SOCIAL THINKING/SOCIAL COMMUNICATION

Group Members: Morgan McDonald, Rebecca Coley, Jennifer Hall, Jacquie Sahlstrom, Kathy Macdonald, Sharon Guignard, Andrew Nicoll

PLC Focus: Addressing and teaching the steps of nonverbal social communication as means for encouraging successful group participation, classroom communication, and learning in students.

• The focus of this PLC is based on the 4 steps of communication outlined by Michelle Garcia Winner (take social perspective, physical proximity, think with your eyes, talk), and her emphasis on the importance of focusing on the first three steps of nonverbal communication.
• This PLC will also utilize the following steps of instruction: teach, rehearse, practice, generalize. 
• The following social thinking lessons/terms will be used in order to teach the first 3 steps: thinking about you vs. just me kids; body/brain in the group, think with your eyes.  
• A positive behaviour approach will be taken, with emphasis on teaching/focusing/emphasizing the desired behaviours.  
• PLC question/goal: to develop activities, materials, and methods to teach, rehearse, practice, and encourage generalization of these 4 social thinking concepts.  

Plan for the next two weeks:

·         Over the next two weeks group members will develop a list of target behaviours to help create  measurement systems for baseline assessments (these will be created next session). 

·         Next session we will get everyone on the same page with a presentation on the 4 steps of social communication (this will be sent out beforehand for everyone to read)