Proposed Dates for Participating Districts 2015-2016

 

Social Emotional Engagement – Knowledge & Skills (SEE-KS)

 

Supporting Children with Autism while Creating a Universal Design for Learning in Early Childhood, Preschool Settings

 

Vision

The Educational Outreach Program (EOP) at Marcus Autism Center (MAC) is dedicated to the provision of community viable models of professional development that enhance the on-site capacity of each system served, resulting in more sustainable outcomes for children and their families. While our Social-Emotional Engagement – Knowledge and Skillls (SEE-KS) program is focused on disseminating the most current social neuroscience related to students with autism spectrum disorders, our normative social and emotional framework provides a mechanism to enhance the provision of educational programming for all students by creating a universal design for learning.  A particular focus of our program is placed on financial sustainability and reducing the impact of disparities created by socioeconomic status and geographic location (i.e., urban vs. rural) by supporting the development of internal coaching teams and utilizing web-based learning for ongoing mentorship.  Additionally, the program is designed to engage a multidisciplinary audience as a means to build capacity within each system for in-service training, coaching, peer to peer mentorship, and data collection. 

 

Description

Research in social neuroscience fosters our understanding of the development of social and emotional competence in the classroom. This translates into essential instructional elements for students with social emotional learning differences while creating a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) for all students. The outcomes of the Social Emotional Engagement – Knowledge and Skills (SEE-KS) program are focused on ensuring that learning strategies are implemented to address the needs of our diverse learners by fostering student engagement, presenting information in multiple ways, and promoting student participation.  

 

Regional preschool cooperatives (LEAs, DECAL, and Head Start providers) throughout the state of Georgia have been identified. The include programs entering their second year of coaching and mentorship (i.e., Forsyth, Hall, Bibb and Effingham Counties and Gainesville City Schools) as well as a number of new preschool cooperatives (i.e., Clayton County, Rockdale County, and Cobb County and Marietta City Schools).  Each region will be encouraged to identify a “core team” of lead multidisciplinary staff that may be serving or will serve as facilitators for disseminating both information and on-site coaching to ensure fidelity of programming across service providers in each region served and sustainability for future years.  Through careful documentation, our staff will ensure that these team members and staff at focus sites participating in the program are making progress toward on-site capacity and quality instruction in the provision of service delivery designed to foster student engagement in learning, social communication and emotional development.