Teachers of the Visually Impaired (TVIs) often tell me how they ran out of time during a student’s session to complete the lesson they had planned whether it was washing dishes, making a model of the phases of the moon, wrapping presents, or even reading an article in braille. If this is you, don’t worry, you aren’t alone by any means! While we expect some lessons to be more complicated than others, we often skip the “simple” parts in our planning, when those things could have been lessons all in themselves.
Keep It Simple Silly (KISS) applies to Lesson plans as well
Start small, begin with the end goal in mind, keep the lesson tasks realistic, and try it yourself! If you can’t complete a recipe from start to finish in 30 minutes, then you should not expect your students to do so. And they might need even more than double the time it takes you. That’s why they have extended time on their IEPs! Remember, students with visual impairments need direct instruction to complete new tasks and you must include time for that in every lesson, even for the “simple” parts. How do you figure out each of those “simple” parts that could be lessons in themselves? While you might need to trial a new adaptive tool, or practice just exactly how to shape the Styrofoam into a quarter moon, some tasks like boiling water may just require you to mentally walk through the task step by step while making notes of all the “simple” parts.
Simple Lesson Plans take account of nuanced time needs.
I was recently surprised that a student, who regularly plugs in their own three prong laptop cord to charge, needed instruction in how to plug in a two-pronged plug with one larger prong. It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did because I didn’t take the time to think through every “simple” part of the lesson. For tasks like reading an article in braille, don’t forget the time needed to understand a new concept or to pre-teach a concept. Taking the time to break down each lesson into the “simple” parts will save time and frustration in the long run, and it will provide your students with meaningful lessons that teach them valuable life skills. They might not say it now but someday they will be thankful that you didn’t just teach them how to blow dry their hair, but that you also taught them how to plug in the blow-dryer! Otherwise, they’d still have wet hair!
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