Using Google Slides as a Visual Support and "Workbook"

With my older students, I appreciate the role of technology as a visual support. Having a screen involved-- not necessarily to be touching or interacting with-- can be engaging, regulating and motivating. I often say I am fascinated by how much my students will attend and converse with the topic when I am simply typing into a slide. We do have Apple TV present in our clinical rooms, which helps, but the same effect can be provided when connected to a projector or interactive whiteboard, or just with a laptop on the table (less ideal but it works).

With one of my groups I am working on problem solving and self-regulation. Westby and Noel (2014) created a great acronym (BEST PLANS) for problem solving steps you can read about here. In an activity I incorporated this as well as Ward/Jacobsen's STOP strategy for situational awareness, and the 5 Point Scale. I was pleased with the group's engagement as I presented a made-up problem (similar to what they would face and probably struggle with at home), and the tools within Google Slides let me mark up the visuals (boxes, making stuff bold or underline, typing into shapes) as we came to some decisions. The link to this file is here and you can feel free to make a copy (File>Make a Copy) to your own Drive and change it up.

SlidesCarnival is a free resource featuring many engaging-looking Google Slides templates you can use for this sort of work.