Communication Boards

These are so difficult to create for high school students. I thought I had a good amount of what I needed but found out quickly that I needed much more. Students who use communication boards have so many words, just like their peers. It is difficult to prioritize the ones that need to go on the boards.

A couple of favorites...

ACC Devices:

1. I really think the Big Mack has great potential in a classroom. I like the idea of being able to have a student communicate with me as soon as they walk into the class. This device can also be used with different languages.

2. The mini Big Macks were awesome because the student can ask me questions all over the room. They give a lot of opportunities for communication!

Social Stories:

1. There is an iPad app that allows you to create a social story and record the words. This could create some awesome stories.

Week 11 Recap--Example Power Card!

Casey Jones! Hero to all!

                                                                                                   

Re-Cap Week 10

Here is a sight I want to use for planning lessons and gaining research...amazing!

www.ed.ted.com

www.ted.com/talks

Week 8 Re-cap--Using ILAUGH

Unit: Public Interactions

Lesson: How to interact with a store employee

Central Focus:

1.     Students will learn how to interact with an employee at a store. They will learn appropriate behavior for this task, both verbal and nonverbal.

Rationale/Context:

1.     My students have difficulty knowing how to respond appropriately to people in a public setting. I want them to be able to complete daily life tasks in the community. They must learn how to interact with store employees in order to be able to be a functional member of society. This lesson is taught before the students go on a trip to buy Christmas presents for their family.

Prior Knowledge Needed:

1.     Context of the “Elf” movie

2.     Who is considered a store employee

3.     How to role-play a conversation

4.     How to work Educreations on the iPads

Objectives:

1.     The students will learn how to talk to store workers in public by completing an ILAUGH lesson.

2.     The students will practice interacting socially with a store manager using role-play.

Standards:

1.     Illinois Standards for Social/Emotional Learning (SEL)

Language Demands:

1.     Students will practice using the social demands of language. This lesson in aimed at improving their pragmatic functioning in the context of society

Misconceptions:

1.     It is okay to express everything in public

2.     It is okay to yell and scream at a manager

3.     Facial expression have nothing to do with communication

Lesson Procedure:

1.     Bellwork: Through writing or speaking, tell me one thing you need to remember when you are shopping in a store.

2.     AS: Watch the video clip of “Elf” where he talks with a store manager. Discuss what was wrong with the communication exchange.

3.     ILAUGH Steps:

1.     Initiation of Communication—The students will be given tasks to do in a store. I will write them difficultly enough where they must ask me what they mean. The students will re-write the directions so they understand them or I will write the directions for them if they are unable. This gives the students practice asking for help in a controlled environment.

2.     Listening with eyes and brain—Students will watch the elf video again. I will pause at different points to highlight the facial expressions of the people, and we will discuss what they mean. Afterwards the students will have mirrors to practice faces. I will give them 3 facial expressions that they need to practice. They will show it to me when they are ready. This allows the students to see how their facial reactions look and compare it to the meaning of that facial recaction.

3.     Abstract and Inferential Language/Communication—The students will watch the clip again. They will tell me what phrase the store manager says that should not be taken literally, and answer how elf handled the situation. Did he understand or not? This allows the students to notice how everything people do say should not be taken literally.

4.     Understanding Perspective—Have the students draw 2 pictures. One of the storeowner and one of elf. They will need to include 5 things about each person. Discuss as a class how these characteristics make these people have different perspectives about a situation. The students who are not able to write will be able to use Educreations to record their thoughts. This allows the students to think through how each character is different and how that might factor into how they view the communication exchange.

5.     Getting the Big Picture—Discuss with the children what the conversation is about. If they focus on minute details, re-focus and ask why they thought that was important to the conversation. The students need to learn how to stay with a main topic. Focusing on minute details will hurt them when they are trying to stay focused on a topic.

6.     Humor and Human Relatedness—Watch the clip one last time. Ask the students why they believe the clip is so funny. Discuss why the humor is humor. Give students cue cards. They will work in partners to act out the interaction between elf and the manager as it is supposed to be done. Bring the class together and discuss how the two conversations are different and what they learned from the experience. The students need to interact with each other. It shows them that what they are learning, others are connecting to also.

4.     Closure:

1.     What are some important things to remember about communicating with an employee in a store?

Informal Assessment:

1.     Questioning and discussions done in class

2.     Review of the drawings of the characters

3.     Observation of student interaction with teacher

4.     Observation of student behavior

5.     Observation of student interaction with the final interaction

Formal Assessment:

1.     Quiz that will be completed over the material covered in the lesson.

a.     The student will show me how much they remembered about interacting with a store manager or employee

b.     The formal assessment will include a dialogue. The students will have to read the dialogue and watch a video. They will have to identify points where social communication is not handled correctly.

c.      I will provide commentary feedback on the areas they answered incorrectly on quiz

2.     The student will be observed and get a grade for interacting appropriately with a store employee. The trip will be at a later date.

a.     The student will apply their role-playing experiences to real life

b.     The student will demonstrate that the learned how to communicate with a store employee by actually communicating with a store employee

c.      I will provide feedback on a rubric so the students can see where they struggled and where they excelled.

Reflection:

1.     Did the students grasp the material?

2.     Did I provide enough differentiation to make all students successful?

3.     Are they prepared to interact with an employee in a store?

4.     What are some things that I would do differently?

5.     What are some things that I definitely want to keep the same?

Materials:

1.     Cue cards for conversation

2.     iPads

3.     Smartboard

4.     Mirrors

5.     Paper

Pens, pencils, markers, colored pencils

Week 7 Re-cap

What...
As a class, we discussed different interventions. The material covered in class was over chapters 14 of Teaching Students with Language and Communication Disorders by S. Jay Kruder. The class discussion took place on February 28, 2013.

Why...
As teachers, it is always beneficial to expand our repertoire for the interventions that we can use in the classroom. Sometimes we have routines in place, and it is nice to see some validation for what we do. We do routines that we know work with the students. We do not always realize that these routines have been researched, and if we do the research and find positive backing for implementation in the classroom, it is always a good feeling. On the flip side, research can also show us how to do things differently in our classroom. There are many different types of interventions out there. It's just a matter of going out and getting it.

Reaction...
It was nice to see the different information being presented. I would like to have more information on interventions that work with high school students. I liked the idea of using manipulative to combine words and phrases to make a coherent thought.

Learned...
As I went through my LAIP I assignment, I found an awesome website for dissecting language. Here is the link...

http://www.speech-therapy-information-and-resources.com/mean-length-of-utterance.html

Goal Setting...
Research 1 new intervention for ELL learners

Week 6 Re-cap

Little bit snowy this week!!!!! Here is a chart that is a good recap of what I was reviewing. The information comes from Teaching Students with Language and Communication Disorders by S. Jay Kruder.

Language Element	Areas Assessed	Sample Assessment
Phonology	1.     Articulation of speech sounds a.     reduction b.     deletion c.      devoicing d.     substitution 2.     Phonology awareness a.     rhyme b.     division of words into sounds c.      adding/deleting beginning and ending sounds	1. Clinician: “What”, “wet” Are these two words the same or different: Student: “No, they are not the same.” 2. Word analysis—measures a child’s ability to segment words into smaller phonemic units.
Morphology	1.     Use of grammatical morphemes in real and nonsense words. 2.     Identification of grammatical morphemes.	1. This is a wug. Now there are two of them. There are two ______________. 2. Morphological completion—measures a child’s ability to recognize, understand, and use common English morphological forms
Syntax	1.     Use of basic sentence elements 2.     Use of sentence types 3.     Use of transformational rules 4.     Understanding and interpretation of sentence types and transformation rules	1. The examiner makes an untrue statement (Oh Shirley, what beautiful yellow boots), which should prompt the child to respond with a negative (I’m not wearing boots). 2. Syntactic understanding—The child selects from a group of three pictures the one that best represents a sentence read by the tester.
Semantics	1.     Vocabulary use: a.     amount b.     types 2.     Speed of word retrieval 3.     Use of figurative language 4.     Identification of words 5.     Comprehension of humor/proverbs	1. Target word: drill Directions: “Select the words which make sentence 2 more like sentence 1.” Sentence 1: We need drill on our skills Sentence 2: If we want to get better at our skills we should …study them. …put a hole in them. …do them a lot. 2.Relational vocabulary—measures the child’s ability to understand and express relationships between two words.
Pragmatics	1.     Use speech acts: a.     requesting b.     greeting c.      answering 2.     Use of conversational rules a.     turn-taking b.     repairs c.      topic setting 3.     Understanding of direct and indirect speech acts	1. Contingent query—“Mumble” Clinician (finishing a story): And so, just as the giant got to the door (mumble) Student: What? (If the child makes no response, prompt with a question) 2. Observe problems the child is having utilizing language in his or her social setting. Develop objectives based on the observations. Create an individualized plan for each objective. Collect data based on the individualized plan for the student to check for understanding.