Chapter Statements

Chapter 18
Carson-Newman University
EDUC 524: Techniques for Inclusion

Team Leader: Stephanie Garcia
Team Members: Elizabeth Franks, Nikolette Edge, Jason Henderson, and Alyssia Harper
Chapter 18: Social and Communication Strategies for All Students
Stephanie Garcia
p. 296 Outside of the academic standards we have to teach students, we also have to
prepare them for real life: jobs, social life, personal life, etc. The list of five workplace
competencies includes things that we have to teach every day. We could probably find one
aspect of that list to fit into a lesson at some point or another. We not only have to prepare
our students with the knowledge for any kind of job, but also to have the capabilities to
maintain that job.
p. 299 Hidden curriculum: All those skills we have to teach students outside of academic
standards can also be called the hidden curriculum. We have to teach the students how to
be capable beings. This includes conflict resolution, social interactions, morals, etc. Our
major push this year from our principal was to build relationships. We have to build
relationships with the students to show them how it is proper to act as an adult.
p. 301 Board games are a simple way to get students interacting with each other. They
need to be able to negotiate, take turns, follow rules, be gracious when winning or losing,
have patience, and strategize. We play a Battleship game for review every once in a while.
If a group gets the question right, they get to put a "hit" on another team's battleship to
eventually sink it. When a group gets "sunk", they still have the opportunity to sink another
or take a hit away from themselves. Sometimes I mix it up so the groups don't know which
strategy I will come up with next, because in life, you never know what is going to come
your way.

Elizabeth Franks
p. 300 Black Ants and Buddhists: The narrative about the ELLs in the first grade class shows
the importance of making sure everyone has a voice. Some students may not be able to
formulate their answer or comment quickly enough thereby effectively losing their voice.
We must create ways to help every child be heard, whether using wait time (for both the
teacher and other students) or by using some of the strategies discussed in the chapter.
p. 306-307 Social Skills: There are some strategies you can teach students to help them in
difficult social situations such as the 6-second quieting response (smile, inhale, exhale, tell
yourself your body is calm, return to what you were saying) and ASSERT (attention, soon,
short, simple, specific, effect, response, and terms). Just as we practice academic skills,
these social strategies should be practiced in a safe environment so that the student is
prepared for the apprehensive social situation.
p. 307-308 For some students, social skills need to be evaluated and assessed just like
academic skills. Sociometric devices evaluate a students popularity within a group.
Teacher-ranking systems involve the teacher keeping track of how many times the student
interacts with others. Behavior rating scales rate a students ability to function in different
social settings and Observational checklists determine if the students behavior is situation-
specific.

Nikolette Edge
p. 298- Reason for social difficulties are: poor observation skills, poor response to visual
input, underdeveloped sense of direction, difficulty judging distance or speed, poor
impulse control, poor planning or prediction skills, and difficulty being flexible, This section
really allowed me to see some of the behaviors in my students in a new light.
p. 299- Paralinguistics is a new term for me. These forms of nonverbal language are
vocalics (tone of voice), artifactual systems (what we wear says about us), and proximics
(distance between people in social situations). I see the results of the lack of awareness of
these communications in my classroom as well. Many adults are not always aware of what
they are communication they are nonverbally communicating.
p. 303- Receptive Communication- It makes sense that you should not use sarcasm or state
things as questions instead of request to autistic students and probably many others as
well.

Jason Henderson
p.298--The social development skills that kids need to learn is just like the development of
intelligence. Some kids are develop faster than others. Street smarts and book smarts do
not always coincide with one another. It's just like coaching--I get these kids who know
situational stuff, but lack the physical capacity to execute certain plays. Yet, I don't hold
them back from trying these things because I know eventually they will be physically
capable to perform these tasks, so I try to give them just as many reps as those who are
physically capable.
p.301--I'd be interested to see how well the Question Jar/Talking Spinner would play out in
a regular classroom setting. On paper, it sounds like a great way to utilize
interpersonal/social skills. We do something called "Seminar" in which kids take turns
(without raising hands, directing statements to one another) to share what they think
about a particular topic. Generally what winds up happening is a handful of students
dominate the conversation, while the rest of the class takes the silent road to the end of
the exercise.
p.303--I like the concept of receptive communication. It requires multiple cues and
modeling by the teacher. Eventually, the kids catch on to the behavior and they are more
apt to mimic the same mannerisms. It increases their social skills, as well as allows them to
be more prepared for the classroom.

Alyssia Harper
p. 298-Teaching social skills is something that is critical to a child's well being and future
success. If a student can read, write, multiply, and divide, but cannot communicate is a
socially appropriate manner I do not think that they will get very far on a career path,
because most opportunities that people have boil down to first impressions and making
social connections.
p. 300-I love the strategy of the Inside Outside Circle. I agree that this is a great way for
students to practice their social skills one on one and also repeat the material that they
learned. I also like this idea because it forces students to talk to everyone in the class. I
think that this is important because as students get older they begin to place themselves in
cliques and tend to alienate others.
p. 308-Narrative 18.1 Although I am not a parent I really enjoyed the narrative and how
that the parents are the first teacher. I think that the generations and the way that we
communicate has drastically changed for the better. I do think that we need more to allow
children to be children and explore and learn on their own.