Running head: PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Professional Development

Rose M. Bauer

Rider University
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT 1

SUMMARY OF DEVELOPMENT

On Tuesday December 5th I participated in a professional development at Montgomery

High School. The professional development was an hour long and it was presented by Lisa

Orvos, a behaviorist in the district. Orvos has been a behaviorist for twenty years and it is her

fourteenth year in the district. Orvos works one day a week in the district and is involved in the

elementary, middle, and high schools. There are two other full time behaviorists in the district.

Orvos can only go and help students if their parents have given her permission and the student

has been looked at and evaluated by the child study team. Effective behavioral practices for

supporting students in the classroom was discussed. The professional development was geared

towards paraprofessionals working at the high school. A total of fifteen paraprofessionals

showed up to the gathering.

Orvos spoke about how she will be setting up more professional development lunch

meetings. At the beginning of the workshop, Orvos had everyone complete a note card and

answer three questions. The first question was what is the most difficult part of your job

regarding student behaviors? The second question was What topics which you like to see

covered at future sessions? and the final question was, would you like to have these lunch

meetings more often?

After Orvos collected the cards she notices many paraprofessionals found difficulty in

obtaining behavior information about the student they are working with. The paraprofessionals in

the district are not given the IEPs of their students. The paraprofessionals all discussed how

burdensome it was to not know much about their student, yet be in control of handling their

student while the student had a meltdown. Orvos and the paraprofessionals discussed other ways

for paraprofessionals to obtain information about their student before they begin working with
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them. The behaviorist and the paraprofessionals came to a conclusion they should write a list of

best practices which worked during the year which will be given to the paraprofessional for the

following school year.

Orvos ended the meeting by discussing what the meetings can be used for in the future.

She suggested the paraprofessionals can come into the meeting with their struggles and

techniques they have tried with specific students. Orvos hopes in the future to give

paraprofessionals recommendations on best practices which they can start to use with their

students.

REFLECTION

CEC Standard 2.1: Beginning special education professionals through collaboration with general

educators and other colleagues create safe, inclusive, culturally responsive learning enviroments

to engage individuals with exceptionalities in meaningful learning activities and social

interactions.

It was evident the paraprofessionals in the room, with collaboration with Lisa Orvos, all

wanted to create a safe, inclusive, culturally responsive learning enviroments for their students.

For instance, paraprofessionals spoke about how students in the high school do not like to work

one on one with them because it is embarassing. Orvos and the paraprofessionals collaborated

with eachother to talk about methods to help this situation. They concluded it may be best to

assist all members of an inclusion class to not call out/ embarrass their one student.

CEC Standard 6.4: Beginning special education professionals understand the significance of

lifelong learning and participate in professional activities and learning communities.

I was extremely impressed when I walked in and saw a majority of the paraprofessionals

in the high school were attending the meeting. It was great to see the paraprofessionals want to
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continue to grow as educators. Orvos will be holding frequent meetings about behavior supports

for the remainder of the school year. I hope in the future I can sign up and attend these meetings

as well because after my education at Rider, I want to keep up with the latest strategies when

implementing postive behavior supports.

CEC Standard 7.2: Beginning special education professionals serve as a collaborative resource to

colleagues.

During the meeting many of the paraprofessionals were able to collaborate strategies for

getting to know their students and the behaviors they exhibit. It was exciting to see some of them

share strategies on how to research student behaviors and best practices to deal with them. Some

paraprofessionals spoke about how they reach out to the child study team or even interview the

students themselves. The paraprofessionals do not get to see eachother often during the school

day therefore setting up a set time to meet all together and discuss student behaviors and best

practices will benefit them greatly.