EDUCATION: LEARNING AT THE CENTER

PROGRAM PILLARS - EDUCATION (PART 1 OF 6)

Learning at The Center is an important part of our mission and we strive to provide an environment that supports continued learning and education for all of our Members.

Our Members are soon to graduate or have recently graduated from High School. Despite no longer being in the school setting they seek and enjoy participating in daily educational activities at The Center. We focus on activities that are relevant to current events, topics of interest or those that are more engaging for the group.

These range from learning about historic persons of interest, national holidays, and cultural traditions as well as fun science experiments! Some of the favorites are those that involve making volcanoes out of baking soda, learning about local bird life, and making bird feeders as well as plant biology and learning how to participate in keeping our garden growing.

​Educational topics are peppered throughout our day and integrated within our activities, the focus is to personalize activities that are within the skills set of our members while also pushing to expand their knowledge and interest.

We have several different types of adaptive learning equipment devices to support Members with sight or sensory impairment as well as adaptive iPads to assist with learning activities including a TobiiDynavox that supports eye gazing to facilitate those who are non-verbal.

BECOME A MEMBER

how we adapt learning activities

We are fortunate at The Center to have passionate and patient direct Care Coaches that work with our Members to facilitate daily learning. Each morning we start our day with a morning set of activities that each Members participates in. Some may require more prompts than others but we work with each Member to choose the "Day of the Week", "Weather" and set the schedule with picture icons. These help visually identify the order of activities and a way for our non-verbal Members to communicate an understanding and plan for the day. 

Our adaptive communication equipment is used to facilitate activities throughout the day but specifically related to education our TobiiDynavox is pre-programmed with a myriad of educational programs to promote continued learning. This device is used 1:1 and supports touch or eye-gazing to select options and communicates the chosen responses by verbally repeating the selection. 

For our Members with visual impairments we have several sensory and "switch" boards that facilitate self agency to choose preferences, communicate and participate in learning activities that otherwise would be limited to those without limitations. 

We try our best to accommodate needs and facilitate continued learning. Our team is always eager to learn new techniques and ways to engage with our Members in creative and fun ways to promote growth. 

Are you a special needs teacher? 

We are always looking for new educational activities, ideas and to gain skills on how we can best instruct our Members to create an engaging learning environment. If you have skills or ideas to help us grow we are seeking volunteers and also have a Clinical Expert and Advisory Committee if you would like a more formal role in building our educational programming. 

​Please contact us to learn more at info@newtransitionscenter.org