38: Session Ideas for High School
Here’s a bunch of ideas I’ve used for sessions with my high school students!
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38: Session Ideas for High School
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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 about some session ideas for high school students. These are all things I've done in the past that have worked for me with different students. So hopefully a few of these will remind you of some ideas or spark some new ones for you.
The first thing that I want to talk about is just going through their IEP or their 504 plan like actually printing out the document and just going through each part with them to make sure they understand everything that's in the document. And sometimes that's easier than getting special activities for it like just going through with a highlighter. Highlighting any vocabulary, making sure they understand all of their accommodations. I've gone through and have them circle the ones that they find really helpful, crossing out the ones they don't understand, just so we can talk about them to make it a little more hands-on.
And then even if they have like an annual review coming up it's really helpful to discuss everything with them ahead of time of what the annual review is going to be like and how they're going to be like participating in that. And when I've done this with students they've made some really good suggestions during the meetings because we talk through the accommodations that maybe sometimes they just kind of build up over time, if that makes, sense and if we go through and say oh yeah, this used to be helpful in middle school, but it's not really helpful now. Maybe we can take it off or reword it so it's appropriate for high school. And it just really gives them some ownership over their IEP or their 504 and helps them participate more successfully in those meetings. So I always feel like printing out their documentation whether it's IEP or 504 can be a really good session activity and it could take the whole session because you want to be really thorough and make sure they understand each part of the document.
Another thing I do with high school students pretty frequently, sometimes as more of a check-in and sometimes as a more thorough activity, is just going through their schedule and running through like an accessibility checklist basically. And this can vary based on the situation. But let's just say I go through their schedule and I say okay, science with Miss Whoever, where do you sit? Can you hear her okay? Does she wear the mic? Does she turn captions on? How is it in group work or labs, do you have any problems that we can talk about? How's your grade? How interested are you in this subject? Do you have any problems taking notes? Is there anything going on in this class that's challenging for you? Like you just basically come up with a list of questions like that, that is relevant to the student. So the questions might be a little different depending on their type of hearing loss and their technology or what kind of classes they're in. So like my kids that are in all AP classes I might have more questions about the academics perhaps. But you just go through each class and run through the list of questions. And sometimes this helps bring up things that maybe you wouldn't observe in a push-in or the student won't bring up to you on their own because they're not just like thinking about it on a daily basis but it jogs their memory of something. Like oh yeah, you know I was supposed to take notes at the same time they were talking and I was having a really hard time with that. And that's a great opportunity for us to talk about strategies and accommodations and all sorts of things which they might not have brought up because they forgot about it because it happened two weeks ago but when you're going through this it comes up. So sometimes I do this as just like a check in at the beginning and I run through all the classes and sometimes we take it more in depth than we do it as more of like a full activity. I do have in my store, it's like 1 or 2 dollars, a monthly consult checklist kind of resource that has a bunch of those questions if you don't want to think of them on your own.
Another activity I've done with students somewhat related to transition but not always, is to discuss their strengths and weaknesses more related to different jobs and how different jobs require different skills. And there's more skills out there than just being good at math or being good at reading. There is people skills, and ability to focus for a long period of time, creativity, number sense, like sometimes it's interesting to go through different people's careers and talk about what like soft skills are necessary for that career and if they think they'd be well suited for it. So like I said sometimes we have this conversation like approaching an IEP meeting because they're going to ask about transition and transition planning. But sometimes it's appropriate just to have it anytime because it goes to self-esteem and self-confidence and understanding that hearing is part of who they are but there are other facets of who they are also.
And perhaps you know, listening through a telephone is not a strength of theirs. But maybe they're really good at focusing on something they're really interested in and maybe they're really interested in gaming for example. And we could talk about well you know gaming could be a career but what's something that you could take that skill set and and have another career maybe computer programming. That's a career where you might not have to talk to a lot of people on the phone necessarily, you probably have to like message with people, but a lot of that is just sitting in front of a computer and focusing and if that is where your strengths lie in other things, perhaps that would be a career to consider.
Or if they are, just love to talk, they love to chit chat with people, they're social, they're friendly, they can talk to anybody, then you could talk about jobs in sales or marketing or anything like that. Those are like some like soft skills that people don't think of as strengths but they are strengths and they're strengths that actually matter in the workplace much more sometimes than like being good at social studies or being good at biology. Like I think we get too, or kids, at least I felt this way in high school, like too stuck on specific subjects and not thinking about what makes you good at those subjects and what jobs could you apply those skills to. And I feel like this goes back to hearing loss in the way that it's talking about your strengths and that like you might have weaknesses which may or may not be related to hearing, but you also have strengths and figuring out what you can offer, you know as a whole complex person.
I find it helpful to go through like I think of all my friends’ jobs just you know people who are not teachers and I could talk about those, I could talk about my parent’s jobs, or like their parent’s jobs, like sometimes you just got a pull from real people and they're real boring office jobs as examples because they don't know, kids don't always know what's available out there. They don't know that you know computer programming might be an option and what different types of computer programming is out there. Like there's the people who do the programming and then there's people who do the design and then there's people who do the sales like within like a tech company. So you know just like going down like a Google rabbit hole with the student can be really helpful.
On the same topic of transition, a project I've done with some of my older kids is to make a Google drive transition folder, where we start collecting the information they will need to access as adults. So like their most recent audiological, a copy of any evaluations that have been done, the user guide to their hearing aids or the cochlear implant, maybe a Google doc full of contact information for their audiologist, their ENT. Maybe a Google doc of important links to Cochlear or Oticon or wherever they would have to go to if there's an issue with their equipment. Links to which batteries they buy on Amazon. Just getting all this info in one place for them and then discuss how when it's all said and done they can transfer it to their personal email because they won't always have access to their school email. I find this personally a little more useful in this day and age of technology than making a binder just because like are they going to take that binder to college with them, just like are they? I don't know, but a Google drive folder can live forever as long as you transfer it to an active email. So, I find that to be a little more functional for the kids nowadays. And I kind of think put them in the in the position of being a college freshman or like a newly working adult and all of a sudden something goes wrong with their hearing aid or their cochlear implant and yes I know they can call their parents, a lot of them, but some of them can't maybe and also at some point they're going to have to take this over so we might as well be setting them up for success. What information: they need to know who their audiologist is how to contact them, they need to know how to contact Cochlear, they need to know what batteries and what chargers and whatever. So that's the kind of information you can start putting together in their Google drive and that can be like a whole activity. It can take several sessions or it could take one depends on how efficiently they work. But it's a really good activity for helping with transition and getting them ready for the future.
On the topic of transition to like college, I've done a whole session where we've made a spreadsheet of potential college options. You can put this in their Google drive actually if you in their Google drive folder. Potential college options, pros and cons, links to disability centers, what's required for accommodations, what's offered at the different institutions. And pros and cons can be like far from home, not far from home, like can live at home or live on campus, like what's a pro and with a con for different people is going to be different. But you can kind of talk through with them and help them make those spreadsheets and start gathering information because as time goes on they're going to have to make some decisions and we can help them in that transition planning process.
Our first episode ever of this podcast was all about college transition like specifically helping with that. So more in detail than just these couple ideas I've mentioned but like actually how to prepare them and like what to expect so feel free to go back and listen to episode 1 if you want more college transition ideas.
Sometimes with high schoolers I also do fun activities like doodling where like those intricate coloring books. I'll print out some pages. Those can be nice while discussing some self-advocacy topics like if you're both coloring and taking it easy you can just kind of ask how certain things are going, did you hear that person OK today, like how's the the group work, how are your friends doing, like how's lunch, like who you hanging out with these days? And it could be kind of a chill break for them and do you get some good info on how things are going. I probably would I would do this on days where I'm not doing that whole schedule check in because it might be repetitive. But this is a more casual way to go about getting some that information. This also works well if sometimes you observe them in like a push in session and then you want to talk about some of the things you noticed or some of the opportunities for self advocacy but like in a chill way. Not in like a hey I noticed you didn't raise your hand but I saw you were confused accusatory way but like we're just coloring and you're like oh I noticed when uh you were in class last week I was a little confused about what the directions were did you know what you were supposed to do? And while they're coloring they can kind of explain their thought process to you of maybe why they didn't raise their hand. So I just feel like coloring, doodling, anything like that can sometimes help move along these conversations.
Sometimes I'll just ask a student if this period was a study hall, what would you be doing? And if they want to work on something I can help them with it or we can use it as a jumping off point to talk about that class. Sometimes it's worth earning some good will and being helpful so that when you do want to do something a little more challenging, they understand you're really there to help them. So sometimes they would say like oh I would just scroll on Tiktok and like we can't spend our sessions scrolling on Tiktok. But maybe I can ask them oh what do you usually, what do you usually watch on Tiktok? You know, like what kind of videos do you get? I get these types of videos and they're like cute cat videos. And then they could tell me what kind of videos they get and we can chit chat from there and then that can be a jumping off point for a discussion. Sometimes just having a conversation with them you can get some really valuable information about their strengths and interests but also like their values and what they want for the future and how well they can hold a conversation. And like I said sometimes it's worth earning that good will and getting to know them as a person because then when you really want to dig into something they are willing to do that work with you. I think building rapport with high school students is underrated. I think we think about building rapport with younger students like playing and being fun. But building rapport with older students can look like talking about Tiktok for 5 minutes before I ask them to do an activity.
Oh I do have one more transition one. I do feel like I have a lot of transition stuff on here. But that's honestly because I start doing it with them when they're like sophomores. It's like I want them to see this information more than once because you got to. [LAUGH] Like it's just it's hard. It's it's a lot of information sometimes for transition. And you know it's helpful to hear it sophomore year and junior year. By senior year you're probably too late. So what I was going to say is you can help with their college admissions essays. Especially if the topic is related to their hearing loss. It gives you the opportunity to find out what they already know, help them dig deeper, work on writing skills. I've found that to be a very useful vehicle for having some self-advocacy discussions and actually get into the nitty gritty of how they feel about their own hearing loss because sometimes they write things and it surprises you the way they think about it. And it could help you talk about some deeper things about like how they identify and what issues they've had with their hearing loss over the course of their life and how they've dealt with it. And it could be a very nice concluding activity and a lot of students actually don't mind doing this because they want the help on their college essays because they're very important and they want an adult to, you know, read through them with them or outline with them. So this can be a real useful thing if they're like junior year getting ready for college stuff.
And my last one is if it's towards the end of the year sometimes I will have them either write a letter to their future teachers next year or they can help me make the in-service presentation. Sometimes they actually present it in September, the presentation, sometimes they're just there while I present it and they like chime in, and sometimes they're not there but I can tell the teachers that we made this presentation together and these are their real life examples and feedback. So that making that presentation honestly can often take several sessions because we have to go over, all of the accommodations all about their hearing loss, like all about things that are good and bad and helpful, and it's a really nice way to kind of sum up a year's worth of work into like one presentation. Whether or not it gets presented by them or by me, not as big a deal as actually doing the presentation. And then those specific examples that they provide me with are so so helpful at the beginning of the year. I can actually tell the teachers like so and so told me this specifically. So if you want to help them be successful like they told me that this is what works for them. And the teachers want to help like they want to be successful and they don't want to waste their time with things that don't work. So those specific examples from the student are like gold. So I do have in my store like in-service presentation project that you can do with high schoolers. I've also done it with younger students but I give the high schoolers more autonomy over this presentation. So if you want one that's kind of a template done for you I have one of those also. I'll link all this stuff below.
So yeah, there's just a couple ideas to get you started with some high school sessions if you're looking for something new. As you can see I feel like I'm very like conversation based, a little more go with the flow with my high school students. Not so many structured activities just because I feel like it's helpful to be like responsive to what they actually need help with and if they have specific goals obviously I'll make activities for those specific goals. But for some students this is kind of more how I support them. I hope some of these were helpful like I said I'll link everything below and the transcript will be linked below and that's actually it. Ok have a great week. Bye!
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