One aspect of our Inclusive Program that makes it so strong is our collaborative approach. Although so far you are only hearing about it from my perspective on this blog, I am only one piece of this program. This multi-perspective planning is by design so that both the speech pathologist and the special education teacher’s knowledge and insights are able to work together to determine the best way to increase language and academic success.
Collaboration to any project is key, but that does not make it easy. With any new collaborative team there is the dance of figuring out how to work best with one another, how to plan, how to ask questions in the moment, how to interrupt with questions and how to share ideas. The process takes time, and yet that time benefits students so much in the end.
What makes a collaborative team so strong is a phrase that constantly runs through my head in the voice of a former principal. “The answer is in the room.” Although in this case, the answer is in the virtual space given to us by zoom. Thorough discussions, questions and identifying what could make us better are all elements of driving us forward to finding what is going to make these students successful. If we are willing to dive into those discussions we will find, “the answer is in the room” in the discussion.
So far, my partner-in-crime and I (the amazing speech pathologist), along with a special education professor, and other key players, are putting our heads together to problem solve how to best match appropriate timing to the students we work with, how to best design the physical space to promote the most inclusive interactions, and just how to pace our days so that we can get everything done.
Luckily, it is not up to just one of us to solve these problems, but to our entire team to work through and discuss. I feel so lucky to once again be working in a collaborative environment and I am excited to see where this will drive us going forward.
Stay tuned as we dive into solving these areas of need and find ways to manage the solutions.
