TVI Video Transcript
>>Narrator: Juna Gjata is an accomplished young woman who has a
severe visual impairment and now attends Harvard University.
Teachers of students with visual impairments, often referred to
as TVIs, play a critical role in supporting students'
participation and achievement in the general curriculum as well
as supporting the classroom teachers. Terry Maggiore, who is a
TVI, worked with Juna at Boston Latin School through the
critical middle and high school years when the academic pace is
accelerated and issues of independence often arise. As we tell
Juna's story, you will hear about her use of accessible
instructional materials, or AIM, and her use of the different
specialized formats with different technologies to deliver the
content.
>>Terry: My role with Juna is basically to provide access to the
curriculum for her.
>>Narrator: Terry's role in supporting Juna has changed over
time. Her goal is to help Juna access the curriculum
independently and know what tools would be best for her to use
in various circumstances.
>>Terry: In the beginning of her time here at Boston Latin
School, she was primarily using braille. But what we found is,
we needed to be much more flexible. And also, as we were
progressing through the grades, we wanted to make sure that when
she'd left Boston Latin School that she was able to access the
curriculum independently and knew all of the different tools
that she could use.
>>Narrator: Juna explains how the role of the TVI has changed
over time.
>>Juna: So when I was younger, my vision teacher would actually
spend time teaching me how to use the notetakers that I was
about to use before I actually used them in class, which was,
you know, very helpful at the time, especially since, you know,
I was, like, under ten, so everybody kind of spoon-feeds you
everything. And then as I got older, I think the role of your
vision teacher becomes to introduce you to new technology and
then have you figure out how to do it yourself instead of
actually teaching you how to do it. That's what my most recent
vision teacher has been doing. She'll tell me that, "This
technology might be good for this. We should try it out." And if
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I like it, we use it. If I don't, we don't. And I am the one who
is in charge of trying to figure out how to use it. And, of
course, she's there if I have to ask her questions. But I think
it's still, like, an important step in your independence to be
able to just be given something that you know will be helpful
but figure out how to use it yourself.
>>Narrator: In a natural and parallel fashion, the support
provided by the paraprofessional has evolved over time.
>>Juna: And then as far as a paraprofessional, I've had one—the
same one—since I was six. And she used to be in all my classes,
which I thought was really annoying, because she is, like, the
nicest person on the planet ever I've ever met in my life, but
it's still kind of like having parent number two, like, in class
with you. So I would ask for her not to have to come to class
with me. So now she doesn't come to any of my classes with me.
And, again, I think that's, like, kind of establishing your
sense of independence, because nobody else has, like, a person
with them all the time.
>>Narrator: Terry offers advice about the role of a TVI. She
says students need to be working with multiple formats and
building their independence as early as elementary school.
>>Terry: It can't wait ‘till high school to start to teach a kid
to be independent, to teach them how to do things on their own,
because by the time they get to high school, they don't have any
more time for you, the TVI, to sit down and teach. Most of the
time, your role becomes support for access to the curriculum,
access to instructional materials. It's no longer teaching any
new skills. It might be reviewing a skill or teaching a slight
change in a skill, but your role is more access to instructional
materials, making sure that they have a level playing field for
their curriculum and also that they know how to communicate with
their teachers on their own.
>>Narrator: Juna's support team has confidence that she will be
an independent, self-determined learner in college.
>>Terry: We've been pulling away those supports. Little by
little by little, we've been doing it kind of invisibly to her.
And we know she's ready. We know she can access the curriculum.
We know she will be able to do well on her own.
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>>Narrator: The role of the TVI is not only to support the
student but to also support and collaborate with the classroom
teachers.
>>Terry: You know, the teachers want to have this student be
successful. They'll make accommodations along the way, because
they want to make every kid learn. You know, they just don't
know how sometimes. A brand-new teacher might come up to me and
say, "I don't know what to do. What do I do?" And I say, "Don't
worry about it. "My job is not just to support Juna. "My job is
to support you. "My job is to help you make the curriculum
accessible and whatever materials you need..."
>>Narrator: Terry worked with the teachers to develop flexible
accommodations that would work for Juna. Terry: In the
beginning, we watched over her. An example is, most teachers
here at Boston Latin School ask for a notebook, a three-ring
binder that has different sections in it. Well, that was really
difficult for her because she's trying to keep a braille note
three-ring binder and correlate the print that she couldn't see,
and we had to help her with that. So her one-to-one para would,
you know, periodically throughout the day check in with her and
see if there was any materials that needed to go into this
binder. Then the following year what we did was, we had her put
the materials in the binder. Then the following year after that,
we started creating digital binders. And the digital binders on
a USB key would be given at the end of the term to the teacher.
And so along the way, what we've done is kind of pulled away the
supports so that now she's able to access curriculum on her own
with very little support from us.
>>Narrator: Terry says she works closely with teachers to help
them verbalize their lessons as they begin to work with students
such as Juna.
>>Terry: Teachers are really receptive. They want to teach to
every student. Every teacher wants their students to learn. And
they are receptive to my feedback, and I give the feedback in a
positive way, you know, "I really liked how you did this lesson.
"It's hard for Juna to—"you know, to see what's happening there.
"Would you mind describing "each of those lines on the board for
her or reading each of those things on the board?" And it
becomes a habit.
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>>Narrator: Teachers say having Juna in their class has made
them better teachers. Juna's physics teacher, Jessie Southwick,
explains.
>>Jessie: She's taught me a lot about teaching and learning and
about the—kind of the abilities of everybody regardless of
disabilities. So I think just being willing to have the open
conversation and realize that, like, that's part of our job, is
to figure out how to teach all students, and Juna is the proof
that that's worthwhile and that every student can be successful.
>>Narrator: Based on the setting and the instructional content,
Juna uses all four specialized formats: braille, large print,
audio, and digital text. The TVI reports that they have
difficulty obtaining hard copy large print, so as an
alternative, they use enlarged text on the computer and
assistive technology, such as CCTVs and handheld magnifiers, to
assist Juna in reading print materials.
>>Terry: The braille that Juna uses can be in the form of a hard
copy piece of paper, but she also uses electronic braille using
a braille note taker. Her print is primarily using a CCTV or a
RUBY handheld magnifier or ZoomText on the PC. She's emailed
computer files. She's able to open those files and to use the
ZoomText to be able to access what information is there.
>>Woman: It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.
>>Narrator: Primarily, audio is used for literature and any long
reading assignments. Terry talks about how Juna's use of formats
and tools has evolved and how her independence has developed.
>>Terry: When Juna came to Boston Latin School, she was
primarily a braille reader, and she was a good braille reader,
but she was a slow braille reader. She needed to increase her
speed, but in the meantime, she needed to keep up with the
materials. So what we immediately did was started to use—access
to the curriculum via audio, and we would get her audio books.
At the time, it was tape, and then it became digital. The
biggest thing for her was learning—when we first started working
with her—was learning to be more independent as she went along
and getting her own materials and securing information from her
teachers. And as the world has become more digital, that has
become easier to do. We have taught her the different tools
along the way and given her the opportunity to choose which tool
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she wants to use for what purpose, and that makes her far more
independent.
>>Narrator: Different sources of specialized formats have
different eligibility requirements. Since Juna receives special
education services under IDEA and meets copyright criteria as a
student with a visual impairment, she is eligible to receive
materials obtained from a range of sources. Terry talks about
where accessible materials were obtained for Juna.
>>Terry: The primary textbook provider for us if we want it in a
hard copy braille is the Massachusetts Accessible Library. They
will be able to provide us—if we send them a print copy of the
book, they most often times will be able to transcribe that book
and provide it in braille in forms of volumes sent to us during
the year. Sometimes, though, that's not possible, and we'll get
a braille file from them, and Juna will be able to use her
Braille Sense to open that file. Bookshare has become an
extremely important tool to be able to access books immediately,
whether that becomes a braille file or an audio file or a DAISY
file. The Perkins Library—Talking Book Library—is a great tool.
They have a librarian there you can call, ask for a particular
set of books, and they'll send those along to you as soon as
possible in a hard copy braille format, because sometimes the
kids are following along in class, and she needs to follow along
as well.
>>Narrator: Terry says Learning Ally was used as one source for
audio books. Materials were downloaded and used with the
Learning Ally app on her iPad, and the audio books on CDs were
also used.
>>Terry: She also uses Audible. Audible is a commercial site
where we can download an audio book with a human reader, much
more like listening to a play. She uses human readers also, and
she knows how to use a human reader. She's been taught to direct
the reader in what it is—the information she'd like to get. And
then the other thing we use is self-produced materials—using a
scanner, using software to produce a hard copy or a braille file
or even a Word document for her that she can access. We really
can't rely on any one service, because then we're only relying
on one media, and you need multiple medias to be able to access
the curriculum.
>>Narrator: Juna shares her insightful thoughts about the use of
multiple formats and tools.
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>>Juna: Yeah, I think that learning with different kinds of
accessible materials is definitely the best way, because there
is no, like, one device that's good for everything. I mean, I
think it's the same for sighted people too. There is no one
thing you use for every subject. You know, you have different
things that you use for different types of activities that you
have to do. So I think I am a multimodal learner, and I think
everybody really is. It's just finding what works for you in
that context.
>>Narrator: Ongoing instruction is critical for learning to read
print or braille. It's also equally important for learning to
read using the audio format.
>>Terry: It's really important to look at low-vision students to
support their learning of braille from a very young age. It's
important—or if you're not going to teach braille, then how to
use audio material, how to get information out of it, how to
take two-column notes while you're listening. They have to
really be able to teach kids to use more than one media and not
to forget braille, even if they are a low-vision student,
because you never know what's going to happen in the future in
terms of losing their vision. The most important thing is, we
want them to keep up with everybody else at the same speed, at
the same place, in the same time frame. So giving them multiple
tools and multiple ways to access instructional materials is
really the key to doing that.
>>Narrator: When a student is using audio books, there are
functional skills related to navigation that need to be learned.
>>Terry: You would first teach the functions of the player, how
to get it to work, but then after that, you need to teach how to
access the book. The books are broken down, usually, by a
chapter, headings, sections.
>>Narrator: Terry often pairs the print book and the audio book
and teaches a note-taking strategy.
>>Terry: And what I often will do is take the print book—with a
magnification device if I need it—and the audio book side by
side, and we'll start a notebook, which we divide into two
columns. So I'm starting to teach Cornell Notes. I start
teaching that now in the third grade. I try to teach them how to
take a note, how to find the section we need in the book, how to
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access it on audio, how to listen to it on audio, go back to the
print if you need some information, and make your notes.
>>Narrator: Similarly, Terry speaks about a strategy of blending
the mediums of braille and audio combined with note-taking.
>>Terry: We would have the audio with the braille book and then
learning to skim a braille book so that you can find the word
you're looking for. What line are you looking for? And then
taking notes, maybe using—with a braille note taker. The student
may have a braille paper copy, an audio copy, and some kind of
note-taking device.
>>Narrator: There is growing evidence that reading rates are
increased when new technologies are used to provide synchronized
audio and text or synchronized audio and refreshable braille. To
do this, Juna can use the text-to-speech function in ZoomText on
the computer or speech with her braille note taker. Just as
students need instruction to learn to read by listening, they
need instruction to learn to gain information by listening.
>>Terry: Especially for our students who are visually impaired,
they have to access much of the curriculum from the teachers by
listening. You know, they're not seeing what's happening on the
board, so they need to be able to get as much as they can out of
listening, and you have to learn to listen.
>>Narrator: Throughout her life, technology, accessible
materials, and supportive people at school and home have enabled
Juna to be fully participative in all aspects of her education
and life.
>>Juna: I think that definitely the tools I have, have enabled
me to move on to, like, bigger and better things, I guess,
because, like, I just remember, you know, being younger and
having to hold the books up close to my face, and my eyes would
always be straining, so they'd always be really bad. And I could
read a lot slower than the other kids because I had to
physically move the book from side to side, like, pan along,
because my field of vision was so small. I think that having
those technologies, like, puts you on an equal playing field
with everybody else and that you actually have a way of
accessing everything else that everybody else has.
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