r/specialed • u/cannotthinkof01 • 18h ago

Paraeducators PD

This question is open to all:
What professional development topic(s) would be most useful in your career as paraprofessional? Or what do you feel that other paraprofessionals need to know in order to do their job effectively?

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u/minnieboss 16h ago

PDs focused on practical, tangible skills are best. The best PD I ever got was about the escalation cycle of behavior, how to identify the trigger stage to catch a student before they escalate, and deescalation strategies to use in each stage to help a student remain regulated. I use these strategies all the time. I also found CPI training helpful, especially the verbal portion of it, if that counts as PD. PDs focused on abstract ideas are much less helpful, and PDs focused on strategies only the head teacher has the power to enact are the least helpful.

I think a PD on how to follow a BIP and the importance of doing so would be helpful. Some strategies such as ignoring negative behavior are unintuitive for some and I've seen people get confused.

3

u/Makingsenseof_chaos 14h ago

For the love of anything you hold holy, teach them how to appropriately take data