Applying the Tools:

Improving the Autism

Classroom
Through Team Collaboration

Stormi Dodd
Azusa Pacific University
EDUC 546
Professor Bruzzese
Twitter Chat
My school has an Autism program, with 7 teachers and 30 Intensive Behavior Instructional
Assistants at my site. There are 2 sites per education level (Elementary, Middle School, and
High School) with an Autism program like ours. Our entire district has site collaboration on
Wednesday afternoons from 12:30-1:50pm, and once a month it is team specific. I would
love to implement having a 30-minute Twitter Chat during our monthly Autism collaboration
meeting time on Wednesday.

It could include just our site, or can be use district-wide.

We could claim the hashtag: #HUSDTeamAutism

for Hemet Unified School District Team Autism

Twitter Chat Continued
What would we discuss? How would we encourage
participation?
- Questions and Concerns regarding
everyday scenarios that we experience in - REINFORCEMENT!
our classrooms (e.g., How to address a - Offer prizes for most tweets during
student screaming for attention during the Twitter Chat
small group instruction)
- Relevant topics in research (e.g., a new
study that looks at antecedent
strategies)
- Pictures of our classroom setup, ideas
of how to improve our instructional
environments
 Create a folder in the district’s Google Docs for Team
Autism to share resources.

For instance, I created an Instruction Fidelity Log to

track my progress in teaching my classroom staff
(Intensive Behavior Instructional Assistant) to
implement our classroom’s alternative curriculum with
fidelity. This way I would be able to incorporate my
classroom staff into instructing small groups during
the school day. I also created a data sheet.

Google Docs By sharing the templates on Google Docs, any teacher

in our program could also use it.

All teachers and Autism Staff would be able to

contribute and access the folder created.

Unique Curriculum Staff Instruction Fidelity Log

Percentage of Opportunities Data Sheet

 For our Team Autism monthly collaboration, I
would assign one teacher per month to model
a 10-15 minute lesson to the rest of the group
via Google Hangout.

Each classroom has a Smart Board, and each

classroom would watch together with their

Google teacher and classroom staff. Everyone would

be required to take notes and discuss

Hangouts
afterwards. Proof of participation would be
turning in the notes to our Team Lead Teacher
at the end of the meeting.

I feel that this would encourage collective

efficacy, and give the opportunity for exposure
to colleagues’ practice.