Cheri Dotterer: by waking those up, and doing that before you do
academics, you're preparing your body for the ability to access
your education. Hello,
Jonily : everyone. Welcome to tier one intervention podcast,
talking about strengthening the tier one poor classroom with
academic and non academic interventions, strategies and
techniques to meet the needs of all students regardless of
ability or disability. I am Jonily Zupancic, and I am here
with my partner and education partner in crime. CHERI
daughter, who is going to help us answer the question today.
Why do students not remember when I teach lessons? When I
give quizzes, when I come back to content? Why do students have
so much trouble retrieving the information and recalling the
information after I've taught it? So Sherry is going to
enlighten us today on everything that's happening? That affects
memory, and retention of content?
Cheri Dotterer: Hey, everybody is great to be here. I'm Cheri
Dotterer. And yeah, do today a little bit about all that non
academic part of what's happening inside your brain. In
this episode of tier one, interventions, I am sharing the
second half of my training on the senses. Remember, last week,
we talked about the five senses, plus we started talking about
proprioception. Today, we're going to continue that
conversation, I look forward to hearing what you have to say,
please put your comments down in down in the comment section, or
do us a big favor and subscribe to the podcast. So if you've
ever heard a therapist, say you're not, don't just write
with your hands, but you write with your whole arm. That's
absolutely true. Because the nerves start in the brain and go
all the way down your arm, they start at your fingertips, and
they go all the way up your arm to your brain. And all of your
joints, you you've got 123 in this finger, you've got two in
your thumb, you've got three in this finger, you've got
sensation, and very complex set of bones in your palm and in
your wrist. Then you've got the bones that are in the nervous
system coming up your arm, so that your arm can rotate. You've
got the elbow so we can bend, you've got a shoulder, shoulders
a little bit more complex, because it's going to go around
in a circle. And then we have these nerves that are coming up
through there that go up into our neck and back into our
brain. And then we have the reverse, we have the nerves that
are coming back down to make the motor function. So all we've
done so far is talk about the messages coming from our body
going to our brain. We haven't even reversed the response to
what it says afterwards. So all the proprioception is doing is
sending messages to the brain as to how much pressure that joint
needs to do the task that you're asking it to do. So a lot of
kids that struggle with writing have difficult time with this
proprioception. They either are riding too heavy or too late.
They their fingers don't have the control to keep the pencil
in the right place. So they have awkward pencil grasp these other
things that that impact the way the joints work. So I wrote some
actions down. These are motor actions that impact the
proprioception brushing, whether you're using a brush to brush
your hair, you could be using a brush to brush your arm or your
leg. You could be using a brush to paint a wall combing that
that motion. Chewing we talked about. That first line is in
black, just because I was trying to group them in groups. What do
you think I was thinking by putting those in groups of color
the black bear the brushing the combing. In the chewing, what do
you think I was thinking about when I was putting them in that
kind of a group? Krista, how about you? Ken was Where do you
think I was going? No, no, I
Unknown: was thinking like, maybe it's like they're all our
movements. But then chewing is not an arm movement. So I don't
know, I was trying to see what they had in common to put them
together.
Cheri Dotterer: To net maybe you have a good idea what I was
thinking,
Unknown: I was trying to think of that proprioceptive feedback.
But I don't know about the brushing definitely does. I'm
not sure about the combing
Cheri Dotterer: the comb, she has a little bit, it's not as
much. But what I was thinking was activities of daily living.
So in the world of OT, anything that it is something that takes
care of yourself, that involves like bathing, dressing, eating,
that was those kinds of activities, I put in black. And
so I was thinking that, yeah, they're not necessarily things
that we do in school, for academics. But yet, there might
be things like that they do in school. So the girls might be
spending a little bit too much time in the bathroom, brushing
and combing and fixing their hair. Sometimes the guys are
just as bad. But that's what I was thinking when I was putting
grouping these things together. Then I was looking at another
group. And this is one that I was thinking about the classroom
carrying, pushing, pulling and bouncing. And so a lot of times,
you may hear an OT talk about pushing a bunch of heavy books
down the hallway, like on a cart that pushing down the cart, or
pulling something out of the cabinet, or carrying something
or I was thinking about bouncing, like on one of the
therapy balls or something that if there were one of the
adaptive seating. So it was looking at that from that
perspective. So those it is things that you can carry things
that you can push, they're going to put this push and pull on the
joints, not on just your arms, but your other parts of your
body as well. By waking those up. And doing that before you do
academics, you're preparing your body for the ability to access
your education. The third column, I was thinking of tasks
that you have to do while sitting. So cutting, squeezing
like squeezing putty or squeezing the glue bottle or
something like that tearing where you could be tearing
paper, and then taping you pull it out of the dispenser, then
you've got to pull it to cut it off. Those are things that you
do when you're more a little bit more sedentary. And then there's
also jumping and climbing. And the reason I put them on a
separate bouncing goes over here as well as separate is because
they fall into this other category, that second set of of
hidden sensories called the vestibular system. And I'm not
going to go into those today, we're going to save that one for
another session. Because just as looking at this amount of
information today is enough to get you thinking about things
that you can do in your lesson plans to help prepare kids or
educate their education.
Unknown: As a middle school or sixth grade teacher, I know it's
interesting that caring would be something to use to stimulate
because we always worry about how much they're carrying. To
us. That tends to be our worry.
Cheri Dotterer: There is some ergonomic limitations on what
you're supposed to carry. But there's also the balance where
if they go down to the weight room, they're over stimulating
that, that lift where they're lifting mega amounts sometimes
of weight. But yeah, if they're carrying too much in front of
them, they're going to arch their back. If they're carrying
too much on their back. They're gonna have they're gonna arch
the other way. So yeah, with how much they're carrying. As far as
books go. Learning how to balance that ergonomically is
what you're thinking of there. What I was thinking with
carrying, not just with carrying books, but even carrying a cup
of coffee will stimulate your hand to prepare for the another
activity. But Amy says in the chat Sometimes we have kids
carry some books to another teacher saying we need them.
When we see they need a sensory break. Beautiful as what can you
tell me about? What do you see? What do you notice? gives
everyone an entry point into the conversation?
Unknown: Yeah, one thing I noticed as far as that
proprioception, when you're looking at kids who's doing a
lot of kneeling in their chair, standing up sitting down, that's
when I do a lot of the, oh, you know what I'm gonna send them to
go carry the books to another classroom, or I'll have them do
you know what the whole class let's do a two second plank or
something that gives them that joint compression as well, just
so that they're more grounded to do more of their work to in the
classroom.
Cheri Dotterer: Yeah, Jeanette just used a technical word
called Joint compression. And that's what we mean by putting
the joint back together. There's also the terminology, when you
pull it apart, you may have heard of eccentric and
concentric contraction. That's that back and forth part. Okay,
I said, some, we sent some technical stuff to you, we don't
expect you to know that. Yes, while push ups. Another thing
that I am going to suggest, even for sixth grade there, Christa
is having some of these footlong bands, but pulling, bringing
around the back pulling just 30 seconds of that kind of activity
where they're just both directions. And down the back.
You'd be surprised how that will just wake up your upper body.
The other thing that OTS have, that you may not have in the
classroom, but you have playdough is therapy, and
therapy, it is how it comes in different strengths. So if you
have have an OT in your school, that can get you a couple
different strengths, kids can choose what they want to do. So
it's an it's a different texture of a poll, and a push and a
pinch, then what playdough is playdough has gluten in it. So
if you have kids with a gluten allergy, you've got to watch
playdough. Look at all the stuff that's going on in your body
that you aren't even aware of as a teacher that could make or
break. And that the limbic system is a filing cabinet. And
every time you have a memory, a moment of your day, it goes into
a folder folder goes into the filing cabinet. On the outside
of that folder is an emotion. It's red, yellow, green. When we
get into some of the more technical behavioral things will
will add blue in there as well. But if you just think like the
stoplight, is it good? Is it can I do this again? Yellow? Oh, I
didn't really care for that. But I'd be willing to try it again
or is it red, I am not going to go there. Again, I think it's
really good for what Jonily has in mind as far as the math goes,
because we totally is going to be talking about involves a lot
of hand manipulation with the activities that we're going to
do with the kids. Today,
Jonily : I wanted to focus on the improving number sense piece
of that. When you get access to this, these materials, you'll
get this recording of the training, you'll get the PDF
resources, you'll get the audio files of me teaching in
classrooms, even if you're a seventh grade teacher, listen to
the first and second grade. Even if you're a first grade teacher,
listen to the sixth and eighth grade. Because you're going to
find these are not grade level specific. You will find and pick
up on instructional strategies and nuances of me teaching this
with kids that you can use in your own classroom.
Unknown: I think my biggest takeaway from today is just
looking at it from that whole sensory piece. Even like the
Whisper counting that that time to share the moving around to
find the partner like all those different sensory pieces looking
at it from a math perspective as well. I really will look at
things different for sure. Now.
For me, as I've worked with you, I've been conscious on the fonts
I've been using for that visual piece in colors. But one Aha I
had is that you look at students who asked to get a drink as
they're trying to free class. But then I'm like, What is this
just that they need to activate? And so that's something that
going forward, I'm gonna keep Yes, you can go get a drink. Now
obviously if we go 500 times in a class that would be like,
Okay, we need to look at something else. But oftentimes I
want to say Now, but because I'm worried about the missed
instruction, but if they do need to get themselves regulated, and
they need to get themselves ready to learn, and that drink
is going to help them, then really, if they stay in class,
they're going to be missing that instruction. Anyway, Amy put
Cheri Dotterer: hers in the chat, I'm going to read it, I am
going to start having kids take a break to do some planks or
wall push ups, when I noticed them getting up and down in
seats, sitting on their knees, etc. I've never thought of that.
And it's, it is quick. And, Amy, I'm glad that you were able to
take away something from the non academic portion today that will
help your kids because your your kids, the first graders are
really in a crucial spot, as far as that difference between the
learning and the actual applying. Thank you. But the
idea of my of what I want to do on May 11, is take that stuff
that you saw up on the board, I gave you like an overall
category chewing, balancing and stuff. And I am working on
dividing activities from those categories into what is really
good to do in tier one, what do you really need to shift into a
tier two or tier three, and really give you some guidance on
how to think about spontaneously and just having your toolbox?
What is happening overall, with different activities that you
hear about all the time. But what's the best place to use
them? Those high school students, I see the the
dimension chart, the grid paper being so powerful, with eight
through 12, even as an OT. So really take some time and think
through some of the last three sessions. And the next two
moving forward are going to be
Jonily : powerful. So once that wraps up our time today, and I
just have a couple of final thoughts. We started today with
this question, why don't kids remember. And Sherry walked us
through the complexity of the brain, the body and the spirit,
and how all of those things interact together to produce
access to learning. Typical traditional math classrooms are
not structured in a way to allow these positive sensory
experiences. I'm hoping that through this making rectangles
session today that you've seen ways that we can connect the
medical brain based cognitive science, occupational therapy
world to what is natural in learning, and have a place in
our math classrooms. So that numbers come alive. So that
numbers are things that we not only see the notation, but we
see the visual representation. We hear all of the
representations. And we do the representations of numbers by
drawing and building and chunking so that our kids have a
stronger number sense and have a better innate intuitive
understanding of the magnitude of numbers magnitude, meaning
how small or large numbers are the size of numbers, the value
of numbers, and most importantly, have access to
higher level mathematics because the notations and the symbols
are connected and associated with the visuals and the tactile
pieces. They're not just another mathematical notation,
mathematical notation comes to life, and students understand
number better, so they're going to be able to achieve higher and
they're going to have a stronger math fact fluency and
automaticity to engage in deeper level mathematics. So thanks,
everybody for being here. This was session three, tier one math
interventions making rectangles.
Unknown: Lima says tier one interventions was a sensitizing
workshop systematically thought through but into an easy to
understand framework and well presented. Thank you to you
both. Thank you Nilima. You've been listening to tier one
interventions with Jonily Zupancic and Cheri daughter.
Tier one interventions is released on the first and third
Tuesday of the month. The podcast is reported live on the
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review. Every vote matters. I'm Nicholas King, an intern for
cheri Dotterer educational consulting