Painter CoF

Abbey Painter Author

03/16/2021 Added

12 Plays

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Painter CoF

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[00:00:02.700]Hello.
[00:00:03.533]My name is Abbey Painter.
[00:00:05.230]and I am a speech language pathologist
[00:00:07.830]at Westside Middle School in Omaha, Nebraska.
[00:00:11.450]And I'm going to talk to you
[00:00:12.660]about Circle of Friends in a Middle School setting.
[00:00:19.650]So like I said,
[00:00:21.560]I'm just going to talk to you
[00:00:22.600]about how we run
[00:00:23.730]Circle of Friends at the Middle School level.
[00:00:25.830]And I hope that you're able to take away practical ideas
[00:00:29.810]to get started right away
[00:00:31.130]with your own Circle of Friends group.
[00:00:37.360]So as I said, I am in a middle school in Omaha, Nebraska.
[00:00:41.340]We have 7th and 8th grade students
[00:00:45.230]at our middle school.
[00:00:46.850]And we have started running our Circle of Friends groups
[00:00:51.730]during our intervention period.
[00:00:54.200]And this is the last like 30 minutes of every school day
[00:01:00.920]except for Wednesdays.
[00:01:02.760]And students are requested by teachers
[00:01:06.580]and are assigned to different classes
[00:01:09.200]based on teacher request.
[00:01:11.330]So we have set up our Circle of Friends groups
[00:01:15.320]to meet one group.
[00:01:18.640]The 7th grade or 8th grade group meets on Thursday.
[00:01:22.120]And then the alternate grade meets on Fridays
[00:01:26.300]and we switch each week.
[00:01:29.360]7th grade might meet week one on Thursdays
[00:01:32.930]and then 8th grade on Fridays.
[00:01:35.610]And then week two, 8th grade would meet on Thursdays
[00:01:38.490]and 7th grade would meet on Fridays.
[00:01:41.660]At my school,
[00:01:43.600]as I said, I'm the speech language pathologist.
[00:01:46.160]And right now,
[00:01:46.993]I have one of the school's guidance counselors helping
[00:01:51.640]and our school social worker.
[00:01:54.560]Having three adults has been really beneficial this year
[00:01:58.480]because we've been able to expand our groups
[00:02:03.000]but not only that, we are able to make sure
[00:02:06.450]that the online learners are engaged
[00:02:09.290]and we've been able to take turns
[00:02:11.730]planning the different activities for our groups.
[00:02:17.140]Choosing target students and model peers
[00:02:20.670]is something that we spend quite a bit of time on,
[00:02:24.830]especially the model peers
[00:02:26.980]because we want to ensure that our target students
[00:02:31.380]are receiving support throughout their day
[00:02:35.990]from those model peers.
[00:02:39.060]So for example, if Johnny is one of our target students,
[00:02:44.820]he is a student that has been identified
[00:02:47.900]as needing social skill instruction and support.
[00:02:53.990]We then, our team of classroom
[00:02:57.850]or our team of leaders looks at Johnny schedule.
[00:03:01.470]And we look at students who are in his classes
[00:03:08.070]that are our positive models
[00:03:12.930]but also have the personality of a model student
[00:03:19.550]to advocate for Johnny, to encourage Johnny
[00:03:25.610]and to provide a little bit of instruction for Johnny
[00:03:29.940]if that student is seeing the social skill concerns
[00:03:35.780]arise in the classroom setting.
[00:03:38.370]It's really important
[00:03:39.670]that when you're picking your model peers
[00:03:44.070]that you look for those traits in those model peers
[00:03:48.210]because even though they are displaying social skills
[00:03:54.900]that are age appropriate
[00:03:56.490]and they are following those classroom expectations,
[00:04:00.500]they might not have that personality
[00:04:03.160]or might not have that desire
[00:04:05.960]to speak up or speak out for that student.
[00:04:10.420]And so we want to make sure
[00:04:14.070]that when we are choosing model peers
[00:04:16.500]that we are looking for those students
[00:04:18.760]who can help our target students that are struggling,
[00:04:24.920]help them feel empowered,
[00:04:27.730]but also kind of remind them about the expectation,
[00:04:32.270]what is expected within that classroom setting.
[00:04:36.640]Now, something else that we look for
[00:04:38.930]when we are picking our model students,
[00:04:42.030]is that they have some classes
[00:04:44.490]that are on that same schedule as our target student.
[00:04:48.780]So it's important that your peer models
[00:04:54.110]that they are accessible
[00:04:57.880]to our target students throughout their school day.
[00:05:01.570]We don't want to pick model students
[00:05:05.290]that our target students only ever see in Circle of Friends.
[00:05:08.910]That friendship, that consistency just isn't there
[00:05:13.090]if they're only interacting one day a week.
[00:05:18.340]Some observations are also needed to be done
[00:05:24.450]by the Circle of Friends facilitators
[00:05:27.700]so that you can see the areas of concern
[00:05:30.690]that are showing up in the classroom setting.
[00:05:33.950]One great place to make these observations
[00:05:38.010]is in the school cafeteria.
[00:05:41.200]I don't know about your schools,
[00:05:42.670]but in our school,
[00:05:43.757]the cafeteria can get a little bit rambunctious,
[00:05:48.180]especially in the middle school setting.
[00:05:51.180]And so I like to go down there
[00:05:56.030]and our other leaders
[00:05:58.240]and kind of see are the social skill areas of concern,
[00:06:04.810]are they evident in the cafeteria as well?
[00:06:08.010]Or are there other areas of concern
[00:06:12.210]that are only showing up in the cafeteria?
[00:06:15.920]And how can we best support those students
[00:06:19.530]in a natural setting, such as eating lunch in the cafeteria?
[00:06:24.180]And so you're really going to be able
[00:06:26.410]to see a generalization or lack of generalization
[00:06:30.880]of the skills that you're teaching
[00:06:33.020]by observing students in the cafeteria.
[00:06:36.180]So you can also see like, okay,
[00:06:39.040]are those model peers also being models
[00:06:43.050]in the cafeteria?
[00:06:44.470]So you can learn a ton of information from your students
[00:06:49.480]about your students just by going down to the cafeteria.
[00:06:53.410]So I would recommend making some observations
[00:06:57.180]in that setting
[00:06:58.610]just so you can track your rate of progression.
[00:07:07.270]I suppose you're probably thinking, "Well, now what?
[00:07:09.340]We've got our targets,
[00:07:10.380]we've got our model peers.
[00:07:12.410]We know when in the daytime
[00:07:14.420]when we're going to have our groups meet,
[00:07:18.280]what are we going to do with them?"
[00:07:20.160]Well, there's a ton of different activities
[00:07:22.180]that you can do with students.
[00:07:25.835]And this is all like post COVID, pre COVID things
[00:07:29.950]that we didn't have to worry about then
[00:07:32.410]but our students love to play board games.
[00:07:35.490]And just those simple board games that we played growing up,
[00:07:40.680]Pictionary has been really fun,
[00:07:42.620]Charades has been really fun,
[00:07:45.270]Two Truths and a Lie has been really fun
[00:07:49.200]and the students get to know each other a lot better
[00:07:52.660]playing board games.
[00:07:53.660]And so our groups have had a ton of fun with them.
[00:07:57.260]Colorbrain is also a really fun game,
[00:08:00.210]Scattergories, Taboo,
[00:08:02.300]any of those games that get the conversations flowing
[00:08:06.200]are a really nice aspect to add to your lesson.
[00:08:12.580]We've kind of found that doing
[00:08:14.840]about a 30 minute group time
[00:08:17.410]is really good for our middle school students.
[00:08:20.040]And so we might play a game the first 10 minutes
[00:08:24.070]or the game towards the end,
[00:08:26.330]just as a way to kind of break up the lesson a little bit.
[00:08:30.740]Other activities that we've done,
[00:08:32.920]we've done escape rooms just around the school.
[00:08:35.976]We've done scavenger hunts.
[00:08:37.730]Those have been really fun.
[00:08:39.670]Even having the students make the clues
[00:08:42.590]and then having other teams compete
[00:08:45.680]in the scavenger hunts have been really fun.
[00:08:49.210]We have not gone to the pumpkin patch yet,
[00:08:52.080]but I know several groups in the metro area
[00:08:55.060]have gone to pumpkin patches.
[00:08:56.560]And those have been really fun.
[00:08:58.320]Last winter,
[00:09:00.110]we took our group to the movie theater
[00:09:03.740]and we had a great time.
[00:09:06.490]All the kids were super excited about the movie.
[00:09:09.010]It was kinda nice to get out of school
[00:09:11.610]for the afternoon and our group just go.
[00:09:14.370]Sports events are another activity that your group can do,
[00:09:18.140]whether you all meet at the high school football game
[00:09:20.770]or even the middle school football game, basketball game.
[00:09:23.830]It's a great way to show your school spirit
[00:09:26.330]and also participate in an activity with your group.
[00:09:30.940]We've also gone to an ice cream shop,
[00:09:34.410]the zoo,
[00:09:35.640]we've decorated cookies in the winter time.
[00:09:39.200]Anything that you can think of
[00:09:42.110]that have students communicating,
[00:09:45.220]that have students socializing with each other,
[00:09:47.640]they really have a great time.
[00:09:49.940]Food is also something that really attracts
[00:09:53.030]both model students and target students.
[00:09:56.250]And so incorporating those fun middle school snacks
[00:10:01.044]are something that students really enjoy.
[00:10:04.590]Now, of course, there are challenges
[00:10:07.740]to having Circle of Friends groups,
[00:10:10.260]but I would say the two biggest challenges for me
[00:10:14.420]that I've run into
[00:10:16.030]are finding time to separate the targets and the models.
[00:10:19.883]So finding that time to educate the targets
[00:10:23.350]or the model students, excuse me,
[00:10:25.890]about the needs of our target students,
[00:10:29.330]how we can support those needs in the classroom setting
[00:10:32.980]and making sure that our model students feel empowered
[00:10:38.240]and feel like they can support our target students
[00:10:43.020]across their day.
[00:10:44.100]And then of course schedules is the biggest challenge
[00:10:48.230]that we've run into.
[00:10:49.870]Once our school built in this intervention time
[00:10:53.060]at the end of the day,
[00:10:54.540]that lent itself a perfect time to do Circle of Friends.
[00:10:59.150]But I know of other middle school students
[00:11:01.090]or other middle schools, excuse me,
[00:11:04.830]that run Circle of Friends like a club after school.
[00:11:08.500]Just as long as transportation isn't an issue for you,
[00:11:11.950]that would be a great option as well.
[00:11:18.180]So if you have any questions
[00:11:20.930]or just want to brainstorm ideas,
[00:11:23.110]please feel free to shoot me an email
[00:11:24.990]and I'm happy to help.
[00:11:26.770]Thank you.

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