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I am a concrete person, so I like knowing parameters. I think being able to use this tool to evaluate myself is a great place to start. I would be able to see where I am objectively and choose a few areas at a time to focus on to prevent getting overwhelmed with all 22 HLP's.

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I am a speech language pathologist. Although it can often be difficult to schedule times for collaboration with the general education teacher, it is a process that can truly increase the student's mastery of a skill/goal. When the goal/skill is targeted in both settings, the student also tends to make progress more quickly.

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The Impact of Speech and Language Impairments on Learning and Social Development

Approximately 1 in 12 children between the ages of 3-17 have a speech and/or language need in some capacity. This can include an articulation delay, a mixed receptive and expressive language disorder, or executive function difficulties. Given that a classroom usually has 20 or more students, teachers are likely to have at least 1-2 students with communication difficulties in their classroom at any given time. Therefore, it is important that they can work with SLPs to best support their students!

Students with speech and language impairments (a commonly-seen disability on IEPs) may have more difficulty understanding academic information, expressing information they know, and interacting with educators and students in the school environment. SLPs work with students with speech and language impairments (SLIs) to improve these skills but intervention often occurs in a therapy room. The carryover, or generalization, of communication skills across multiple contexts and settings, is often more difficult to attain (versus the sole use in the speech therapy room). When SLPs collaborate well with teachers, this generalization of skills may be achieved more quickly and easily.

Speech Versus Language Disorders

Speech disorders may include articulation/phonological errors, stuttering and cluttering, and vocal volume, pitch, or quality difficulties. Articulation and phonological disorders are the most common speech disorders in school-aged individuals; however, all of the above conditions may impact students' ability to be understood.

Language disorders can include receptive difficulties (e.g., understanding information), expressive difficulties (e.g., expressing information), and pragmatic difficulties (e.g., interacting with others). Students with language disorders may have trouble understanding and executing directions, learning new vocabulary, and completing schoolwork.

Both speech and language disorders can significantly impact a child's academic performance if gone untreated. SLPs can collaborate with teachers to provide specific information about students' strengths and needs (note: their strengths and needs may differ even if they have the same disorder) and gather feedback about how it impacts them in the classroom.

How SLPs and Teachers Can Collaborate

Below are some things SLPs can do to support teachers best, things teachers can do to support SLPs best, and things both can do to support each other and their students!

How SLPs Can Support Teachers

1. Provide information about students' speech or language impairments. This may include information such as, "Tony's understanding of sequential information is impacted so he may require additional support with multi-step tasks."

2. Provide strategies to support student instruction. For example, an SLP may say, "Ava is hard to understand sometimes because of her speech sound disorder. If you don't understand what she is saying, encourage her to use gestures or pictures to communicate what she needs."

3. Provide insight into what the student is working on in therapy. For example, an SLP may say, "I am going to help Ali say the /k/ sounds but it may take him a while to get it. Let me know if you hear him use it correctly!"

How Teachers Can Support SLPs

1. Provide an overview of lesson units. SLPs can work with students on related information to reinforce concepts learned in the classroom. For example, if the class is going to study plants, SLPs may also cover plant vocabulary in their sessions.

2. Provide feedback about students' interests and progress. This can help SLPs know what to focus on in their sessions. For example, if the student is really interested in puzzles during their free choice time, the SLP may be able to also use puzzles as a way to increase engagement in their sessions.

3. Provide information about any new concerns. Teachers may be the first to notice that a student is having more difficulty as compared to other students with aspects of communication. By collaborating with SLPs, they can more efficiently determine if a student does need speech and/or language support and steps from there.

How SLPs and Teachers Can Support Each Other

1. Find the best way to communicate. Some professionals prefer email communication whereas others have so many unread emails that a new one may get lost in the noise. Some prefer to communicate in person after students are dismissed whereas others prefer a quick chat during lunch. Figuring out when, where, and how to communicate can make a huge difference in effectively working together!

2. Be open to new ideas. Teachers and SLPs may have had different experiences and have different strategies for teaching and learning. Being automatically dismissive of someone's idea or method because it's different from what they've experienced can end up hindering a student's progress more than anything.

3. Embrace flexibility. Both teachers and SLPs have a lot of demands and expectations placed upon them. Teachers have certain standards to cover each day and SLPs have legal documents and plans (aka IEPs) they must follow. Throw in an assembly or a weather delay and all of a sudden it seems like a student should be in 3 places at once! Having flexibility around scheduling and plans is important for both parties.

For students who have learning, speech, and/or language concerns, the collaboration between SLPs and teachers is essential for the creation of a quality IEP.

IEP Terms to Know

SLPs are often well-versed in IEPs because they help write a lot of them but IEPs are a team project. This means each team member's input is required and valuable! Teachers should also be provided with (easily accessible) IEPs as needed for their students so they are continually aware of their students' accommodations, goals, etc. Below are brief explanations of some parts of IEPs.

Present Levels*

*Note: the verbiage of each of these sections may differ from school to school, district to district, etc

In the Present Levels section (note: often referred to as the present level of performance/PLOP the verbiage may differ from school to school), service providers (e.g., SLPs) often provide updates on the goals the student worked on over the past year and the progress that they have made. They may also touch on areas of continued need.

Educational Impact

In this section, information about how a student's disability may impact them in the classroom will be discussed. For example, a student with a speech sound disorder may not be fully understood by others when speaking in class.

Annual Goals

This part of the IEP covers goals for the student over the next year. It outlines what the student will be working on and often refers to corresponding academic standards. For example, a goal about using past, present, and future tense verbs correctly may correspond with an academic standard related to using correct grammar when writing.

Accommodations

This part is key for teachers to understand and know about! This talks about how teachers can accommodate their students in the classroom to best support them. For example, it may include modeling correct speech sound production or providing praise if a student produces a target sound correctly. It may also touch on using visual aids when giving multi-step directions if a student has difficulty understanding verbal information.

Testing accommodations may also be included here. This may indicate that a student does best taking tests in a small group setting or needs extra time to complete tests.

Service Delivery

The Service Delivery part of the IEP indicates how often SLPs will be working with students and in what setting. For example, it may say they will see the student inside or outside the general education classroom. It may also include time for consultation with the IEP team.

When Collaboration Worked Best
Success stories of SLP and teacher collaboration!
I had a student once who had a speech sound disorder and made a lot of errors when speaking. She did not get frustrated easily when she could not be understood but her teacher was often asking her to repeat herself over and over. As the SLP, I provided information about her speech sound disorder, stating that she often used the /s/ sound instead of /sh/, so if the teacher heard /s/ and it didn't make sense, try to see if the word would make more sense with the /sh/ sound. I also provided strategies for alternative communication methods if needed. The teacher let me know that while the student also had IEP goals related to grammar, her grammar had improved a lot over the school year and was on par with most of the other students in her class. Though I had data from sessions to support this, hearing it from the teacher was helpful in my session planning!

I had another student one time who was working on figurative language and had difficulty understanding metaphors and idioms. His Language Arts teacher would let me know what book they were reading, and specifically, what chapter they were reading that week. I would get a copy of that book and find examples of metaphors and idioms in that chapter and incorporate that into our sessions.

Collaboration between SLPs and teachers can truly make a difference for students. We hope that you can find ways to be successful throughout your school year!

Looking for more school year success resources?

1. Back to School BINGO: BINGO is great for targeting different goals and engaging alllll learners

2. Speech Therapy Ideas for Back to School (worksheet included): find activities perfect for 1:1 sessions, small groups, and large groups!

3. Back to School Resources with Smarty Symbols: make communication boards, visual schedules, and games quickly and easily using Smarty Symbols

4. School Age Speech Therapy Goal Creator BUNDLE (also on TPT): save $18 when you get FOUR of our goal banks all at once! Also find individual goal creators for language, articulation, fluency, and AAC.

References
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (n.d.). Quick Facts. Retrieved from https://www.asha.org/about/press-room/quick-facts/#:~:text=Nearly%201%20in%2012%20U.S.,language%2C%20or%20swallowing%20(source)

National Center for Education Statistics. (n.d.). National Teacher and Principal Survey, 2017-18: First Look (Preliminary Data) - Table 6. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/ntps/tables/ntps1718_fltable06_t1s.asp

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How SLPs and Teachers Can Collaborate Effectively

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Both school-based speech-language pathologists (SLPs) AND teachers play an integral role in educating students with speech and language needs. Effective collaboration between these two professions can help support students in order to maximize their skills.

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HLP 11 - "Identify & prioritize long- and short-term learning goals."

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HLP 11 - "Identify & prioritize long- and short-term learning goals."

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I teach 8th grade ELA and use Google Forms to have students document long-term goals for the number of books they hope to read throughout the year. To arrive at this number, they complete several questions that prompt them to think about their past & current reading practices, daily/weekly schedules outside of school that may impact their ability to read beyond class time, etc. Then, throughout the year, they complete monthly or bi-monthly Forms to reflect on the progress they've made toward their goal, what's working well for them, what they might need to adjust in order to reach the goal, etc. With this process, the overwhelming majority of students are able to reach their reading goals for the year...many of which are quite lofty!

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The image on this website helped me visualize HLP's tremendously!

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The image on this website helped me visualize HLP's tremendously!

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HLP 8 emphasizes giving positive and constructive feedback to students to guide their learning and behavior. I will implement this in my classroom by utilizing Darri Stephens’ "6 Strategies to Provide Meaningful Student Feedback.”

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Developed by the Council for Exceptional Children and the CEEDAR Center, high-leverage practices are 22 essential special education techniques that all teachers of students with disabilities should master for use across a variety of classroom contexts. Six of these practices are referred to as pillar practices-those most essential for educators to implement; and the remaining[.....]

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I loved this simple idea of helping young students to recognize what it means to be "fair". I think sometimes we forget that students need to be explicitly taught different SEL concepts but when we can give them the tools they need in order to see the world more clearly, then we can not only help the classroom to run more smoothly but we can also set them up for success in life.

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This Teacher’s Genius Band-Aid Lesson Shows Students What Fairness Really Means

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It’s a five-minute activity that has the power to change classroom culture.

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This resource connects really well with HLP 9 (Teaching social behaviors) and also supports HLP 1 (Collaboration). It explains how giving students specific roles during group work helps improve communication, accountability, and overall engagement.

In my classroom, especially during labs, I’d use rotating roles like Facilitator, Recorder, Materials Manager, and Reporter. Having clear responsibilities and guiding questions helps students stay focused, participate more confidently, and work better with their peers. It also makes group work run more smoothly and supports students who struggle with organization or communication.

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While collaborative learning through group work has been proven to have the potential to produce stronger academic achievement than other kinds of learning environments (Johnson, Johnson, & Smith, 2006), it can be challenging to implement successfully because many students come to college without the tools they need to automatically succeed in collaborative learning contexts. One way of providing supportive structures to students in a collaborative learning environment is through assigning roles within group work.

Potential Benefits of Using Assigned Roles in Group Work

Assigning group roles can be a beneficial strategy for successful group work design for a number of reasons:

Group roles offer an opportunity for high quality, focused interactions between group participants. Participants are more likely to stay on task and pay closer attention to the task at hand when their roles in the collaboration are clear and distinct.

Group roles provide all students with a clear avenue for participation. Students are less likely to feel left out or unengaged when they have a particular duty that they are responsible for completing. Along the same lines, assigning group roles reduces the likelihood of one individual completing the task for the whole group, or "taking over," to the detriment of others' learning.

Group roles encourage individual accountability. Group members are more likely to hold each other accountable for not completing work if a particular task is assigned to them.

Group roles allow students to strengthen their communicative skills, especially in areas that they are less confident in volunteering for.

Group roles can help disrupt stereotypical and gendered role assignments, which can be common in group learning. For example, Hirshfield and Chachra (2015) found that in first-year engineering courses, female students tended to undertake less technical roles and more communicative roles than their male colleagues. By assigning roles during group work, and by asking students to alternate these roles at different points in the semester, students can work past gendered assumptions about themselves and their groupmates.

POGIL: A Model for Role Assignments in Collaborative Learning

One small group learning methodology where the use of group roles is well-defined and researched is the Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) method. The POGIL method calls for groups of three or four students who work in a team on process-oriented guided inquiry activities in which students construct their knowledge through interactions with others. Traditional POGIL roles for group members are provided below (POGIL, 2016).

Manager or Facilitator: Manages the group by helping to ensure that the group stays on task, is focused, and that there is room for everyone in the conversation.

Recorder: Keeps a record of those who were in the group, and the roles that they play in the group. The recorder also records critical points from the small group's discussion along with findings or answers.

Spokesperson or Presenter: Presents the group's ideas to the rest of the class. The Spokesperson should rely on the recorder's notes to guide their report.

Reflector or Strategy Analyst: Observes team dynamics and guides the consensus-building process (helps group members come to a common conclusion).

Other Highly Adaptable Roles to Consider

You can adapt roles for different kinds of group tasks. While the POGIL model is a useful place to start, you may find that the tasks associated with your discipline require other kinds of roles for effective group learning. Adding to or reframing POGIL roles can be beneficial in these contexts. Below are some suggestions for additional roles that might be valuable to a variety of learning situations.

Encourager: Encourages group members to continue to think through their approaches and ideas. The Encourager uses probing questions to help facilitate deeper thinking, and group-wide consideration of ideas.

Questioner: Pushes back when the team comes to consensus too quickly, without considering a number of options or points of view. The questioner makes sure that the group hears varied points of view, and that the group is not avoiding potentially rich areas of disagreement.

Checker: Checks over work in problem-solving contexts before the group members finalize their answers.

Strategies for Effective Facilitation of Group Roles

The following suggestions are strategies for effective facilitation of group roles. These strategies are helpful in a wide variety of group work situations, but are essential for group work that will last beyond a single class period, or constitute a significant portion of student grades.

Be transparent about why you are assigning group roles. This kind of transparency can increase student buy-in by helping them recognize the value in establishing group roles

Provide students with a list of roles and brief definitions for each role at the beginning of the group work activity. Make it clear which tasks are associated with which roles.

Alternatively, you may find it helpful, especially in advanced-level classes, to encourage students to develop their own roles in groups based on the tasks that they feel will be critical to the group's success. This strategy provides the students with a larger level of autonomy in their learning, while also encouraging them to use proven structures that will help them be successful.

Roles can be assigned randomly through a variety of strategies, from who has the next birthday to color-coded post-it notes, or a place card that points out roles based on where everyone is sitting.

Circulate early in the class period to be sure that everyone has been assigned a role, and that everyone is clear about what their responsibilities include.

Be willing to reinforce the given roles throughout the activity. For roles to work, students have to feel as though they will be held accountable for fulfilling those roles. Therefore, it is critical for you to step in if you see someone taking over someone else's role or not fulfilling their assigned role. Often gentle reminders about who is supposed to be doing what can be useful interventions. For example, if someone is talking over everyone and not listening to their other groupmates, you might say something like "Remember, as a spokesperson, your job is to represent the ideas of everyone in the group."

Talk with students individually if their speech or conduct could be silencing, denigrating, or excluding others. Remember: your silence on this issue may be read as endorsement.

Changing things up regularly is imperative. If you use group roles frequently, mixing up roles throughout the semester can help students develop communication skills in a variety of areas rather than relying on a single personal strength.

If this is a long-term group assignment, be sure to provide structures for individual feedback for the instructor and other group member on group dynamics. This could be a formal or informal check in, but it's critical for students to have a space to voice concerns related to group dynamics-especially if this assignment counts for a large portion of their final grade. This feedback might be provided through an anonymous survey in paper form or through a web-based tool like Qualtrics or a Google form. These check-ins can reduce student anxiety about the potential for uneven group participation.

Overall, using assigned roles in group work provides students with a supportive structure that promotes meaningful collaborative learning. While group learning can be challenging to implement effectively, using roles can mitigate some of the challenges associated with learning in groups, while offering students the opportunity to develop a variety of communication skills that will be critical to their success in college and their future careers.

References

Burke, Alison. (2011). Group work: How to use groups effectively. The Journal of Effective Teaching, 11(2), 87-95.

Beebe, S.A., & Masterson, J.T. (2003). Communicating in small groups. Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

Cheng, W. Y., Lam, S. F., & Chan, C. Y. (2008). When high achievers and low achievers work in the same group: The roles of group heterogeneity and processes in project‐based learning. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 78(2), 205-221.

Eberlein, T., Kampmeier, J., Minderhout, V., Moog, R.S., Platt, T., Varma-Nelson, P., White, H.B. (2008). Pedagogies of engagement in science: A comparison of PBL, POGIL and PLTL. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, 36(4), 262-73.

Hale, D., & Mullen, L. G. (2009). Designing process-oriented guided-inquiry activities: A new innovation for marketing classes. Marketing Education Review, 19(1), 73-80.

Hirshfield, L., & Chachra, D. (2015). Task choice, group dynamics and learning goals: Understanding student activities in teams. 2015 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference: Launching a New Vision in Engineering Education Proceedings, FIE 2015, 1-5.

Johnson, C. (2011). Activities using process‐oriented guided inquiry learning (POGIL) in the foreign language classroom. Die Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German, 44(1), 30-38.

Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., and Smith, K.A. (2006). Active learning: Cooperation in the university classroom. Edina, MN: Interaction.

Moog, R.S. (2014). Process oriented guided inquiry learning. In M.A. McDaniel, R. F. Frey, S.M. Fitzpatrick, & Roediger, H.L. (Eds.). Integrating cognitive science with innovative teaching in STEM disciplines (147-166). St. Louis: Washington University in St. Louis Libraries.

The POGIL Project. (2017). https://pogil.org/

Springer, L., Stanne, M.E., & Donovan, S.S. (1999). Effects of small-group learning on undergraduates in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 96(1), 21-51.

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Using Roles in Group Work - Center for Teaching and Learning

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Assigning successful roles within groups so that students have what they need to succeed in a collaborative learning environment.

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HLP 6 addresses the  use student assessment data to inform instruction and make necessary adjustments. However, this resource focuses on the importance of understanding data does not just apply to teachers but also the students. Emphasis on providing feedback, troubleshooting, and problem solving with the students rather can help foster motivation for students to set and reach goals. Formative feedback throughout the learning process can help both educators and students pivot, prevent missteps, and build confidence. Currently in my classroom, we celebrate lessons passed and levels completed within our online program. This class wide goal is broad enough that it can be applied to all students regardless of what grade level they are currently working on. This creates a positive goal for students to work towards.

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6 Strategies to provide meaningful student feedback

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Student feedback helps teachers enhance learning experiences and improve teaching. Explore strategies for giving meaningful student feedback.

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I am a middle school Intervention Specialist, at a STEAM academy, so HLP 11 and 12 are what I do daily. Even so, I need reminders to slow down my instruction, or my co-teachers instruction, and focus on key skills. Having students spend more time analyzing a text or digging deeper will allow me to have more student led discussion or reflection. The article from Edutopia emphasizes focusing on deeper understanding rather than trying to cover too much. This resource reinforced the importance of going deeper into concepts and being intentional about what students truly need to learn.

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Making Project-Based Learning More Impactful by Emphasizing Depth Over Speed

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Teachers can help students get the most out of PBL by focusing on the development of effective learning habits.

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As a school counselor, I see it whenever I am in a classroom to observe a student. A student slams their book shut, storms out of the classroom, or suddenly starts cracking jokes during quiet reading time. When these types of behaviors pop up in the classroom, our instinct as educators is often to play the judge and hand out a consequence.

But over recent years since entering the profession after being a stay-at-home mom for 14 years to my own four children, I’ve learned metaphorically speaking that every behavior is a smoke alarm. The loud disruption is just the siren telling you that a fire is burning somewhere. Waving a towel at the alarm or pulling out the batteries might silence the noise for a minute, but it will not put out the flames. Our job as educators and parents isn't just to silence the alarm it’s to find the source of the heat and help the student put it out. When I can look at the function of the behavior S.E.A.T and can identify what is causing it, I can then find an appropriate strategy to hopefully change the behavior. For example, Cora is a first grader with ADHD. During math block she is easily distracted and can't attend to the multi-step problems that ask her to add and subtract. She can't sit at her desk without falling out of her chair and being a distraction to others. What could be a strategy to help Cora attend to the lesson might be using sensory kick bands attached the bottom of her desk, or a wobble chair or even a standing desk. If Cora has sensory input the S in S.E.A.T that could help her regain her focus during the lesson.

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These behaviors serve as communication, and understanding the message helps us to address the student’s underlying needs.