In June 2024, five students from Region 9 and one from an outside district attended SCSC's fourth ECC Academy. This annual camp is run by SCSC's Teachers of the Blind/Visually Impaired. The ages of participants ranged from 4th grade to 11th grade with a range of vision impairments. Just as their vision varies, so do their skill levels and needs. This program is designed to work on skills from the Expanded Core Curriculum (ECC), the skills outside of the common core that are difficult to fit into a regular school day.

Expanded Core Curriculum

The Expanded Core Curriculum is a framework for instruction in a specialized set of vision-related skills for students who are visually impaired. These skills are typically learned through incidental learning and the use of vision. Students who are visually impaired need direct instruction in these skills.

ECC Skills Students Worked on at the Academy:

Access:

• Assistive Technology – AT was used in real-life situations, such as using cell phones to create lists and take photos during a scavenger hunt on the campus of MSU, setting timers while cooking, accessing calculators to stay on budget while grocery shopping, and monoculars for distant viewing of overhead signs and crossing traffic intersections.
• Compensatory Skills – These are the skills that help with access. Students had a variety of methods to access written materials such as large print, audio, and braille. They worked to improve their organizational and communication skills during the morning and closing meetings and while teaming up with other students to complete tasks, such as cooking, a scavenger hunt, a game tournament, and organizing games with preschoolers.
• Sensory Efficiency – Visual aids, such as monoculars and magnifiers, were used during the scavenger hunt, while traveling, within the grocery store, at MNSU, and at the preschool summer program. 

Independent Living:

• Independent Living Skills – These skills were incorporated into every day. Students planned for meals and shopped on a budget. Every person participated in cooking and cleaning up after every meal. They also worked on laundry skills.
• Recreation and Leisure – Cooking dessert, playing games with fellow campers in a tournament, scavenger hunt, rock wall climbing, meditation, craft project, and volunteering at a preschool summer camp involve skills that can be learned and used in all areas of life now and in the future. 
• Social Skills – Awareness of body language, gestures, facial expressions, personal space and self-control, social etiquette, interacting with various age groups, asking questions, and receiving assistance when needed or politely declining are skills that cannot always be taught during a regular school day and are important to experience in this camp setting.

Community Readiness:

• Career Education – Students worked on many job skills, including staying on a schedule, following directions, working in a group, and leading an activity. Our volunteer component was held at a childcare program as the students planned, organized, and led a variety of movement activities with younger children.
• Orientation and Mobility (O&M) – Students will navigate uneven terrain, street crossings, parking lots, a college campus, and a grocery store while shopping, asking for assistance, and maneuvering vans using canes and monoculars, as needed.
• Self-Determination – Choice-making, decision-making, problem-solving, personal advocacy, assertiveness, and goal-setting are skills practiced during camp.

Contact SCSC's TBVI staff for more information about next year's ECC Academy!