Position: Therapist, Team-Leader
District: Regional Center for Autism, Tirana
Ola Minxhozi is a therapist and team leader at the Regional Center for Autism in Tirana, Albania. Over the course of two years, she and her team have integrated RethinkEd into their teaching practices and its use has helped them in a variety of ways.
RethinkEd has helped them address problem behaviors, streamline the data collection process, and easily track progress. She described the training process as gradually introducing different features of the platform while setting aside time for individual exploration of RethinkEd. “It was helpful for each one of us to use RethinkEd’s materials and watch videos on how to use the program,” Ms. Minxhozi said. She also pinpointed the model student on the platform as a very helpful tool as it allowed staff to do trial runs with various aspects of RethinkEd without altering any real data.
To Ms. Minxhozi, one of the most valuable aspects of RethinkEd is its recognition that each student learns differently and has strengths and weaknesses specific to them; therefore, the program allows the instructor to assess the student’s abilities first and then recommends lessons that are appropriate for the student’s skill level. For additional support, “the learning plan gives other suggestions, helpful hints, and error correction only to better help the student in the process of learning.” RethinkEd also allows the staff to save time when preparing for lessons by providing relevant materials and instructional videos with each lesson.
Ms. Minxhozi also highlighted the behavior support the platform offers as a feature from which she and her team have greatly benefitted. She recalled a particular student who would consistently run away from work area; guided by RethinkEd’s steps for intervention, she was able to identify the functions of the behavior, which were to escape and to get the teacher’s attention. She chose from suggested behavior replacements that would work best for the student and reported that four weeks later, the problem behavior had significantly reduced.
“Working with children with special needs or children in autism spectrum disorder is as beautiful as it is challenging,” said Ms. Minxhozi. She cites “finding the best ways to help students to develop their abilities and potential” as the most challenging part of their jobs and by making a wide range of comprehensive resources easily accessible, RethinkEd has helped make that process easier. At the Regional Center for Autism in Tirana, they are excited to continue incorporating RethinkEd into their daily teaching practices and benefiting from all the helpful tools the platform offers.
