This week, Chris interviews Tiffanie Zaugg, a PhD Graduate student and former AAC Coordinator for a school district in Iowa. Tiffanie shares about the “AAC Facilitator’s Guide” that she created in her former school district, a staff resource they could go to with descriptions of many of the concepts she was frequently describing to SLPs and teachers on a regular basis, e.g. core vocabulary, modeling, importance of having a light backup. Tiffanie shares about making this handbook, the SMART Partner strategy, her current work teaching pre-service teachers, and more!

Before the interview, Chris shares some ISTE takeaways with Rachel, including seeing more sessions where inclusion was embedded in the learning, going to an AI “Demo Slam” (i.e. demonstrations of tools), and a session about using role playing games (e.g., Dungeons & Dragons) to develop story telling skills! 

Key ideas this week:

🔑 In a table top role playing game, the players must describe what they want to do, and the Dungeon Master has to describe what happens as a result. This activity works on a student’s narrative skills, imagination, descriptive skills, and problem solving - all in a format that is highly motivating for learners!

🔑  In her AAC Facilitators Guide, Tiffanie included the “SMART Partner Strategy,” which stands for: Stop interruptions; Model; Avoid asking excessive questions; be Responsive; & wait Time. 

🔑 When teaching descriptive teaching, consider having students describe a common object (e.g. strawberries) in an AI text-to-picture generator and seeing if the AI makes a picture of that item!

🔑 Tiffanie’s AAC Facilitator’s Guide includes a Communication Partner Work book with a gesture dictionary. This gesture dictionary is a space to note the meaning of any gestures that are unique to that student that will travel with them as they progress in their education.

Links from this Episode:

D&D In Schools: Communal Storytelling in Classrooms by Matthew Winters and Dan Ryder - https://www.teacherwinters.net/istelive-2023/dndinclassrooms

Rewordify.com - Simplifies difficult English and more.

TextCompactor.com - Free online automatic text summarization.

Skybox by Blockade Labs: Free background/scene generator.

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