd like to look at it again later and you will find it is in sync. Tomorrow you will receive that information about how to view the recording including a PDF version of the slides that our presenters are making today. Let me not take away any more of their time. Phuong if you can bring the video up. [Recorded webinar begins] [Robin Sitten] These are two professionals who have been instrumental in Maryland education and developing the tools they will share with you today. Lisa Wright is an instructional

Transcript of Maryland Common Core frameworks for Web viewOur Maryland Common Core frameworks for braille do not...

Maryland Common Core frameworks for Braille

Webinar transcript: The Maryland Common Core Frameworks for BraillePresented by: Lisa Wright and Heather Johnson[not part of recorded webinar]

Please stand by for realtime captions. [ Captioner has not be admitted to Adobe event; if there has been a change, please contact Caption Colorado at 800-590-4197 or [email protected] ] >> Shortly we will provide a question and answer space on the screen and we encourage you to post your questions as they occur to you at the and during Q&A. If you are logging on now you may have seen a pop-up screen how you would like to receive audio. Thank you, captioning is back in. You can minimize or cancel out how you would like to receive audio. Were using this virtual meeting room. We no longer use a telephone conference line because it has reduced dropped calls. You do have individual controls for your own screen so you may choose to enlarge certain parts of the screen, for example the captioning area or the video when we bring it on to the screen. You also have audio controls for your speakers and part of the goal is to give you time to make these adjustments. The main -- you may find that the video on screen and the audio are not in sync. This is a function of your connectivity and can be troublesome on wireless connections. You can minimize the video or hide it off your screen if it makes it easier for you to follow. We do record these webinars and that will be available to you if you'd like to look at it again later and you will find it is in sync. Tomorrow you will receive that information about how to view the recording including a PDF version of the slides that our presenters are making today. Let me not take away any more of their time. Phuong if you can bring the video up.

[Recorded webinar begins]

[Robin Sitten] These are two professionals who have been instrumental in Maryland education and developing the tools they will share with you today. Lisa Wright is an instructional specialist and administrator of Prince George Public Schools in Maryland. Prior to accepting this position last fall she was the state vision consultant with the Maryland State Department of Education and the Maryland school for the blind for eight years work she has 20 years of experience for an itinerant teacher of the visually impaired. Also with us is Heather Johnson a teacher of students who are blind and visually impaired at The Maryland School for the Blind. She is a classroom teacher and has been for 15 years. She has been a member of the Maryland Braille Task Force and Maryland Effectiveness Academies which are dedicated to implementing the Common Core in the classroom. Heather has been nominated outstanding teacher of the blind and visually impaired on several occasions and fully understands the need to address students who are braille learners in the Common Core curriculum. It's an honor to have both of them here today. I believe Lisa, are you kicking us off?

[Lisa Wright] No, Heather is.

[Heather Johnson] Hi everybody. We are so pleased to be able to share our work with you today. We will take you through how the Common Core and Braille frameworks are organized and show you the documents and you will very quickly see the incredible value of having these tools added to your professional toolbox. The task force worked on these documents together over the course of two years and looked in depth at the standards and considered how each one would impact our braille readers. We align braille skills for each standard everywhere that it was applicable. The work of the task force it Maryland can be used in any state that has adopted the Common Core so please share this work with other TVI's in your network in other states. These documents like the Common Core are not a teaching guide, they are standards and can be used to write your IEPs, assess students, and communicate with general educators and parents. We would like to tell you some key things we had to consider when developing these braille standards.

Braille readers really need to be engaging the use of both hands when they are reading right from the start before hand-dominance is formed. This directly impacts reading fluency, so when we looked at the English Language Arts portion of the Common Core, we considered things that when we were adding our bits to it. We looked at textbook formats, early on braille readers need to be familiar with how to navigate a textbook in braille, their use of pagination, transcribers notes, et cetera, help them access the curriculum day to day. We looked in depth at math and talked about Nemeth Code and the need for quality tactile graphics. Early on in our work the task force came to a common agreement on several things of which I felt were very important to mention to you. We agreed that braille readers must have an access to the same grade level standards and expectations. They must have early and frequent exposure to contracted braille. They must have proficient braille reading skills at an early age specifically decoding, hand movements, contractions, vocabulary, and fluency. They need exposure and knowledge of braille formatting. Early and frequent exposure to tactile graphics and thorough understanding of the Nemeth Braille Code. Lisa?

[Lisa Wright] Why are the Maryland Common Core Frameworks for Braille unique? They are aligned to the Common Core and they are the same standards that any other state is using that has adopted the Common Core. Our braille standards also identify grade level standards in areas that were not previously aligned. For example, we all know that literary braille has been aligned for many yearsIve been in the field for over thirty yearsthere's always been curriculum that looks at the standards for literary braille, when you should teach contractions, at which grade level. But there are no standards for the braille formats and as we delve into a little bit of the Common Core you will see the standards to incorporate braille formatting. That is not typically something a TVIs learn in college. That is more a skill that is learned by braille transcribers use and folks that re paraprofessionals who are transcribing textbooks or certified transcribers but we felt it was important for TVI's to know the skills of formatting and also to teach these skills because they are embedded within the Common Core.

Another area that wasnt grade level specific had to do with Nemeth Code. In the past most TVIs will teach Nemeth Code according to what a student needs, they are learning multiplication then they need to learn the multiplication sign. What we found is there is such variability from teacher to teacher and from school to school across districts and states about what students learn that braille readers were learning many different things at different times. And also, if youre not there brailling the materials you might be a little out of touch with what the student is learning. For example, if the student is learning a textbook you may not know what Nemeth Code they need to learn at that grade level. We also found through our task force discussions that some Nemeth Code signs were just omitted and forgotten. They were not specifically taught because they were not mentioned anywhere. The Texas school for the Blind and Visually Impaired has some curriculum materials that you pertain to Nemeth but it is not aligned to the Common Core and does not include every particular Nemeth sign.

The last area that we felt there were not grade level standards had to do with tactile graphics. Now that the tactile graphic guidelines have been complete it certainly gives TVI's a little more information in one particular resource, but we know that a lot of TVI's don't get that professional development that transcribers get nor may they know how to prepare all the graphics exactly according to code. And nowhere is it identified that students needed to learn this in third grade, according to tactile graphic standards, so that is part of what our work group looked at, is all of those braille skills. Our standards include not only the standards for braille readers but also checklists and resource list. As heather mentioned, it is not meant to be a full curriculum, it is for braille readers and the braille skills that they need but it only includes braille. It does not include any of the other expanded core curriculum or how to teach all of these skills. For example we expect that second graders know their computation facts by the end of second grade, well, braille readers need to know the signs that go along with that. Our Maryland Common Core frameworks for braille do not specifically say what tools to use or how to teach it to braille readers because it's not meant to be a curriculum.

[Heather Johnson] We have our first poll. The question is do you need to align your IEP goal and objectives for braille to the content standards?

The votes are coming in.

It looks like most of you agree that you should be outlining your goals and objectives to the content standards.

Yes, you should.

We will show you today how you can use your documents to help you do that. You can do that work alongside general educators, and special educators, and parents while doing so because you will be able to speak common language with the addition of the braille skills necessary at each particular grade level.

[Lisa Wright] Some important things to know about the Maryland Common Core remarks for braille. Maryland has PreK standards that are not included in the Common Core. The regular Common Core begins at the kindergarten level but Maryland felt th