This week, Melissa Kinnear, Special Education Teacher at Middle Ridge State School and highly experienced teacher, provides us with a research based insight into what to do and what not to do with your teacher aide. As a beginning teacher, I know I really struggled with making the most of this valuable resource.
What have been some of your experiences on placement, as a parent, or as a teacher aide? What effective or ineffective approaches have you seen?
When I finished high school and was originally studying Social Work (long story there!), my mum worked in a special education unit at a high school and I worked casually as a teacher aide with a range of students with different disabilities. My role back then was to walk with the students to class, sit with them and to help them with understanding the content being taught. As the large majority of their lessons were taught in the unit, there was a big emphasis on having a teacher aide accompany them to mainstream classes. At the time, I had no formal training, I was just a recent high school graduate herself!
Whilst on placement last year, I was with a Prep class who had a full time teacher aide in their room. The TA and teacher had a great working relationship. The TA was responsible for making sure all the resources were printed off, cut up and ready to go. She also took one of the guided reading groups each morning during literacy rotations. Also, each reading group knew where they had to sit when doing writing practice, so she would sit with the table who had the most trouble. Her role was to assist the students who were still struggling to read by annotating if need be.
Hi Michelle, wonderful that you have seen a good Teacher/TA team in action and know the sorts of strategies that made the dynamic work so well.
As a Parent Helper, and now a relief TA, I know that teachers don’t know what to do with TAs. It comes doen to personal interest in being professional. I have had teachers ask me to do admin tasks, out of the classroom, I have stood at the back of entire sessions doing nothing, as that is where I was scheduled to be and I was not needed. I have entered classrooms unacknowledged, and unintroduced. I have helped students “finish this workbook up to where the rest of the class is”, using my own teaching techniques to get mute, disinterested students engaged and working. Being a relief TA requires excellent people-reading, vibe reading skills, flexibility and humility. As a teacher, if I am ever a teacher, I understand that I write the lessons, I set out the behaviour expectations, and I will acknowledge TAs and identify their role to the students. The TA will know why they are there, and will know what they need to know to Aide the teacher to achieve what learning outcomes are targeted for that class.
Hi Bethany, your story really highlights the importance of what Melissa was trying to get across in her video. TAs are a valuable resource and teachers need to plan for their effective use just link any other resource. I know I was hopeless at it when I first started out, but luckily for me, I had a full time teacher aide with me every minute of every day. So, I learnt quickly how to utilise them and this helped me when I moved to bigger schools where I only had sporadic support.
I have recently started work as a Teacher Aide at a High School attached to the Special Education Unit. This is my first time working as a Teacher Aide and it has been a steep learning curve. One classroom I am in has 7 diagnosed ADHD students, one student with a physical disability and other students with behavioural issues and low literacy levels. It is a very challenging environment in which to work and I try my best to support the classroom teacher but often the teaching and learning is severely disrupted.
I have also seen how Teacher Aides operate in a Prep classroom where they are available full-time for the classroom teacher and have a great working relationship. In my recent professional experience in a Year 4 classroom, I was required to ensure that I factored in my planning what Teacher Aides will be doing with small groups. I found this very challenging at times given the timing of lessons and activities and making sure I adequately explained what I wanted Teacher Aides to work on with small groups. This required good time management and organisational skills as there were different Teacher Aides each day and they were not scheduled for the same time each day. However, this was also a very valuable learning opportunity.