Posted by Tracy Petersen on Feb 21, 2017; 3:21am
URL: https://nabble.aealearningonline.org/SPLS-Tracy-Petersen-tp7267.html

I see potential in this system to provide learning and instruction for students in MTSS. We are always struggling to find a way to provide additional instruction to these students and this might offer a way to provide specific skill instruction and additional practice.  It may also provide a way to give guidance and support to teachers in their attempts to offer instruction in MTSS. In particular, in the area of speech language development, we know that we are looking for ways to provide that guidance. For example, consider the core standard: "Speak audibly and express thoughts, feelings, and ideas clearly when retelling familiar stories or reciting poems, nursery rhymes or lines of play."(SL.K.6) We often use this standard to address articulation errors in student's speech. Few teachers are comfortable addressing speech sound errors, and we wouldn't expect that. However, we could share a module that had video about accurate articulatory placement, scaffolds for teachers to use with students to achieve placement, and then practice materials for students. This would provide a nicely structured task for teachers and students to use in the general education setting and would provide data before moving on to suspecting a disability. In the area of language, our AEA team has developed a MTSS site to share with teachers to use in the gen ed setting. These tasks could be expanded with specific instruction and shared as a module. In addition, I am part of a group at our AEA that is looking to create "commercials" or 3 to 5 minute presentations, that could be shared with SLPs, parents, or teachers to orient them to a specific therapy model, technique, or material. This might be a way to organize and share those commercials.

Challenges would include finding the balance between direct instruction and feedback and independence. in the area of articulation, students need some specific feedback on productions to ensure they are practicing accurate, not inaccurate, sound productions. In addition, we would need to find the time to create the modules (something that we are currently struggling with for our "commercials").

In the future, I would like to see a way to increase the fidelity of completion. I know that I have not always been true to the process when using the system for mandatory trainings (I skimmed and passed the test) but that was not a learning that I was particularly interested in but one that I had to do.
It would also be valuable to have an option for video responding so that a teacher might have an opportunity to really see the student's production or attempts.