Mini Video Training Series Ep 9: Ten Do's and Don'ts of Classroom Schedules

Hi, I'm Sasha from The Autism Helper, and in this episode of our mini video training series, I'm talking about my 10 dos and don'ts for classroom schedules. So if you're in the special ed world, if you're a teacher, a parent, a clinician, or a classroom assistant, classroom schedules are not new to you, likely. Classroom schedules seem to come with our special ed rooms or resource rooms, but it's important to think about why we're using classroom schedules the way we are and make sure we're making the most out of them. So I'm going to talk about my 10 dos and don'ts for classroom schedules. So the most obvious one is do have a schedule. So I've walked into some classrooms where the teacher seems to be somewhat bragging and tell me, "Oh, we don't do schedules," like it's something they're proud of. And my response to this is always, if you are cool with sitting in a full-day staff inservice by your principal with no agenda and not knowing when lunch is, what topics are being covered, or when your day's even over, then fine, have no schedules. And I mean that sarcastically because no one is fine sitting in a full-day staff inservice with no agenda. Schedules are important. You need a schedule to show what's going to happen next. A lot of our kids struggle with transitions, and a lot of our kids struggle with receptive language processing, So just saying, "This is what we're doing, this is what we're doing, this is what we're doing," and giving that laundry list is not helpful. They don't understand it sometimes. So we want to make sure to utilize a schedule where students are understanding what's coming next and the order of activities. So number 2 is individualize the type of schedule. So I think some people misinterpret number 1. When I say you need a schedule, I don't mean you need a visual board maker, movable piece type schedule. That's not what I mean at all. I mean you need some type of schedule for your students, and you need to individualize what that schedule looks like depending on the needs and skills of your students. If you have a student that's a reader who's pretty good at telling time, you're going to want a text schedule that utilizes time so they can work on time management and utilizing the clock in the classroom and knowing elapsed times and things like that. And they can read, so you want a text-based schedule. If you have another student who's more reliant on visuals, who can match pictures, who can understand first-then, then yeah, you might want a movable piece picture schedule. But you need to individualize the schedule type for the needs of your kids. If you have 4 different schedule types in your classroom, you're probably on the right track. It's good to have multiple schedule types. It would surprise me if every single student in your classroom needed exactly the same type of schedule. Because it's just unlikely that in a self-contained classroom all the needs of the student are that exactly the same. Life never works out that way. Our skills are going to be all over the place, and we want our schedules to reflect the skill sets of our kids. Number 3: Do change the schedule as needed. Once you find a schedule that works well for a student, awesome, that's great, keep using that schedule, but not forever. You want to make sure to change the schedule as the needs and skills of that student change. So if a student started using a visual movable piece schedule in preschool or kindergarten, by high school they still shouldn't have the exact same type of schedule. We should be constantly looking at upping the ante, making the schedule harder— harder in a way that's still accessible to them and still helpful, but making it harder. Taking it off the wall and putting it in a binder, having the visuals on a laminated piece of paper where they cross it off, making the visuals smaller, going text-based, adding the time, putting the whole week on one page. There's a lot of strategies you can do to make the schedule more generalizable. So when I say harder, I really mean generalizable. We want the schedule to be able to be utilized in more environments than just your classroom. And when we have a picture schedule on the wall, we're pretty limited on how much we can use that in other scenarios. So think of a schedule as a spectrum, and we want to be always moving towards schedules that are more generalizable and less restrictive to give our kids more opportunities in the future. Yes, those steps might be baby steps, and it might take years to get there. That's okay. Just always be moving in that direction and think of the schedule choice as not a static thing, as something that's flexible and can move. So step 4 is don't make the schedule too hard. So yes, we want to individualize for our kids, and we always want to be moving towards schedules that are more generalizable and less restrictive, which might mean making it harder. But you want to make sure to never make it too hard. You want to make sure the skills that are being utilized while using the schedule are the same skills that the kid has mastered. So an area that I see that this is a problem a lot is with Movable Piece schedules for a student that hasn't quite mastered matching. So if you have a student that is working on matching pictures but not quite there, that's okay, we're working on it. With a typical traditional Movable Piece schedule, a student will pull off a picture that has blocks on it, they will go over to the play area where there's a big picture of blocks, and they'll match the blocks picture right there. So they're required to match pictures in addition to other things. There's a whole long fine motor skill process and motor planning of finding the right location and knowing which location is there, but it's matching. You're essentially matching. So if a student is still working on matching pictures as an IEP goal, they're not suddenly going to magically be able to match pictures within their schedule. And their schedule is something that's there to help them. It's there to help them navigate their day. So we want to make sure that the skills are matched up. For kids that aren't quite matching pictures yet, I like to make the pictures color-coded in their schedule. So they're matching colors, which is a lot easier than matching pictures. And I know we're all really familiar with Boardmaker pictures, but they look pretty similar. They're hard to discriminate between. So we want to make sure that adding that color-coded background might help our kids navigate and find that next center a little bit easier. So maybe that blocks picture has a background of blue, the picture at the play area has a background of blue. So instead of matching blocks to blocks, we're matching blue to blue, which is going to be more in the skill set of that student. Student. Tip 5: Don't make the schedule too easy. I know it's getting complicated. I just told you to not to make it too hard, now I'm telling you not to make it too easy, but we really do want to get it just right. A schedule that's too easy for a student can be bad because it's not going to be as generalizable and there aren't going to be as many opportunities for independence. So like I mentioned before, if we're leaving a student at a picture schedule or a movable piece schedule for too long, when they're able to utilize a schedule that's more typical to what their gen ed peers are using, we're having them miss out on valuable learning opportunities, valuable opportunities for mom and dad to use that type of schedule at home. So we want to make sure to always be pushing our kids and not just being like, "Oh, it'd be easier for me if I had everyone on visual schedules, so I'm just gonna keep Johnny on a visual schedule," when really Johnny could use a text schedule all on one page, maybe even in a planner or calendar that looks like his peers' 7th grade. So just because it's easier for you doesn't mean it's best for our kids. Something that's too easy is not giving our kids as many learning opportunities as we'd like. Tip 6: Do involve the student in their schedule. So don't be checking the schedule for the students. Make sure they're going with you if they need help, that they're checking their schedule every day, that you're talking about their schedule on a regular basis, and that you're showing them the order of activities as you explain it. When you go through that list of all the things you're doing that day, use that schedule and reference it along with your verbal language. Yep, we got math, and then we're gonna do centers, and then we have music class. As you're saying those words, point to those pictures. Also involve the student to show any changes, help them set up their schedule, and make them a meaningful member of helping utilize that schedule. Tip 7: Don't over-prompt. Whenever I do trainings, I ask people to raise their hand if they've committed to follow along their child or their student for the rest of their lives. Not surprisingly, no one ever raises their hand, and everyone laughs because obviously it's a joke. None of us have committed to follow around our kids or our students for the rest of your life. Even if you're a parent, you want your kids to be independent. Using a schedule independently is key We use schedules independently all the time. None of us could have a job if we couldn't independently follow our schedule. We wouldn't show up for the first day of work. We wouldn't show up to school at the right time, or our jobs at the right time, or our shift. We wouldn't be able to know when to get there. So following schedules alone is key. That's why over-prompting is dangerous, because we're not helping our kid achieve that goal of independently following their schedule. And none of us over-prompt on purpose. No one wakes up on Monday morning thinking, "Man, I'm gonna over-prompt today." It just happens. We fall in routines. It's faster if we just help our kids. We think we're helping, but we're not. So think about and train your staff to think about how to pull back prompts, how to make sure you're not overprompting. Take data on your prompting. That's my biggest go-to tip when I think about overprompting is take data. No one really likes to hear that tip because it sounds hard, but it's not. Just track how many prompts you're giving, and it makes you much more aware of how many prompts you're giving if you have to track it every time you give a prompt. You might think, "Oh, I'm not prompting that much during the schedule routine," and then you do a simple frequency count and count how many prompts you give throughout the day, and you're like, "Oh dang, I gave 63 prompts on his schedule today. That's a lot." So make sure that you're not over-prompting during schedule use and you're really going for that independence. Tip 8: Do make sure that the staff utilizes the schedule as well. This is a team endeavor, and while some students might need some help and you might need to be fading those prompts, you want to make sure that staff members are also prompting students to check their schedule and helping them check their schedule, and it's valuable for everyone in the class. So you want to make sure to really get that buy-in, open up questions, Make sure that staff understands why schedules are so important so they take it as seriously as you do. Tip 9: Do make schedule setup easy and quick. If you have movable piece visual schedules, setting up those schedules can be really time-consuming. If you have 8 or 9 kids all on schedules like that, it's hard to set up those schedules, keep track of the order of events. Every kid will likely have a different order of events in their schedule, So it's time-consuming to set those up. So some of my go-to tricks here are having a setup guide, even taking a photo of the finished schedule or making a little mini visual schedule, maybe even one for each day of the week. Take a picture of what Monday looks like, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and then match to sample. Even if the adult is setting up the schedule, it's easier to match to pictures as an adult than it is to pull out the schedule, think about, well, does Johnny have art first or music? Let's put it in the right order. Which day do we have gym? So then you're just matching to sample. Another way to then utilize that kind of setup guide is to have students help set up their schedules. This is a great way to involve students in their schedules and teach self-monitoring and organizing your day and your week and your month. So have students at the end of the day set up their schedule for the next day. If your student can match pictures, they can set up their schedule. So It's a great real-life classroom job. It's not contrived. It's going to actually help the team and help them. So wrap up activities 15 minutes before dismissal and have them sit with a staff member, match to sample, and match their schedule for the next day. And then talk about like, oh hey, we've got gym tomorrow, we've got math tomorrow, and make sure it's all talked about. Make approximately 1 million extra pieces if you have a movable piece schedule because you will lose them and it's so annoying to try to go find if you have the exact amount. Make tons of extras and have an easy system to find the extra pieces when you need them. Tip 10: Don't avoid schedule changes. I know this one's confusing. With our schedules, the point of having them there is to show the order of activities, is to show what's going to happen. And in the real world, there is a plan And then there's changes to those plans. Mom takes her kids out on a Saturday morning, says, "We're gonna go pick up the dry cleaning and we're gonna go to soccer practice and then we're going to Target." And everyone's excited to go to Target. And you get a flat tire. Well, the plan's out the window. We're not doing any of those things. In the real world, there are changes to our schedule. A lot. That's how life is. Changes can be really hard for some of our kids. So when you have that schedule, whether it's a movable piece schedule, pictures, text, use that schedule to show those schedule changes. Highlight, plan it out. If your student is prepping their schedule the night before, make sure they're helping make that schedule and showing that, hey, we don't have these afternoon activities because we have a pep rally. So really highlight those changes. I have actually a whole different mini video training series video all about schedule changes. I think schedule changes and planned schedule changes are so important because it teaches our kids how to go with these changes and how to handle these changes. Practice makes perfect. You need to have a lot of changes so you can get used to it. So once that schedule's set and kids start getting the routine, incorporate those schedule changes and use that schedule to show the change in the routine. So I hope you enjoyed thinking about your classroom schedules. We are routine-based. We set up the same schedules in the same way year after year, sometimes just because, and we don't necessarily think about why. Why do I put the schedules right here? Why do I use these type of schedules? Is this even the right type of schedule for this child? So I hope that these tips encourage you to think outside the box about your schedules, to push your kids to a schedule that's more generalizable, to include your staff on utilizing the schedule with all of your students and to make those all-important schedule changes. Classroom schedules really are key. They're the backbone to the class. They're going to help our kids understand the environment. Schedules are so important to us. I could not live without my calendar app and my reminders app on my phone. Those are schedules. I schedule out my time all the time. It's what helps me be productive and effective. So we want to teach our kids those same skills. So I hope you enjoyed this episode of the mini video training series. Please check out our other episodes on YouTube, and please feel free to suggest other topics for future episodes.