Community Based Instruction for Students with Disabilities…
Are you a SpEd Teacher racking your brain trying to think of meaningful places to go in your community as part of extending classroom instruction? Learn more about partnering real life experiences with community learning opportunities for students with significant disabilities.
If you are a special ed teacher, then your brain is always spinning! You’re thinking of your students and how best to prepare them for the future. Community Based Instruction (CBI) plays a large role in getting students ready for transition. I remember my first CBI trip. I was just glad to get all my students to the site safely and not to leave anyone behind!
When you're first starting out as a SpEd teacher, it's the little things, right?
After a few trips I realized I wanted to make my CBI more meaningful. Let's face it, a group of six students working from one grocery list and then going as a gaggle to the cashier is not real life. That's when I had to sit down and reassess the purpose of CBI.
3 Phases of Community Based Instruction
If you are wondering about the larger purpose of your CBI trips, it helps to think of them in three phases:
Phase 1: Campus Based Trips
Phase 2: Community Based Instruction
Phase 3: Vocational Community Training
Categories of Community Based Instruction
Now that we have reviewed the three phases of Community Based instruction, let's talk about the categories of CBI sites.
Site Category 1: Retail
When most teachers plan Community Based instruction trips, they target retail sites. It makes sense! As a consumer, most of our time and money is spent at retail stores.
Site Category 2: Restaurants
Most people make at least one trip to a restaurant every week. Typically, it's to a fast food restaurant to grab a snack or a quick meal. Not quite so commonly, we dine at a sit-down restaurant.
Site Category 3: Daily Living Sites
By far, the first two categories make up the bulk of community sites a student needs to master as part of Community Based Instruction.
Read More at Noodle Nook by visiting: http://www.noodlenook.net/community-based-instruction-ideas
