CyberSmart! Free Cyberbullying Awareness Curriculum, partnership with the National Association of School Psychologists

CyberSmart! Cyberbullying Awareness Curriculum

"NASP is pleased to partner with CyberSmart! to bring to educators and parents theCyberSmart! Cyberbullying Awareness Curriculum, a positive and empowering suite of K-12 lessons provided free to schools. These materials can facilitate prevention of cyberbullying at the classroom level, and help provide outreach to families and the community."

"In developing these lessons, CyberSmart! adopted an integrated approach, examining all current research findings and using best practices from the fields of cyber security, school violence prevention, and character education to affect behavioral change. The new curriculum is designed to guide students to think and act creatively and critically, defining the problems and issues themselves, and thus “owning” them. Without this ownership, no behavioral change can occur."

CYBERSMART WEBSITE

School Psychology Awareness Week

School psychologists promote positive possibilities and encourage gratitude towards others during National School Psychology Awareness Week—November 9–13, 2009


Bethesda, MD—The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) has designated November 9–13, 2009 as National School Psychology Awareness Week. This year’s theme, “See the possibilities in you. We do!” seeks to shine a light on the positive work school psychologists do to promote the possibilities for academic and personal success in the lives of the students they serve. The program involves a series of resources and activities that school psychologists can use to reach out to school staff, students and parents to help students feel connected, supported, and ready to achieve their individual goals.


NASP represents more than 25,500 school psychologists who work in schools and other education and health settings. School psychologists work with parents and educators to ensure that every child has the mental health and learning support they need to succeed in school and life. This year’s program focuses promoting students’ positive attitudes and competence by highlighting student strengths and the many ways schools reinforce those strengths. Specifically, school psychologists will be recognizing students who make significant progress toward their goals through the “Student POWER Award” Program and honoring adult members of the school community who contribute in an outstanding way to improved outcomes for students through the “Possibilities in Action Partner” Program.


“Adults make many important contributions to the development of children. Seeing and advancing the possibilities within students, even in the face of difficulties, is critical to helping them achieve their best in school, at home, and in life.” says NASP President Patti Harrison. “Some people go above and beyond, making extraordinary efforts to promote students’ competencies, create opportunities for children to meet their goals, and expand schools’ capacity to foster success. We want to recognize these adults who are partners for ‘Possibilities in Action’ and have been admirable influences on the lives of children.”


Additionally this year, NASP is launching the “Gratitude Works” Program, an effort to have students around the country write letters of gratitude to someone who has made a difference in their life or the lives of others. The “Gratitude Works” Program seeks to reinforce students’ practice of gratitude as one of many prosocial behaviors that can foster individual resilience and well-being as well as contribute to overall positive school climate. Promoting positive attitudes, such as gratitude, helps students become more aware of the strengths in themselves and others. Research has revealed that children who feel and express gratitude express more positive views of both home and school and improve their academic performance.


School psychologists around the country are working with teachers to help students identify and honor school staff, family members, students, and other educators or community members who contribute to their ability to achieve their best. Some students are choosing to write letters of gratitude to people who they do not even know personally, such as military servicemen and women and emergency responders.


As part of National School Psychology Awareness Week, NASP has developed downloadable and adaptable resources to help school psychologists participate in these programs. Further information on these programs, school psychologists and the contribution they make in guiding student success is available online at http://www.nasponline.org/communications/index.aspx.


For further information contact NASP Director of Marketing and Communications, Kathy Cowan at (301) 347-1665 or kcowan@naspweb.org, or visit www.nasponline.org.


RELATED
Ready to Learn, Empowered to Teach, Excellence in Education for the 21st Century: National Association of School Psychologists' Guiding Principles for Effective Education
http://www.nasponline.org/advocacy/2008educationpolicydocument.pdf


NASP

Links to Blogging School Psychologists

• IQ's Corner: Kevin McGrew's blog
• Assessment and Intervention in School Psychology Blog
• SchoolPsych Blog
• Dr. Weisz: School Psychology Blog & Podcasts
• Diary of a School Psychologist
• Brain S. Friedlander: Assistive Technology Blog
• The Black Briefcase (School Psychologist's blog)
• Notes from the School Psychologist
• School Psychologist Blog Files
• New School Psych Blog
• Cool School Psychologist
• Psychmommy blog
• NASP Blogs   (Members Only)
  

School Psychologist "On the Job" reflections...

This is a copy of my post to the NASP School Psychologist "On the Job" blog:

I'm at home today due to a ill-timed stomach bug. I plan to spend some of my time resting as I work on reports and review some student data.

As the school year comes to an end, I often have mixed feelings. On one hand, like the students, I can't wait until the first day of my summer break (all 5 weeks of it!) and jump into the pool... On the other hand, it is a time of reflection about the school year and what I've done in my little corner of the school psychology world to make things better, and also reflect on the direction I need to take for the upcoming year, giving some thought to current research.

I'd like to devote this post to one of my interests, improving outcomes for youth with disabilities.

In my opinion, the best measurement of intervention outcomes is what happens to the lives of the children and teens as they transition to adulthood. Despite our well-intentioned efforts, often focused at the elementary level, high school students with disabilities continue to drop out of school at an unacceptable rate, especially in urban school districts.

If you skim through recent journal articles in the field of school psychology, it is obvious that most university-sponsored research targets the lower grades. This research is important, but it is not enough, given the data that we have regarding outcomes for youth with disabilities. My hunch is that many university school psychology educators have minimal experience working at the high school level, otherwise we'd have many more journal articles devoted to secondary-level research and best practices!

As a profession, are we losing sight of the bigger picture? How much do we understand what is going on at the high school level regarding third-tier interventions for students who receive special education services? At this level, what are the roles and responsibilities of the school psychologist regarding progress monitoring and assessing treatment integrity? How does this fit in the IEP and transition planning process? Who is responsible for putting together the secondary school psychology road-map?


When I returned to work this school year full time, I hadn't worked in a regular high school setting for about three years. One of my goals was to re-acquaint myself with research related adolescent literacy, drop-out prevention for students with disabilities, and transition planning. Below are some of the resources and links I found along my way:

NASP: School Psychology Forum: Research into Practice

Adolescent Literacy
IES Practice Guide: Improving Adolescent Literacy: Effective Classroom and Intervention Practices

The Content Literacy Continuum

ARCC- Appalachia Regional Comprehensive CenterAdolescent Literacy Resources & Toolkit

National Institute for Literacy: What Content-Area Teachers Should Know About Adolescent Literacy pdf (2007)

Note: The above publication has specific strategies for instruction included in the appendix, with some useful graphic organizers.

Learning Disabilities Online: Adolescent Literacy and Older Students with Learning Disabilities (pdf)

National Center for Secondary Education and Transition (NCSET) Adolescent Literacy Resources

Edutopia: How To Use Digital Storytelling in Your Classroom

Meeting the Needs of Significantly Struggling Learners in High School: A Look at Approaches to Tiered Intervention

This publication explains the need for and challenges of implementing Response to Intervention (RTI) at the high school level. This brief introduces the RTI model, illustrates two RTI approaches, discusses implementation issues, and provides a list of resources for more information.


Transition, Dropout-Prevention for Students with Disabilities

Effective Interventions in Dropout Prevention: A Research Synthesis
The Effects of Cognitive Behavioral Intervention on Dropout for Youth with Disabilities pdf
Brian Cobb, Pat Sample, Morgen Alwell and Nikole Johns, Colorado State University

What Works Transition Research Synthesis

Making Connections Across Indicators to Improve Post-School Outcomes
Cathy Hammond, Ph.D., Loujeania Williams Bost, Ph.D.

Evidence-Based Dropout-Prevention Programs

Collecting Post-School Outcome Data: Strategies for Increasing Response Rates pdf

What Works Clearinghouse: Dropout Prevention

National Post-School Outcomes Center

National Dropout Prevention Center for Students with Disabilities

The National Dropout Prevention Center for Students with Disabilities (NDPC-SD) was established in January 2004 to support states in assisting local education agencies to increase school completion rates and decrease dropout rates among students with disabilities. NDPC-SD is funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and is part of OSEP’s Technical Assistance and Dissemination Network designed to support the national implementation of provisions of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

Our Focus
The mission of the NDPC-SD is to build the capacity of states to provide local education agencies with enhanced services related to dropout prevention and re-entry programs to increase school completion rates for students with disabilities. In keeping with our mission, the primary focus of our Center is threefold:

1.to synthesize research and practice into actionable information that can be readily used by states to develop and/or enhance dropout prevention programs for students with disabilities. This actionable information includes, but is not limited to, producing research-based manuscripts, information monographs, and a toolkit of evidenced-based strategies to serve as technical assistance documents for administrators, educators, policymakers, and other service providers in designing dropout prevention programs.
2.to provide effective technical assistance and dissemination activities to "scale up" the use of research-validated programs and interventions in dropout prevention. We believe effective technical assistance to be a systematic process for transferring knowledge about dropout prevention research, practices that work, and policies to assist states and their stakeholders to accomplish goals and plans for systems change in reducing dropout rates and improving school completion rates for students with disabilities. Part of our agenda will consist of translating work being done in other venues into actionable information that states can readily use.
3.to expand state and local practices through intense technical assistance and coaching, which will lead to the development of model sites—exemplars that others can replicate.

Books
McEWan, Elain K. 40 Ways to Support Struggling Readers in Content Classrooms, Grades 6-12 (2007) National Association of Secondary School Principals & Corwin Press

Beers, Kylene, Probst, Robert.E., & Rief, Linda (Eds.) Adolescent Literacy: Turning Promise into Practice (2007) Heinemann

Ohler, Jason Digital Storytelling in the Classroom: New Media Pathways to Literacy, Learning, and Creativity. (2007) Corwin Press

Response to Intervention, Universal Design for Learning: Resources for Implementation

If you are a teacher, a school psychologist, a speech/language teacher, or any other professional who is working in a school that has adopted RTI (Response to Intervention), or is planning to do so, now is the time to consider adopting Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Universal Design for Learning is a "Tier 1" support, as it is geared for all students. Your efforts are likely to pay off!

RTI

If you aren't very familiar with RTI, the chart below shows how the model is applied to academic and behavioral systems:

Michigan Department of Education, Office of Special Education and Early Intervention Services

Response to intervention (RTI) is the practice of:

(1) providing high-quality instruction, intervention, and support matched to student needs;

(2) using learning rate over time and level of performance through data collection/analysis and accurate progress monitoring;

(3) make important educational decisions (data-driven decision-making, etc.)

Most schools who have adopted RTI use a team problem solving approach. Although it might vary from place to place, most use the three-tiered model of prevention and intervention for all students, including those who have special needs. Although RTI was initially designed to support students with academic difficulties, it also works well with school-wide positive behavioral support efforts.

According to Jim Wright, the creator of the web-based Intervention Central, "....To implement RTI effectively, schools must develop a specialized set of tools and competencies, including a structured format for problem-solving, knowledge of a range of scientifically based interventions that address common reasons for school failure, and the ability to use various methods of assessment to monitor student progress in academic and behavioral areas. "

UDL
If you aren't familiar with UDL, it is an approach that integrates technology, differentiated instruction, and best practices in regular classrooms to support all learners, including those considered "at-risk" or who have special needs.

• Multiple and flexible means of presenting information to students
• Multiple and flexible means of providing ways for students to respond to learning
  
• Multiple and flexible means of engaging students

Steps to consider:

• Educate yourself about UDL
• Educate yourself about the National Technology Standards for Teachers
• Educate yourself about using a team problem-solving approach to implement Response to Intervention and UDL
• Bring together key people who serve your school (or schools), for a series of discussions and workshops. Getting everyone's perspective is important.
  
• Who are these people?
  
• Curriculum specialists, special education coordinators, reading support teachers, instructional technology coordinators, and assistive technology consultants, school psychologists, speech/language teachers, OT's, and media specialists.
  

UDL Resources:

The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) model has been piloted in a range of schools in the state of Indiana. PATINS stands for Promoting Achievement through Technology and INstruction for all Students.

Daniel McNulty's is a Universal Design for Learning consultant for the PATINS program. On his PATINS-Rapid Fire blog , you can find a variety UDL-related tips, as well as links to resources.

Here are some links to UDL lesson plan links, created by real teachers: http://www.patinsproject.com/udl_team_information.htm

Although some of the information on Daniel's blog is geared for educators in Indiana's pilot classrooms, he has links to cool applications that meet the guidelines of UDL. Some would work well in UDL classrooms that have interactive whiteboards or displays, such as the online VisuWords program, an interactive graphical dictionary:

VisuWords Screenshot

Daniel McNulty links to Tina Jone's on-line assistive technology overview course. Classrooms that provide a UDL environment are in a good position to help students with disabilities access the general education curriculum, as support for assistive technology is "built-in".

The concept of UDL was developed by the folks at CAST, the Center for Applied Special Technology, who provide an excellent on-line resource for educators that supports UDL implementation in the classroom. The resource is Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age: Universal Design for Learning. CAST is involved with the CITEd Research Center, which provides supports instructional technology integration to support learning for all students. CITEd provides information about ways to implement UDL in digital environments, also discussed in a previous post.


Additional Resources

Response-to-Instruction and Universal Design for Learning: How Might They Intersect in the General Education Classroom?
Response to Intervention (RTI): A Primer for Parent
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association RTI resources and link
National Center on Response to Intervention
National Association of School Psychologists: A Problem-Solving Model for Improving Student Achievement
Intervention Central
RTI Wire
Positive Behavior Support
RTI and BPIS Article

IMPORTANT:
If you are new to this blog, you can subscribe to it via email or through an RSS feed by clicking on the appropriate link on the side of this webpage.

If you are interested in topics such as interactive multimedia technology, the use of games in education and social skills development, engaged learning, interactive whiteboards and displays in the classroom, the use of virtual worlds and virtual reality in education and related fields, and exploring the possibilities of new technologies, take a look at my Interactive Multimedia Technology blog.


-Lynn