Hopatcong Teachers Earn Special Ed Grant

HOPATCONG, NJ - Four teachers in the Hopatcong School District have been honored with a grant for their special education work using visual storytelling.

Tulsa Trail School special education teachers, Danielle Kovach, Jennifer Neu, Linda Aviles, and Amanda Maliszewski have been selected to receive a 2020-2021 NJEA Frederick L. Hipp Foundation for Excellence in Education grant.

“In My Shoes, I am Ready to Choose,” helps students with special needs learn how to choose appropriate social reactions through the use of video storytelling. As directors and actors of their own social situations, students will learn to analyze exchanges, make conceptual choices, and guide others on how to have safe and meaningful interactions with children and adults. The students will use their real life experiences, either past or present, and create a script for the situation that occurred.

With the use of a green screen and digital media equipment, students will recreate the experience and act out both the negative reaction that occurred and the positive reaction that should have happened. Using editing software, students will embed interactive video links which will allow the student or viewer to choose the appropriate responses to different situations. Students will have the opportunity to view both reactions and choose the more appropriate response. Videos will be shared online and used to measure student social growth and development.

This $4,000 grant will be implemented in September.

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