Sasha Long, a behavior analyst and former special-ed teacher, shares four strategies for training paraprofessionals: create a signed team mission statement, involve staff in decisions about classroom setup and behavior plans, use 5-to-10-minute training moments during transitions, and post visual cues like prompt hierarchies around the room.
One really challenging aspect to being a special education teacher is training your team. You have paraprofessionals in your classroom and you are their leader, and guess what? There is no training in undergrad or your master's program on how to really effectively train your team. I'm Sasha Long, I'm a board-certified behavior analyst and former special education teacher, and today I'm going to share 4 simple tips to train your team to work collaboratively and effectively in your classroom. First step, this is my favorite. Start with a team mission statement. You can do this at any point in the school year. This is my favorite way to get that team on board with the idea of why they're here, the common why. Why are we all in this classroom working with kids with special needs? My favorite way to do a team mission statement is by asking your team 3 simple questions. So sit down. If you don't have that luxury of having time to work together, and we'll get to that in a second, have them do this on their own and have them answer these 3 simple questions. First, what do we want for our students? We want them to be independent. We want them to feel safe. We want them to learn. Write that down. Second, what do we want for our team? We want respect. We want people to come back from their lunch breaks on time. We want good communication. And third, what do we want for our school community? We want inclusion. We want our students to be a part of that school community. We want to go on field trips with the other grade levels. Have everyone write that down and then put all of your answers together on one sheet of paper and have everyone sign it. That is your common why. That's why all you and your paraprofessionals are in this classroom. If there are conflicts, bring it back to that team mission statement. Hey, I'm asking you to do this behavior plan because remember our common why was we want our students to feel safe. That's where you want to start from and that's what you want to refer back to throughout the year. Number 2, one of the most common struggles I hear about staff training is my staff do not have any buy-in, right? There's no consistency. They don't have buy-in into the strategies I'm giving them. In order to get buy-in, you have to involve them. Involve them in the process. If you are setting up your classroom, include them in those decisions. Ask them their opinion, especially if you are a new teacher or new to that school and those paras know those kids better than you. Refer to them, refer to them frequently. What do you think? Would this student like this? When you're setting up your data systems, your curriculum, your behavior plans, include them in that process as well. That's going to give that buy-in piece. Number 3, by far the biggest challenge of staff training is finding the time, right? Oh my gosh, very few schools have common planning time for you and your paraprofessionals set set aside on a silver platter. That just doesn't happen, right? You have to make time. Staff training can be done in the nooks and crannies of the day— 5 minutes here, 10 minutes here— and it doesn't have to be you and your staff altogether. If you have 2 paraprofessionals, it doesn't need to be all 3 of you sitting down at one time. You can work with one para at one time, one at another. Find time throughout the school day. If a student is sick, grab that para and talk for 5 minutes. If Friday afternoon all your kids are chill, they're having recreation leisure time, they're on their iPads, they're having reinforcer time, they're watching a 30-minute movie, and you know what, do that. By Friday afternoon everyone's super tired. During that time, sit down with them for 10 minutes and talk about data collection, talk about behavior plans, talk about the why behind everything in your classroom. Why do you have schedules? Has anyone ever explained that to that paraprofessional? If they understand the why behind these tools, again, going back to the last one, we're gonna have more buy-in. So find that time in the nooks and crannies of your day. Number 4, make it visual. I'm a visual learner like many of our students, maybe like many of you. If someone just explains something to me verbally, I am not gonna get it. Instead, write it out, type it out, explain things by using a visual cue. And text, guys, is a visual cue. Have you ever been to a conference or workshop or presentation and the presenter does not give you slides, or maybe doesn't even use slides? That's hard as a visual learner. That's hard for me. So I like creating visuals for staff training, whether it's a prompt hierarchy, whether it's a written description of what reinforcement is. This is going to be helpful to ensure understanding for those on your teams that are strong visual learners. All right, those were our 4 tips for staff training. Staff training is a year-long endeavor, so stay at it. Again, I am Sasha Long from The Autism Helper, and subscribe to our channel for more back-to-school tips and tricks.
