Skip to content

Conversation Practice

Run the Conversation Practice MicroSim Fullscreen

About This MicroSim

Knowing the facts about a gut condition is one skill. Saying them out loud, kindly, to someone who loves you and is wrong, is another. This MicroSim lets you practice that second skill.

There are four short scenarios, all with fictional characters from the textbook:

  • Aunt at dinner: Riya's aunt tells her to "eat more ghee and stop worrying" about her Crohn's disease.
  • Teacher and the restroom: a teacher asks Riya to stay seated during a quiz.
  • Friend asks about missed school: a friend wonders if Riya is "just skipping."
  • Coach before a race: Sam's coach says his IBS is "just nerves."

Each scenario has two turns. You pick one of three replies. The other person's next line depends on what you chose (the conversation branches), and then you pick again. After each choice, a feedback card says whether the reply is likely to land well, mixed (it depends on the moment), or likely to backfire, and explains why. The feedback is a teaching judgment based on the strategies in Chapter 19, not a score. Nothing you choose is saved or sent.

How to Use

  1. Choose a scenario from the menu. Read the setting and what the other person says.
  2. Read replies A, B, and C. Before choosing, predict how each might land.
  3. Press Choose A, Choose B, or Choose C and read the feedback card.
  4. Press Next to see how the other person responds to your choice, then choose your second reply.
  5. Press Restart and try a different first reply. Notice how the other person's second line changes.
  6. Try all four scenarios. Then write your own best reply in your own words.

Learning Objective

Bloom level: Apply. The learner will use supportive, accurate communication strategies (acknowledge the care behind a comment, give one clear fact, offer a helpful role, set calm boundaries, and bring in backup) to respond to mistaken or stigmatizing comments about gut and mental health, and explain why a given reply might help or backfire.

Iframe Embed Code

<iframe src="https://aaryavvatts-lab.github.io/gut-brain-textbook/sims/ch19-conversation-practice/main.html" height="512px" width="100%" scrolling="no"></iframe>

Lesson Plan

Grade level: 9 to 12 (health, biology, psychology, or advisory periods)

Duration: 25 to 30 minutes

Activity:

  1. Warm-up (4 minutes). Ask students to write, privately, about a time someone gave them health advice that was well-meant but wrong. How did they respond?
  2. Explore (10 minutes). In pairs, students play the Aunt at dinner and Coach scenarios, trying at least two different first replies in each and recording how the other person's second line changed.
  3. Discuss (6 minutes). Which of the five conversation moves from Section 19.9 appeared in the "likely to land well" replies? Why can a "mixed" reply sometimes be the right choice?
  4. Create (8 minutes). Each pair writes a new scenario (for example, a parent who doesn't want their teen to see a therapist) with three replies and feedback for each.
  5. Reflect (2 minutes). Read the "What this model leaves out" box in Chapter 19 and name one thing the sim can't capture.

Assessment questions:

  1. In the Aunt at dinner scenario, why does acknowledging the aunt's care before correcting her change her next line?
  2. How does mentioning a 504 plan change the Teacher scenario?
  3. In the Coach scenario, why is "Yeah, maybe I'm just weak" an example of self-stigma?
  4. Give one situation in which saying nothing, or setting a firm boundary, would be a reasonable choice.

Chapter 19: Culture, Food, Family, and Stigma