O+M out and about at FSU

I'm glad we got to get out of our usual environment in the Stone Building and explore a little bit. Last week, on Thursday when I observed David guiding Katie around Bellamy I learned a lot. I think for the first time I was observing a student who was in a completely unfamiliar environment. While I know Katie was still relying on her visual memory of basics like what stairs look like, it was still almost as if I was observing a real blind student.
I learned a lot of new techniques, such as asking the student to point back to the beginning of the route from different point along the route. I liked how the cardinal direction were used consistently, instead of saying turn left or right. I think this would help sustain a students orientation in a a new environment.
My favorite part of the lesson by far was what happened when we realized Katie was disoriented. When she tried to point at the front doors of Bellamy she was incorrect. Instead of just pointing her in the right direction, Micky had her put her back to the wall, and with out actually traveling the route, she described how she would get back to the front doors, and physically turned her body as she described the turns. When she was finished with her 'mental route' she was able to correctly point to the front doors. I liked this a lot because it gave Katie the opportunity to stop, re-evaluate her location and self correct, while we all got to observe the thought process that was taking place in her head.

Today when I was teaching I was trying to think back to what techniques I had observed in Bellamy. I definitely felt like I gave David way too much information at first. I do need to remember the age and skill level of my student, and know that he might not need all this excess environmental information. I tried the U-Path, but again my student is an independent adult who has experienced stairs probably thousands of times in his life. I am glad that I have these teaching opportunities to try out different strategies.
I was surprised that some of the things I mentioned and wrote in my notebook when I explored the building last week were irrelevant, and some things I did not make note of ended up being very important (for example the metal line in the floor).