Photo courtesy of Geri Kodey.
Kevin Spencer demonstrates a trick as part of the Hocus Focus curriculum to a group of students with autism in Nevada.
As an illusionist, Kevin Spencer can make many things disappear.
But there’s one thing he’s attempting to make disappear for good: the idea that there is only one way to teach students, particularly those in special education.
This month, faculty and staff at Hoover City Schools will get their second crack at learning an entirely new way to reach students of all abilities, but especially those with IEPs, or Individual Education Programs.
The Hocus Focus curriculum makes use of illusions and magic to get students engaged with material.
But it isn’t just a show.
“Every magic trick in the curriculum also aligns with standards of learning in math, science and language arts,” Spencer said, “so you’re not just simply teaching a child a magic trick, you’re also teaching academic content connected to that trick.”
In the spring, Spencer trained a set of Hoover teachers in how to implement the Hocus Focus curriculum with special education students, and he will be returning this month to train more teachers, occupational therapists and speech therapists in the program.
Hocus Focus at Hoover cameout of the efforts of the Special Education Community Alliance (SECA), which presented the idea of bringing Spencer to Hoover to pilot the new program.
Hoover is one of 25 school districts in the United States — and the only one in Alabama — participating in a research study of the Hocus Focus Analytics scale, which aims to measure the effectiveness of using the arts, specifically illusions, in education.
“You’re focusing on specific cognitive skills,” Spencer said, listing sequencing, organizing, motor dexterity, communication skills, social skills and the ability to think flexibly and creatively as examples.
Teachers will upload data points into the assessment tool, which will provide real-time data on how each student is progressing in a particular area.
Spencer said that the tool has a 0.94 reliability coefficient, meaning teachers can believe the data they see, which is something relatively unheard of when looking at arts education.
“As an artist, we always talk about the value of what we do,” Spencer said. “We always know, and as a society we talk about the value the arts bring to our society, but we’ve never measured it.”
Dustin Chandler, who helped start SECA and is a parent of a child in the special education program, said the scale Hoover is helping study and validate shows in quantifiable terms what many already knew to be true about using different methods with IEP students.
“The proof is in the pudding, so to speak,” he said.
Chandler said he has heard nothing but positive feedback from the teachers who trained in the spring.
One of those teachers, instructional support specialist Ivy Boswell, said Spencer made the training process fun and engaging, but also provided the history and information that made teachers realize the power such a program could have.
“The Hocus Focus program is such a creative tool to utilize in our classrooms,” Boswell said, describing the way her students responded with joy and excitement to the tricks she integrated into her lessons.
“My students thoroughly enjoyed learning and practicing the magic tricks. It helped them to fully understand that success can be obtained through hard work and persistence,” she said.
And it’s that engagement that Spencer said is the core of the whole program, not just the magic.
“What we know from research is that when you approach a child with something that taps their curiosity, that can be tremendously motivating in their ability to learn and improve the skills that they find challenging,” he said.
The Hocus Focus training will take place this month, and in January, Hoover will join the other 24 schools in the U.S. in assisting with the research study.
For more information about Hocus Focus, visit hocusfocuseducation.com.
