Tip of the Week: You Can Book Me!!!

Hours...I have spent countless hours over the past 13 years scheduling and rescheduling classroom counseling lessons. At the end of last school year, my SMART Board was replaced by a brand new SMART Panel. Now, I consider myself pretty tech savvy but this was a whole new beast. A former colleague who is now a district tech guru offered some training. She sent me a link called, "You Can Book Me," to schedule a time for her to come to my building. Essentially, this site allows for other people to schedule time with you when it is convenient for them and when your schedule allows. Brilliant!!! 

I instantly started thinking of how I could use this awesome program and classroom counseling lessons came to mind. OH MY GOODNESS!!!!!!! I cannot express how wonderful it is to have this task off my plate!! I simply make sure that times that I cannot have lessons like meetings, days off, half days, and other things I cannot miss are on my Outlook calendar. You Can Book Me will only show the times that are available per your parameters (start and end of the school day, length of lessons, days of the week lessons will be, etc.). I send an email 2 weeks before the following month for teachers to schedule their lessons. Not only does this release me from the daunting task of scheduling 189 lessons while avoiding everyone's' specials, intervention, lunch and recess, assemblies, days off, and the countless other obligations, it gives the teachers to flexibility to schedule around their classroom's schedules and needs. I highly recommend giving You Can Book Me a shot! I currently use the free version and it has been working great for me. There is a paid version that has more features but so far I haven't had the need for the extra features.

I am always looking for ways to work smarter not harder, so if you have any recommendations, I would love to hear them. 

If you try You Can Book Me, tell me what you think!

Interactive Resources

I am always looking for new ideas for classroom counseling lessons, groups, and individual counseling sessions. I get into the rut of doing the same lessons and using the same resources all the time so I was searching for fresh lessons/ideas. I came across an interactive SMART Board series called "SMART GUIDANCE." Even though I loathe the term "guidance," the series is great. The series is by Youthlight which also has a TON of other amazing counseling resources (I have purchased from this site a lot throughout the years).

I have had the "SMART GUIDANCE" Volume 1 in my collection for a couple of years and absolutely love it. My students are engaged because the lessons are cute and interactive. I have this one on CD but they now offer a downloadable versions which is how I ordered the others. Each program in the series is $49.95 which isn't bad for 10 or more lessons in each series. Youthlight also has each lesson available for individual download for those who only want a lesson or two in a series.

I downloaded the following programs which makes it super easy to use them right away. They send you an email with an access code to activate the download. One of my access codes was missing from the email but Youthlight rectified that situation after a quick email.  

            

I have yet to download the programs below but will be doing so in the future. 

       

So, for those of you who are new to the biz or you vets out there looking to beef up your resource library, I highly recommend these interactive lessons. Let me know what you think!

Honored

I was recently honored to be a guest blogger on "Online Counseling Programs." I was asked to write about using technology as an elementary counselor. I have blogged about most of the same things on my blog, but if you are interested in seeing my guest blog you can visit, Driving Elementary Counseling with Google Drive.

Interested in a career in counseling? Online Counseling Programs provides information for all states licensing requirements, as well as, obtaining a degree in counseling. 

Previous Post Revisited - T.E.A.R.S.

I previously wrote a blog about the counseling program called T.E.A.R.S. (Time Elapsed Analysis and Reporting System) that exports your Microsoft Outlook calendar into a spreadsheet. I keep track of everything from my calendar to my notes in my Outlook calendar. I didn't use this Microsoft Excel Add-on until halfway through the school year and I am kicking myself for not using it sooner. I HIGHLY recommend using this add-on and starting from the beginning of the school year. Especially if you use Microsoft Outlook for your calendar.

I realized that I was doing double the work and taking a TON of extra time (at home in the evenings) inputting all of my information from my calendar into a Google form. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE MY GOOGLE FORMS!!! However, for this purpose, I was spending hours entering everything in when I already had it all in my calendar. My last blog post outlines how I use my Outlook calendar to help organize my counseling program. 

I have to keep track of every minute since I am working on my LPC hours and this is by far the best and easiest way to do it! I am able to manipulate the information in the excel spreadsheet just as in a google spreadsheet. The difference being only inputting information in one place and only one time.

I also have to report about my counseling program at the end of the year such as; individual sessions conducted, amount of groups, how many students participated in groups, number of counseling lessons, etc. This was so easy to pull up and have my numbers within minutes.

If you have to do any reporting or time on task analysis AND you use Microsoft Outlook, GET THIS ADD-ON. It is only $3.95 and well worth more than that.

I am putting links below for you to get more information and to watch a tutorial. 

Tips of the Week!!

Hold on to your seats because I am going to give you lots of tips today. I am going to show how I set up my calendar and how I use my calendar to plan individual, group and classroom lessons.

First, EVERYTHING is in my calendar. If it is not in my calendar, it does not exist. I cannot remember everything I have to do in a day so I rely heavily on my calendar...with pop-up reminders.

Here is a look at my calendar for this week (I'm sure you can relate with having very little time to breathe). It's a little blurry but you get the picture. Our district uses Outlook but you can do the same thing with Google or another calendar.

I am going to point out several things about my calendar. Here we go.....

1. My calendar is color coded. I realize that I am a nerd and love things color coded but this actually really helps me know what is going on in my day at a quick glance.

2. I do not put kids' names directly on my calendar. I do not want to run the risk of someone seeing   names. I put their initials, grade level and teacher's initial.  For example, EH 4H (Emily Hansen 4th grade, Mrs. Hansen's class). Now, I often forget with whom the initials belong so I put his/her name in the notes section of the appointment.  

3. When I plan a meeting or a lesson, I am able to send an invitation to other people and they will also get a pop-up reminder. This is great for teachers to remember when they have counseling lessons.

4. I recently started planning within each appointment, as well. This is great because as soon as the reminder pops up, I open the appointment and voila...my plans!  Below is a picture of how it looks. (I also have the students names who are participating in a group but I took them out for this pic). I       try to plan ahead as much as possible so I cross out the lesson when it has been completed. I do the same thing for classroom lessons and individual sessions. If I have a YouTube video, I am able to put the link right in here. What a time saver!

If you have been following blog, you know that I am all about time saving and efficiency. I strive to find the best and easiest ways to organize and save time. I am able to access my calendar at any computer so it makes it so much easier to keep my plans within my calendar. I used to have papers galore in just plans alone. This even makes it easier to plan at home. No more lugging binders of plans back and forth. I can just open my calendar and plan my whole week (as much as we can plan) in one place!!!

I hope this helps you in your organizing endeavors! 

Please let us know if you have any tips or tricks for keeping your plans or calendars!!

Hmmmm...worth a look!

I came across this time analysis program from schoolcounselor.com called TEARS (Time Elapsed Analysis & Reporting System) and thought I would share. I have only watched the tutorial, I have not purchased it or used it yet. If you use Microsoft Outlook for your calendar, this program add-on will export your calendar into a time analysis report. The cost is $3.99 which is nice! If you are required to turn in reports for your time spent, this might be a good program for you.

If you haven't visited schoolcounselor.com, it is a great resource. Click below go to the site.

Updated Electronic Notes

I talked about keeping notes electronically previously in the post Electronic Notes. I am constantly tweaking things as I go to best meet my needs.   I no longer keep 2 different types of notes. Really I just want notes that I keep on my students. Here is the latest version of my electronic notes.  Play around with what works best for you!  If you would like to see this resource and others that I have created, please visit my TpT store.

~Emily

Counseling Referrals

I don't know about you, but I am in and out of my counseling room all day every day. There are many times that a student or teacher will come to my room to talk or to request counseling time and, much to their (and my) dismay, I am not there.  Sometimes, I do not make it back to my room for an hour...or several hours. When I am finally able to get back to my room, I may have a handful of notes in my mailbox requesting counseling time. There are many times that I do not make it back to my room until the end of the school day which results in missing a student or two.....or 5. Plus, students are spending a lot of time outside the classroom when they come down to see that I am not there and write me a note. (They really like to take their time getting back to class.)

This is what the outside of my door currently looks like. Cute, but inefficient. My focus this year is to be more efficient and more available to students and staff.  Sooooo.......

I am trying something new (fingers crossed). 

You are probably sick to death of me talking about Google Forms by now but, I LOVE GOOGLE FORMS!!!! So here we go again! 

I created a "Student Referral" form that students fill out IN THE CLASSROOM without taking the time to walk down to my room. I have put the link on the computer desktops and iPads of every classroom in the building. If a student needs to see me, they click on the link, fill out the form, and submit. Within a minute or two, I get a notification that a Student Referral form has been filled out. I can check immediately, wherever I am, to see who is requesting counseling time and how immediate the concern. AWESOME!!!

Below is what the Student Referral form looks like. Extremely short and easy to do. If you notice at the bottom of the form, students can choose, "I need to see you....RIGHT AWAY, Sometime today or Sometime this week." I am able to prioritize the students I need to see first and then work my way through. I am SO excited, I can't even stand it!!! 

So then I got to thinking about the amount of times a teacher has come to talk to me about a student and says, "I have been wanting to talk to you for days/weeks but forget every time I leave my classroom."  Let's face it, if something is not in my calendar WITH a reminder that pops up, it does not exist in my world.  Everyone has so much on their plates that we forget or don't have time to accomplish everything.

In order to help the teachers, I created a "Teacher Referral" form and put it on all of their laptop desktops for quick and easy access.  It works the same way as the student referral.  

While I'm at it, I might as well create a "Parent Referral" form, too!  This one was a little more tricky because I wasn't sure how I was going to share this with parents.

I give a newsletter at every classroom lesson for students to give to their parents, so I created a QR code with the link and put it on the newsletter (I put the student one on there, too). Parents and students can scan the QR code and go directly to fill out the referral form.

To create a QR code, click the picture below.  It is so easy and took me 2 minutes to create.  

(This is just a picture of a QR code, not the actual QR code I made.)

I am really excited to give this new referral system a try. I will keep you updated on how it goes.

What do you think???  I would love to hear your feedback!

~Emily

Empathy - Part 1

I really love this definition of empathy...

Seeing with the eyes of another,

Listening with the ears of another,

and Feeling with the heart of another.

Empathy is a really hard concept for children to understand. I think this definition explains it well in kid terms. 

I started a 2-part lesson on empathy with 3rd graders this week. In the first lesson we discussed that empathy means to be able to understand another person's feelings and emotions. To help us understand peoples feelings, they give clues and cues of their feelings with their facial expressions and body language. We need to be able to "read" those clues and cues. We also have to appreciate another person's perspective/point of view (I put on giant glasses when talking about perspective). 

To practice reading facial expressions and body language, I used the "Expression Arcade" iPad App (see below). The app has a spinner that shows an action and a feeling that must be acted out. I had students get into pairs. One of the students in the pair had their back to the SMART Board so they couldn't see the spinner (I used an apple TV to mirror my iPad on the SMART Board). The other student was facing the board to see the spinner.  The student facing the board had to demonstrate the action and feeling that was displayed. The other student had to guess how they were feeling based on the clues and cues their partner gave. When they guessed correctly, they shared what clues helped them determine the feeling and then they switched places. 

We discussed why it is important to read other people's feelings and emotions in order to empathize with them. Understanding the other person's point of view/perspective is equally important. Everyone experiences things differently and understanding their perspective will help us to have empathy for them.  

We will continue in Part 2 of this lesson in a couple of weeks when we will practice our empathy skills.  Stay tuned for that post.

I give a newsletter after every lesson so parents know what we discussed and how to reinforce concepts at home. The newsletter for this lesson is shown below. I realize that I haven't been posting about lessons much so I will try to start sharing more of my lessons in the future.

~Emily

Aha Moment!

As I was reflecting on a Social Thinking Group (stay tuned for more about this)  I met with today, I started thinking about the group dynamics and everyone's participation, or lack thereof. I have one student who rarely talks about his difficulties and I am having a hard time figuring out if he truly doesn't see how his actions affect others or if he is just embarrassed to talk about it in front of the group (who have NO problem talking about themselves). So I got to thinking about how I could get into his brain.

I am having teachers complete rating scales about these students. I talked about this in the post, Counseling Group Effectiveness. My Duh Aha moment came when I thought about the students doing the same rating scale but as a self-assessment.  I changed the wording a bit and voila, a self-assessment! I have a few chrome books and iPads in my room so I am going to have the students do the the quick Google Form before we start the group each session.  I will be able to gauge how they view their own behavior compared to the teacher's point of view.  Plus, I will have some talking points at each of our sessions that are specific to each student. I will be the only person who will see the results so hopefully I can get them to be completely honest.

I have a younger group working on self-control and school skills that I thought I could do the same thing only simplify the language on the form.  I have a picture of both self-assessments below.

If you have any great ways that you are using Google Docs, please share!

~Emily

Integrate Technology into your Lessons!

I love having technology at my fingertips and I am so blessed to be at a school that is technologically rich. Our PTO is amazing and has allowed us to purchase a wide range of tech devices. I am lucky enough to have a SMART board in my office as well as several iPads and Chromebooks. I use technology frequently when in counseling sessions with individuals and groups and for data collection.

My newest venture was to use student devices during a counseling lesson. I wanted to gauge how well my students understood the concept I was teaching (the differences between bullying, teasing, mean, and rude). I used a website called Socrative. I was able to set up a "quiz" to check for understanding. Every student had a galaxy tablet (reserved from our Library Media Center). I set the quiz to teacher paced so I could stop at each question and have a discussion. I also disabled student names because I had it displayed on the SMART Board. I could have a quiz with student names and not have it displayed so I could use it more as an assessment rather than discussion. Reports are available to view/print/email).

The students LOVED being able to use the tablets and it was a fun way to get them all engaged. Of course there are always glitches when using technology so we also had a teachable moment to "just roll with it"........2 lessons in one! If you have a tech lab, you could easily take a class there for a lesson.

If you are looking for a new twist on pre and post tests or just a way to do a quick check of understanding, I highly recommend using this site. If you try it out, please post below and let us know how you used it!

PS. I am sorry since it has been so long since I have posted...I will try to be better!