PROJECT Bace: Environmental Setup and Design
Creating Spaces Where Every Student Can Thrive
Imagine classrooms where every sensory detail, visual cue, and physical space is purposefully designed to make something possible. This strand provides practical approaches for creating supportive environments that promote engagement, independence, and positive behavior in self-contained classrooms. From incorporating weighted lap pads and fidget tools during one-on-one sessions to implementing visual schedules and structured work systems, these evidence-based practices help students with cognitive disabilities, autism, and intellectual delays navigate their school day with confidence.
Teachers will discover how to build classroom cultures that emphasize support over compliance, using clear visual cues, strategic movement breaks, and accessible data tracking to foster student autonomy. By designing predictable environments with individualized accommodations, educators can minimize challenging behaviors while maximizing learning potential. This strand equips special education professionals with the tools to be "the carrot, not the stick," creating spaces where students feel empowered to participate, communicate, and achieve their unique goals.
Teachers will discover how to build classroom cultures that emphasize support over compliance, using clear visual cues, strategic movement breaks, and accessible data tracking to foster student autonomy. By designing predictable environments with individualized accommodations, educators can minimize challenging behaviors while maximizing learning potential. This strand equips special education professionals with the tools to be "the carrot, not the stick," creating spaces where students feel empowered to participate, communicate, and achieve their unique goals.
PROJECT Bace
What's in the Environment strand?
Classroom Setup and Design
Beyond Four Walls
Beyond Four Walls focuses on effective strategies for supporting student engagement and learning during one-on-one educational sessions, emphasizing the use of sensory tools like weighted lap pads and fidget toys to help students maintain focus and self-regulation. It highlights the importance of incorporating structured movement breaks with timers or visual cues to help students refocus during sessions. The instructional content also stresses the critical role of accessible data tracking tools for real-time progress monitoring, enabling educators to provide immediate feedback and make necessary adjustments to their teaching methods.
Visuals
Picture Perfect
Picture Perfect focuses on developing effective communication skills through active listening techniques that emphasize attentiveness and engagement during conversations. The instructional content introduces visual supports as tools to accommodate diverse learning styles and engage students in ways that verbal instructions alone may not achieve. The module provides structured conversation frameworks with specific prompts for greeting, initiating discussions, maintaining dialogue, and offering explanations to facilitate meaningful social interactions.
Schedules and Organizational Systems
Guidance to Greatness
Guidance to Greatness focuses on teaching approaches that foster student independence through structured work systems. Key concepts include the gradual reduction of guidance as students master tasks, beginning with simpler activities before progressing to more complex ones. The implementation framework emphasizes consistent visual supports and team-based assessment to create predictable learning environments that promote student autonomy.
Integrating Environmental Design
Classroom Transformation
Classroom Transformation emphasizes creating a positive classroom culture through clear expectations, individualized student schedules tailored to unique needs, and collaborative support rather than forced compliance. Educators are encouraged to be "the carrot, not the stick," focusing on guiding, supporting, and nurturing student growth through clear cues and positive reinforcement. This positive classroom behavior system aims to minimize challenging behaviors while creating an environment of positivity, ownership, and achievement that carries throughout the entire school year.