40: Tips for Itinerant Success with Stefanie Kessen
Stefanie Kessen from the Online Itinerant discusses caseload organization, strategies for organizing materials, and other tips unique to itinerant teaching!
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40: Tips for Itinerant Success with Stefanie Kessen
[MUSIC]
D: Hello and welcome to the TOD POD, a podcast to support Itinerant Teachers of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, SLPs, and other Deaf Education Professionals. I'm Deanna Barlow from Listening Fun and today we're talking with Stefanie Kessen about the secrets to success as an itinerant. Thanks so much for being here Stefanie.
S: I am so excited to be here. Thank you for having me. D: Can you tell everyone a little about yourself and your background?
S: Absolutely so my name is Stefanie and by trade I am a Teacher for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. I've been in the field for a long time now, more than 25 years. I was trained to be able to teach at a residential school so bilingual bicultural was kind of my first love. That was my primary philosophy graduating from college. I went to school at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana and at that time well they had a very strong emphasis on the bi-bi philosophy. They also gave us a big push to be able to experience working with kids with auditory oral background and also SEE-II, Signed Exact English Two experience. So even graduating from college I had a number of experiences in my back pocket. But when I graduated I taught in a self-contained classroom, and then I always like to say I kind of evolved to the itinerant model kicking and screaming.
D:[LAUGH]
S: It wasn't something that I had a strong philosophy about, I didn't really believe in it. But that was what the trend was and that's where they needed me and so that's where I went. Of course there was no real manual on how to do that. So I just sort of was taking what I knew about the needs of deaf students and implementing that through the itinerant model. I took a few years off from teaching I became a sign language community interpreter, I worked really closely with families. So I've got a lot of that on my resume in terms of experience. About halfway through my career I became the education specialist for DHH students through the state of Wisconsin. And I worked at a statewide level through our outreach program and with that position my role was to go in and support other teachers and help them kind of identify the needs of their students and be able to support those needs. And of course most of those teachers at that time were itinerant. And so I had the opportunity to kind of get this birds eye level of what was happening for itinerant teachers across the state of Wisconsin, what their challenges were, and I was really blessed to be able to be trained by in my opinion some of our just great mentors in the field. So I had you know special training with Karen Anderson and Kristin DiPerri and just some really great pioneers in our field that were really kind of blazing the trail for us. And I was able to take that training and then bring it to the teachers and then support them which was which was really a really great learning experience for me to be able to have this in my backpack.
My own children entered the school system and when that happened I couldn't travel anymore for my work so I went back to teaching as an itinerant teacher. And was able to bring all of those tools that I'd gathered all of those years as the education specialist and then I was able to apply them myself as an itinerant teacher. But then what I ended up realizing is that the the challenges and the things that people were experiencing in Wisconsin was not isolated to Wisconsin. And I had all of these tools now in my toolbox and I had all of this knowledge and I realized that the best way for me to be able to impact students was to be able to better empower the teachers that worked with them and their parents. And so that's when I established the Online Itinerant with the goal of being able to provide all the things that I had realized that I needed in my toolbox and be able to provide that for other professionals and other teachers along the way. So that's how I got to where I am now that's just a little bit about my background.
D: That's pretty cool I didn't realize you had so much experience in so many different settings and like it's so neat that you're able to take like that consultative work you did like for the state and apply it to like an online platform like the Online Itinerant because I feel like that's just so valuable. Not everybody has like a consultant like that in their state who can like come in and coach. So it's so cool that you were able to translate that so seamlessly into like an online platform so that itinerants who need support like have a place to find it because I mean, wasn't really much else, there was a few things but not that much [LAUGH] in terms of support if you needed it as an itinerant.
S: Exactly and that was one of the roadblocks that I came in came into as the education specialist for the state, is that we would we would come in we'd spend a huge amount of time with the student then and then with the teacher. And then we'd give recommendations and we would give them a piece of paper and we'd say okay good luck but then we had to leave and it was up to the teacher to be able to implement these recommendations and they could call us if they had questions. But our services and support was a little bit cut off after that. And what I realized is that people needed, they not only needed the next step but now they needed the support for the step after that and the step after that or suddenly there was this new challenge, this new barrier, and they couldn't really actually make the step that they were trying to do. And you know itinerants, we all need this ongoing support, we need this community, we need these resources all the time. And that's one thing that there's just not a lot of access to. So when I created the Online Itinerant I had that really firmly in mind to be able to provide for people.
D:Yeah, absolutely. Especially because you think you have it under control and then you get a student totally got a left field that has nothing to do with any of the other students you've been working with, and you only, I felt this way, I only had experience with the students that I have had experience with but I have like these random gaps where I just like never had a student who fit that mold and I'm like I had nothing to pull from so it was like I'm lucky that I worked in a place where I could um I had mentors available to me. But I relied on them a lot. So it's so nice that there's more resources out there now for people. Including this so we're going to get into some of those like things you know, help people get organized and just like set them up for success sort of things. So we're going to go over a couple different things starting with like scheduling, organization, all that sort of thing. Especially for like a larger caseload like do you have any tips for being successful for those people that have those big caseloads that are a lot of like consultative hours or like far away, all of that like big stuff.
S: Yeah, and that we're seeing this more and more because there's such a shortage in the field. So our you know our teachers are the caseload is getting bigger, the drive is getting further, and now there's less time in front of the computer to actually be able to catch up on IEPs or emails or anything like that which just makes us all spread so much more thin. You know in terms of of scheduling there are a couple things that I feel is is really really helpful. And you know I do sometimes have people say to me, like literally I've got a caseload you know we're down to teachers and I'm now doing the job of 3 teachers I've got a caseload of 80 students. What do I do? You know and it, I mean, realistically you are only one person. I mean we can't magically clone you um and there are sometimes where, where you're just you're just really putting the pieces together the best that you can. But when you have a case load, but I really personally love the 3 in 1 model which is that for every fourth session that you have with the student, there observation minutes. So this gives you a little bit of flexibility that you can take these observation minutes and you can manipulate them to maybe it's before a session that one of the other sessions that you have with a student or maybe it's after a session that you have with a student. Or if you didn't get to see them one day or you come in and like this week suddenly we've got all kinds of different holiday events and you don't want to pull them from the Christmas party because nobody told you that it was a party but now you can use your minutes as observation minutes gives you a lot more wiggle room inside of your IEP minutes. SLPs have been using this this for years. And I feel like it's been, it's really helpful and it also has a lot of impact on how well you can support your students.
D:We in New Jersey, I don't I guess it's different everywhere but like um I'm able to write my services as um, flexible push in pull out. Even though I pull out a lot of the time. It's like if I need to push in like because it's a Christmas party or because I want to observe the student for any reason really, I'm allowed to. So like you know it just gives you that little bit of flexibility or even if you just want to push them for 15 minutes because like they're doing something worth being there for like you don't feel like oh I have to take them from because I'm I'm only here this day and like just having, I like the three the the you know, 3 direct 1 consultative if you have to write it like that. But if you're able to even write it like just flexible sometimes that's even better because then you could just do whatever you need to do to support that student because it's very um, give and take [LAUGH].
S: Absolutely, absolutely. And to be able to write your minutes like sometimes it's sometimes people write them at so many minutes per week if you can write the minutes per month then that gives you a little bit of flexibility as well because it always happens that students, something comes up where they're not in school and suddenly you've driven there and and whatever is happening is happening and you can't see them. Now I keep my calendar and everything I keep it on a, I am a Google girl so I use like google calendar.
D:Me too.
S: And I love this because I can very easily I just set up, I set up my calendar as an event and if I if something is happening that I need to change I set my so I set my schedule that I can that it repeats every you know whatever the scheduling is if it's once a week or if it's every five days you know schools have crazy rotation schedules and you can set it up right?
D: Ah I I know!
Both: [LAUGH]
S: It gets crazy like you've got one student that's on an A/B schedule. But then you have another student that's on a 1 through 5 schedule and you're like you can only see the student on A days and and you want to see them on the same day because they're in districts next to each other and how do you make that work. When you do it in a google calendar then you can manipulate to the days really easy and adjust the the schedule really easily without having to you know if you're an itinerant teacher and you're still using a paper calendar, I don't know how you are surviving, I don't know how you are surviving. Definitely want to go digital for them.
D: For those kids that a lot of times I would see them at different times because I wanted to see them in different classes because I would observe a lot of times if they're in high school a lot times them doing more observing and things and I want to go to different classes. So I can't even do a recurring event because it's like different. So I would just have it recur like whatever like on a random time but I would make it yellow, yellow is my like pending color. So anything that's like um, pending is yellow. Everything else is blue. I don't do like different districts different colors or anything. I keep it like everyone's blue except if it's pending then it's yellow. Then and when I look at my calendar if I something is yellow then I know I have to confirm or I have to move it or I have to like there's some things that there's a step that needs to be done before I show up at that building because it's not it's not like finalized yet. And that helped me so much because then I didn't have like it was recurring on my calendar but I knew I had to move it or I had to, to fit it in you know and like I just did at the beginning of the month I went and looked at the weeks of the month and like fit and everything for the next four weeks or whatever. But like for me that really helped because I wasn't creating the new event but I wasn't stuck with it in that recurring spot if it wasn't like a recurring spot type of kid, which drove me crazy. But, for me keeping things or if like I had to change something I'll make it yellow and that's my reminder I have to email the case manager or whatever. So that's like I know people do all sorts of crazy color coding but for me like whatever is the simplest is the easiest. So like everything's blue except if it's a meeting then it's green or if it's pending then it's yellow and that's it.
S: Me too me too. And I set up an email if it's a meeting, if it's an IEP meeting or something like that I make sure to set up and a meeting reminder for myself like a week in advance, five days in advance, and so I make sure that I've got my paperwork and everything ready and complete ahead of time and have that. So I love that idea of keeping it putting that pending stuff is yellow. That's fantastic. Yeah I do something very similar I do that as well. Let's see the other oh, the other scheduling thing that's that I am starting to come into quite a bit is the hybrid model of service delivery and first you know for kids that like really hard to see or my high school students that maybe their schedule is just crazy or maybe they are, they're not comfortable, they don't want me to pull them out of class or anything like that, being able to come see them but then setting up a hybrid session for them has also been really really helpful because it's kept me from having to drive for some for some students. So that has been a big game changer for me. And as another thing I've been very slow stepping into kind of like the itinerant model I was like no this will never work but then I'm like oh for some kids actually this might not be so bad, maybe I need to figure this out. So I've been um, working on that as well.
D: Interesting I never thought of doing it in a hybrid way but I could definitely see how that could work. I just I did an episode with Teiryn and she talked all about like remote teaching and for some of the kids thought it really worked for and I could see it working for some of those high school kids who can would kind of prefer to Zoom with you and you could probably get a lot more done in a quiet environment and a nice Zoom as opposed to like trying to work in the library or whatever.
S: Well and for our high school students, it's a great transition skill because it's kind of likely that they're gonna be having some online classes if they're going to school if they're going to college afterwards. More and more colleges are having online labs, online courses, online meetings with with their other with the other students. So it's actually a great transition opportunity teaching them how to implement captioning online and anything AI and getting an interpreter and getting Sorenson set up and getting everything set up so it actually allows us to do a lot that we wouldn't be able to necessarily do face to face.
D:Yeah, totally that makes sense. Alright so moving on from scheduling. Let's talk a little bit more about like organizing like materials, organizing your notes just like keeping track of all of the info that needs to be kept track of for an itinerant teacher. I'm a Google keep girl myself. That's like what I use but I love hearing what other people do because I feel like like that works for my brain but like there's so many other systems and I just like to hear what people do.
S: Yeah yeah I have a training that's one of the most popular trainings in the Online Itinerant and it's called Taming the Itinerant Beast. And it's like as an itinerant teacher, now I am naturally not the most organized person, and so that was my biggest challenge stepping into an itinerant role was having all my materials with me when I needed them and being able to find them easily and getting organized in that way and doing that for a huge caseload of kids that had such a variety of needs and and getting myself organized and knowing where everything was. So I do this training called Taming the Itinerant Beast which is really kind of some secret hacks that have been my survival that has helped been key to my survival in terms of of all of that. And again I use Google but I actually do and do a lot through my Google Calendar. So when I've got my students scheduled on my Google Calendar I have the direct link to their IEP, I've got their audiogram actually linked to their time in my schedule, I have my IEP goals listed at top of this event. And then I even have I call them NTKs, my my Need To Knows. So for example, when is their IEP due, how many minute, when do I see them, is it once a month or is it twice a month, do they have a unilateral loss and if so which side of the ear is it on you know, like what what classroom am I pulling them from, if it's a high school I always forget like, you know where am I where am I finding them right now or I'll link their schedule. So I actually link all of that and even my lesson plans and where I left off I actually link all of that inside of my Google Calendar event. So then when I'm getting ready to see my student I can go directly there and click on it and the nice thing about that of course is through, now all of my schools allow me to use Google I think outlook has a similar cloud, a similar system that you can do and then I can make lesson plans accessible for other people to see or not. I can make my data collection accessible for other people to see or not. You know so, so that's been a huge game changer for me just being able to stick it right in my calendar events.
D: Mhmm. So are the files housed in the Google drive and you're linking from there.?
S: Yeah.
D: Got it. Yeah, that's really cool.
S: Yeah or their, yeah typically typically housed in the Google drive. So then what's really nice is then I can also access it from my phone because I'll be at a red light and I'll be like oh my gosh I'm headed to go see Johnny. What were we going, you know I looked at this already but now I've already forgotten what, what are we working on today. And then I can go straight to my phone and I can access it, you know from from my phone and I put all my data collection, I put everything, I put everything on there that has to do with my students. So then I can access it anytime anywhere.
D:Yeah that's such a good idea I feel like that's really helpful to have it. Like that's kind of what you need is you just need to find a way to have it available on your phone in like 2 touches. Like you know what I mean? Like like it's great to have it in your Google Drive which is like where I keep a lot of information but it's like a lot of clicking to get to that information like because I have so many folders and so many kids and it's just like I really need just like an at a glance system. So that's why I feel like the calendar works really good, Google Keep works really good, just like the notes app I used for a long time before I discovered Google Keep but like it's just so nice to have like a like a 2 touch system where it's like I click my phone, I click the app, I see the information and that's like it like kind of faster like that. I also always write down for, we have case managers, so like I always write down the case managers name and email because I always forget like I have to email them something and I'm just like I'm looking at my email and I'm like what is their name so I could start typing it in so that way the rest of their email pops up and I just like can't remember everybody's okay I only meet them one time usually beginning of the year [LAUGH] So just like having their name readily available is like so helpful.
S: Exactly.
D:That's what of my like need to knows. Yeah.
S: Yes, I'll put the case manager name and email and the other thing I always put in my in my event is the kid's birthday because so many of my students they don't even know when their birthday is like they just they they have no idea when it is or they know the month but not the day or the and and I'll have kids that'll be like my birthday's coming my birthday's coming and I'll be like really when is it and I'll look and it'll be like six months from now.
D: [LAUGH]
S: They you know they they don't have that time concept. But you know, it never fails I will run into, I'll be walking down the hallway on my way to but the next school, and I'll run into somebody who's got a question and they've got a question about the student's hearing loss or they've got a question about the IEP due date or minutes or something like that and it's just really convenient to be able to to be able to say oh yeah, let me take a look at this and be able to you know access it easily and have it right there.
D:I have one little like note too of just like the list of everyone on my caseload because like sometimes he like it's just nice to be able to like look at it all like even if it's just like a list and I just have to like scroll through it for a second. Sometimes it's just helpful just to like have like a bird's level bird eye view bird's level view [LAUGH] of all the information.
But okay, great any other like organizing like materials or anything like that? Because I have, I don't know, you don't want to look at my desktop right now. I've talked about this before like I feel like I like, sometimes I feel like I'm succeeding in one area and not succeeding in another like I'm doing great teaching but my desktop's a mess or like I have like a great idea but like my bag is a mess. Like it's just like can only do so much. So I am always looking for tips on how to keep my actual materials organized because like I said I try to keep it simple but I find it difficult to stay consistent with or keeping my things organized and luckily because I make a lot of my own materials I in my head know what I have because I made it [LAUGH] but it still would be easier if I knew where it was.
S: Yeah, you've got great materials by the way I just love them I love what you offer and that you produce a just fantastic fantastic resources. Well and of course when I when I created the Online Itinerant I created it with that thought in mind of like okay because again, that's my problem like knowing where I what I have and where it is and how to access it and where I stored it and so I created the teaching toolbox as part of the professional and friend academy. So that everything is right there and easily accessible to be able just to go in and find it and save it. You can star it as your favorites and then of course if I'm working on it with a student then I can link that exact lesson plan inside my Google Calendar. So I just have all of my lesson plans in there as well. But that's been helpful to keep me organized. But here's another thing that's been you know I used to load my trunk, I used to load my trunk like at the beginning of the day or the beginning of the week with all the games and materials that I needed and and then I would get so frustrated because I would get to the school that I was working at, and either I would walk into the building and I would forget the materials that I had thought so hardly and organized so much to put in my trunk or I will have actually not packed that game for that day or that material for that day and I just was constantly like shoot, you know I'm not keeping up. It's just it's a very frustrating feeling to feel like you are not keeping up with your own goals and with your own intentions. And I actually have stopped packing games into my trunk and trying to take them. And the reason is I have become best friends with the SLPs at my school districts and they have all the same games or or they have different games that meet the same language goals or whatever. And so I have I have built this great relationship with them that I can say hey you know can I sneak into your game closet for the day and instead of me and every one of them is just wonderful, sure absolutely you know, and maybe I'm blessed in that. But it saves me from having to think ahead, fill my trunk, haul stuff, lug stuff in, lug stuff out. So being able to find the people in your building that have similar resources and tools that you can just connect with them instead of you having to load it and bring it every single time.
D: Yeah that's one of the things I do when I have, I a lot of times have a lot of preschoolers on my caseload and I bring stuff because I want it to be fun, but like I will borrow heavily from the classroom because I just like don't have like, I don't have if I had just preschoolers maybe I'd be different but I can't I can't just think about the 5 preschoolers, I have to think about all the other kids too. So I borrow heavily books, toys, I mean it nice because you can like preview stuff with them too. So there is like a functional component to it as well. But I do, I should probably borrow from the SLPs more because I do talk to them all the time they're super helpful. They're super nice I'm sure they wouldn't mind at all, but that would be another one to like use as a resource when you're there. I try lately, I've been trying to like. I like put a bunch of different things in my car but not something in mind for any particular student and then like I'll just like swap it out with different stuff. So it's like I just have I just leave different stuff in the car. So that way I can like look at it, think about it while I'm there and then just like pick one or two things. That works until I forget to take stuff out of the car [LAUGH] which is I think where I'm at right now because you could tell it's like almost Christmas because it's like I'm like piling you know [LAUGH] So I definitely feel like that's an area I could improve in but...
Both: [LAUGH]
S: Well, you know we just get we get to start feeling like we're gypsies and like we're living out of our car and like everything you know, we can't put anything else, you know. Oh sorry we have to go on vacation I've got to empty out my entire trunk of games and toys so that we can put our own luggage into our own car like sorry about that. You know I just I just feel like that's hard to live out of your car. We, we don't want that we want to live out of our home. You know we want to be able to have our tools and resources accessible to us where in every school should be our classroom community and pulling from the SLPs or from the classroom is great because the other thing that we're doing with that is is those are probably materials that the child may be using in those other places in the classroom. So I love to pull from the preschool like the food, the food that they're using or whatever bins they have to be able to provide that activity so that they can then go back in with the kids and use that in their own you know in their own classroom. So yeah, if I had somebody say can I look inside your trunk can I look inside your teaching bag right now and I was like I don't have anything in there right now. It's all on my computer or else at a school that I'm at right now I use everything as you know those 2 places. And I no longer live out of my car which is a great feeling.
D:Yeah, you couldn't pay me money to show you my car right now.
Both: [LAUGH]
D:Sometimes it's empty. Not right now it's not but you know. But anyway moving on...
Both: [LAUGH]
D: Did you have any other like tips, secrets, things that you like to tell people that help them just overall be successful as an itinerant teacher? Because it's so different from regular teaching.
S: Yeah, it is. Well for one I like to say just give yourself grace because especially if you know are are working with a student that's it's just really, we are asked to, sometimes we're asked to perform miracles right? We're asked to work with really challenging students. Like for example, I was just chatting with somebody today who has a 14 year old student who moved in from Mexico who has no Spanish and no English and now they're in you know the middle school classes and they're asked to work with them for 45 minutes a week. That's it. To be able to make this child fluent in English and this child does has zero language and you know...
D:Yeah I've been in that exact situation before. [LAUGH]
S: Yes! We all have! And you know I want to tell teachers I want to say you know we can't perform miracles like we can only do what we are given the opportunity to do. And so give yourself grace and be willing to have the conversation with the administration to say, okay can I meet with you about this because this is really a you know a difficult situation and and to be able to open up those lines of communication. I think so often we're afraid to talk to parents and we're afraid to talk to administration, we don't want to say the wrong things, we don't want to say something that would be... we don't want to ask, for parents, we don't want to ask questions that's too personal. For administration we don't want to look like we're challenging their authority you know or or anything like that. But more often than not I think when we, you know, ask people just to come to the table with us so that we can brainstorm ideas around the challenging situation that we have because we all want what's best for that child, I think people in general are willing to come to the table to have the conversation. So that's one of my tips like just you know, ask to have the conversation and more likely than not people will be willing to have it and don't expect yourself to be able to perform miracles. You know you can't make a child fluent in English in 45 minutes a week. You can't make any child fluent in english in 45 minutes you know [LAUGH] let alone a 14 year old who has extreme language deprivation because they haven't had any access to language for all this time.
D:Yeah, that's really good advice to just like keep in the back of your mind and remember because I know I feel that way sometimes like I just think about certain kids like they they keep me up at night but you have to remember that we just do the best with what we have, you know, reach out to people who can help if they can. And then that's, that's really all you can do at the end of the day but...
S: I've got a little story for you about that.
D: Sure.
S: I had an aha moment and a number of years ago I was young in my teaching career and I was working, I was teaching preschool and we had this little girl come in. She was three years old and she had just been diagnosed with a severe hearing loss so she'd had her first 3 years with no hearing aids and so she came in at 3 and she didn't have, she didn't have any language. And we didn't really know what the background or anything was except for we had just learned that her dad had died of cancer and her mom came in, and and her mom, we were you know, initially her mom her mom was really struggling with the diagnosis of hearing loss she had said well I think prior to the official diagnosis, she said well I think she might not be able to hear but not so bad that she has to wear those things from her ears I would I would be devastated if she ever had to wear those things in her ears. You know? And so here she comes she gets diagnosed with this significant hearing loss. And this little girl she wasn't potty trained yet but she was wearing diapers. She'd go into the bathroom, she'd take her diaper off, she'd throw it under the bathroom stall, have somebody else hand her a diaper and she would put her own diaper on, and she wasn't body trained right? Well we had so many things we wanted to ask this mom. We wanted to know like you know, like what happened to her dad like and what's happening with potty training and you know, but we were so afraid to ask the questions because it just seemed so sensitive, so sensitive because it was such ah such a hard conversation. Okay, fast forward 13 years later, I was then teaching high school and she was my student again.
D: Oh my gosh.
S: And actually I take it back I became the outreach specialist I was the education specialist and I was called in to work with her on a case. So so she was in high school. And I called the mom to have a parent interview and I said I don't know if you remember me but I was her first teacher her very first teacher and her mom said oh how I wish you would have asked me those hard questions.
D:Aww.
S: Everybody tiptoed around me I was in such denial I was a super young mom I was doing it by myself and nobody could tell me what I needed to know I was so scared and I thought shoot, you know I was afraid to ask those questions and yet she really needed somebody to walk alongside of her and help her along that way. So that for me was an aha moment I looked back at me as a young teacher of how afraid I was to just walk alongside that mom.
D:Yeah.
S: And now I really pour into parents and I really try really hard to walk alongside of them. At the time I was very critical of her, I thought and I'm embarrassed to say this I thought what kind of mother is she right? She hasn't given this girl hearing aids, she hasn't even potty trained her yet like here she is she's 3 like come on mom right? I was kind of thinking that. And then when I realized this mom I think she was 23 so she was super young with a three year old child and she was a widow at 23 you know. So anyway, the lesson is to have the conversation to be willing to to kind of just open that up and and talk to our parents and talk to our administration.
D:Yeah, and that definitely I think gets easier the more you do it because I remember the first time a parent cried in front of me about something and I was like a deer in the headlights. I was like oh my god I don't know what to do, I don't know how I, I don't know what to do I'm so sorry like please stop crying like [LAUGH] um, but I um you know like you you figured out you learn. I've found it very helpful I mean obviously I did my my LSLS certification so that I could you know be in a more knowledgeable in that area but big part of that was parent coaching. So even just like with all parents even kids who aren't auditory oral I just got so much better at like talking to other adults like talking to parents in like a very coachable and like empathetic way. So that way you know it helps you recenter things so that way I wasn't jumping to automatic judgments or like trying to fix problems that didn't need fixing and just offering like support when they need support and strategies when they need strategies and just like kind of figuring that out. But that definitely took time at the beginning I was just like oh my God parents crying please stop crying.
Both: [LAUGH]
D: It got, it got better as I feel like I practiced it and as I like purposely looked into help with dealing with that I do a lot of early intervention on my caseload. So I deal with parents very closely compared to a lot of people. So I feel like I had like a little crash course in it. Um, and now I feel totally fine [LAUGH] talking to parents about anything because when you're in their house they share all sorts of information with you.
S: They will yeah.
D: So it definitely is something that I feel more comfortable doing now. But it's also nice that like you know when we have these communities for Teachers of the Deaf that if you run into a situation like that like we're like there's so much going on and you want to be respectful and you want to be sensitive like maybe bouncing some ideas off someone else before you dive in like could be super helpful. So that way you don't feel bad for stepping on their toes. But you're there to offer the support that they need. I see posts like this all the time in like my Facebook group or your Facebook group like of people being like posting anonymous like I have this situation how would you deal with it? And like sometimes people have some really nice, insightful comments.
S: Oh you're so right, you're so right. Being able to connect with other people and see what other people have done or how they would approach it. We just did a power hour today with the Online Itinerant and that's that discussion you know that's the other tip to success for itinerants is have other people have that community that you can bounce things off of if you have to post it on a Facebook post just kind of get that insight get that experience from from other people. It's so valuable.
D:So speaking of can you share a little bit about the Online Itinerant. What y'all are working on right now like where you can find you all that good info.
S: Awesome! So yeah go to www.theonlineitinerant.com and you'll see what all is going on. So inside our our most popular offering that we have is the professional academy. Inside the professional academy we've got over 40 different on-demand trainings for people. One of the things that you mentioned is you know as as a especially as an itinerant Teacher of the Deaf you know what you've experienced but it never fails you have something new pop up for you and all of a sudden you're supposed to be working with this kid. And our plates are so full we can only we only have the capacity to get the information that we need at the moment. So this was always something that happened to me like I would have ah there would be a training on like let's say uh working with deaf and autistic kids. And I would say yeah but I don't have any autistic deaf and autistic kids right now. So that training is not going to benefit me right now and then a month later I would get a deaf autistic kid and I'd be like shoot now I need the training where did the training go [LAUGH] now I need it!
D:Yeah.
S: So the Online Itinerant offers over 40 hours of on demand trainings that you can access when you need it and when you've got access to it and we have it on an app which is nice because everything is broken into 15 minute increments so you can literally listen to a training while you're headed to that school to work with a student. So we've got those trainings. We've got the toolbox that I mentioned that has bazillion assessments and handouts and activities and everything specific towards meeting the needs of our kids and our IEP goals. We have power hours so that's the opportunity to come together and have these conversations and then we have a whole parent program and if you're a member of the professional academy then you get your parents in for free and then they get all of those things. So they get somebody just like what we're talking about walking alongside of them supporting them along their journey and I do the work for you instead of you doing it. I know your plate, I know our teachers our plates are so full. We just don't have the capacity to do it. So I support you in that. And that's in the professional academy. Then we've got the friend academy which is that parent program and then we've got all all of those things you can just get one training at a time. We had an awesome training last night about progress monitoring using Avenue PM that was with Sue Rose from University Of Minnesota she's phenomenal.
So anyway, that's the Online Itinerant. We've got opportunities to bring people together so they've got community. They get the trainings that they need on demand they've got the teaching tools and resources and they've got the opportunity to connect with others.
D:Awesome! Thank you so much for sharing all about that. I will link to the Online Itinerant and I'll link to any other links you give me Stefanie so that way people can find it nice and easy in the show notes. All these links, show notes, transcript, all that will be at listentotodpod.com. And I hope you have a fantastic week and I'll see you next time. Bye!
S: Thank you for the opportunity, bye!
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