#70 How I Created an Intervention Plan that Changed my Teaching Forever

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Obviously I talk a lot about intervention plans, how important they are and how effective they can be…but I didn’t always have a good intervention plan, or quite frankly an intervention plan at all! 

My first year teaching, I was a special education teacher for elementary and it was quite an adventure. I wasn’t given a curriculum or anything other than a scope and sequence for when different things were going to be taught and told to use that and the very random resources in my classroom to teach my students. There really was no official curriculum for that grade at that time, so the teachers were supposed to work together to plan for what they would do. Unfortunately, the climate in this school was very competitive so the teachers used their own materials, or maybe shared with their one friend, but there really was no overall plan or sharing of materials within the grade level….so I was left really in the dark on what materials or resources my students would be using in their individual classrooms. As a first year teacher, that REALLY made my life difficult. 

So, I did what new teachers do best….I found free resources wherever I could (this was before Teachers Pay Teachers to give you an idea of how long I’ve been teaching) and I made it work. 

Guys, it was so bad! I had a general idea for what the kids were supposed to be learning in their classes, and what the IEP goals were, but other than that….I really didn’t know where to start or what to do! I was constantly trying new resources out to see if they worked on this goal or that one, but there really wasn’t a cohesive plan behind what I was trying to do….other than I wanted my students to succeed. And I absolutely wrecked myself trying to make it all work…. 

It wasn’t until my second year teacher, changing schools and seeing a more cohesive plan or mindset for how interventions could be managed that I was able to pull my poor little ducks in a row and start figuring out my own cohesive plan to provide quality interventions for my students. But man, making that shift changed my entire teaching career, and honestly if I hadn’t made that change I don’t think I would have stayed in teaching past that second year….yeah….having an intervention plan that worked really was and still is THAT important. 

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Links Mentioned in the Show:

https://teachingstrugglinglearners.com 

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