Recognizing others’ perspectives

Recognizing Others' Perspectives lp

In today’s world there is a lot of conflict and that conflict is largely due to the lack of understanding one another and each other’s perspectives. A perspective-taking approach will engage students in the process of being able to identify and understand another person’s feelings, thoughts, needs, and wants. I chose this lesson because it will help teach kids how to slow down their thinking process and use their brains to cool down before a conflict escalates. As well as looking at other’s situations through multiple perspectives to better understand that individual and avoid conflict. Students will be given specific scenarios where conflict is present. They will then be asked how the situation could have been different if the participants in the scenario were to have known each other’s perspectives. This will teach students that there is always a positive outcome to any conflict and that if we take the time to understand each other, conflict could be avoided.  

Students who start to use a perspective-taking approach will begin to understand their peers on a deeper level. They will become better communicators and be more open to learning about various cultures making them more sensitive to those of cultures different than their own. As well as making them overall more informed about people they encounter on a day to day basis. Having a better understanding of one another’s feelings, thoughts, needs, and wants can help us become sensitive to others dealing with certain situations. 

Some students are more outgoing than others so as a teacher it is important to be aware of those students who may be further behind than others when it comes to participating in groups.

It is important to plan and structure the lesson in a way that helps students make connections between existing knowledge and new information. This includes planning prior to the activity to help students establish the connections. Clearly state content (what students will learn) and language objectives (how students will learn) and ensure that they align with any education standards. I will try to incorporate any supplemental materials like graphic organizers, multimedia, and illustrations to help students understand the content.

I will need to present information in ways that facilitate comprehension for all students. I can do this by building the student's vocabulary around the topic prior to lesson. Supplemental input through visual aids and gestures, and provide students with time to process information and to ask questions for clarification.

 

Structured Academic Controversy

A Structured Academic Controversy (SAC) is a type of cooperative learning strategy in which small teams of students learn about a controversial issue from multiple perspectives. The structured academic controversy technique is designed to engage students in controversy and then guide them to seek consensus. The overall goal of this strategy is to analyze primary and secondary source texts for meaning, explore the term “freedom” in context of the first amendment, practice active listening and thoughtful questioning.

I chose this topic to allow the students to increase their understanding of other’s perspectives, how in society, groups are treated differently when it comes to their freedom or ability to get their voices heard and to open their minds to how others may be feeling or are treated.

SAC is a way to engage students in controversy and then guide them to seek consensus. Students learn to apply decision-making and problem-solving skills when discussing topics of importance to them.

Misunderstanding, conflict, and controversy are a part of human life. By using  Structured Academic Controversy (SAC),  potential areas of classroom conflict can be avoided by focusing on goals designed to create a positive learning environment.

Establish Etiquette for Effective Academic Controversies

• Be respectful of each other.

• Disagree with another person's position and ideas but don't be critical of the person.

• Don't take criticism of your ideas as a personal attack.

• Listen to everyone's ideas, especially if you don't agree with them.

• Change your mind when the evidence supports this.

• Try to understand both sides of the controversy.

• Understand the position differences before trying to reach consensus.

• Focus on reaching the best outcome, not on winning.

How to Begin SAC

• Form cooperative teams of 3- 4.

• Define the issue or problem and identify the two positions.

• Assign each team a unique position, if possible.

• Each team researches their position and articulates the main ideas and details.

• Questions go back and forth among the teams.

• Each team switches perspectives, summarizes the others' positions.

• All teams come together to state a consensus position, based on information and perspectives of each team.

• Each individual writes a justified personal opinion as to which position to support.

To create better understanding of a learning opportunity review vocabulary students may not be familiar with. Also try to establish a connection between the concept and the student’s background experiences.

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Who Am I? 

Who Am I LP8

I chose this activity because finding out who you are and what your identity is, is something that most children deal with at some point in their lives and the middle level seems to be one of the largest areas of development causing identity crisis among a lot of young adolescents. The purpose of this activity is to help students  be able to name unique and important aspects of their identities. 

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Students that are struggling to find out their identity or even students who lack confidence or have low self-esteem can benefit through this exercise by creating an Identity map and brainstorming the things that make them who they are and realizing what their skills and strengths are. Seeing it written down and having the confidentiality of knowing they do not need to share this with anyone can really allow a student to give self-praise and boost confidence and self-esteem.

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Students may struggle with understanding and accepting their uniqueness as strengths  or positive attributes. This lesson will help students identify their uniqueness in many areas such as:  interests, roles, race, culture, religion, values, personality, skills,  family, and gender.

Reviewing vocabulary is important so that all students are starting with the same understanding. 

This activity will assist students in seeing that even though they may be different from others in many ways, they are a very unique and important part of their classroom.

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Speak up and start a movement

Speak Up and Start a Movement LP 8

Bullying is a constant factor in our schools and society. Students need constant reminders and skills to positively handle people who bully or when they may be bullied. This activity will teach students to be able to explain how to use strategies to disrupt factors that contribute to bullying and harassment.

Students will learn the social and environmental factors that contribute to bullying.  

1) Bullying Is Accepted.

2) Power and Privilege.

3) Stereotypes and Assumptions.

4) Physical  Space.

5) Rules and Regulations. 

Students will become familiar with the two strategies for disrupting bullying: speaking up and starting a  movement. By using these strategies students can help disrupt the social and  

environmental factors that contribute to bullying and harassment at school.  Students will learn that they can create a positive school culture where bullying and harassment aren’t tolerated. 

Students need to have the general understanding of how throughout history, people have worked and struggled to disrupt, or change,  negative attitudes that hurt or even end people’s lives. As an example, I could use the US civil rights  movement that began in the 1940s and still continues to this day is one such  attempt to change beliefs and attitudes about people of color. Because of this  movement, race-based segregation and discrimination was made illegal. Background knowledge is needed to connect components of the lesson to the student’s personal experiences.  This can be done through introducing vocabulary, both content specific and overall. 

As a teacher I will need to present information in ways that will facilitate comprehension for all students.  I can do this by speaking clearly and slowly, pausing for questions, using examples and descriptions, using visual aids and providing time for students to process information and ask for clarification.

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 My Values

My Values lp

students will be able to identify their core values and how their behavior demonstrates these values. 

I chose this activity because students in the middle level are constantly confronted with issues in our society that make them feel that they should act in a certain way, even if they do not agree.  Students need support to assist with relationships by understanding how their values show up in the ways they act with others. In addition, students need to learn how to handle conflicts that can arise between people and how to resolve them. Through this activity students will be able to identify their core values and how their behavior demonstrates these values. Students will be given different scenarios to help them think about different behaviors and how important these behaviors are to them. 

Students need to learn that their values guide their behaviors.  Identifying the behaviors that are most important to them will assist in figuring out their core values. Most middle school students have an idea of what their values are, but may not understand how these affect their relationships.

To support new learning I will review or present new vocabulary.  Students will list values and as they do I will write them on the board. Students will do a turn and talk with a partner to explore other values. (Humor. Perseverance. Ownership. Courage. Integrity. Honesty. Kindness.) Students will be able to relate concepts and ideas to their life experiences.

By having students participate in this lesson, they will  learn that values guide us when we’re deciding how to act. They help us decide what to do  with our time. They help us choose our goals. They help us make priorities. They  help stop us when we’re about to do something we might regret. This lesson will also connect information that the students are hearing in our society to their own lives.

 

Conga line

I chose this activity because I thought that it does a good job of teaching vocabulary and helping students to discover and understand its true meaning. Doing research on a key term and then teaching it back to your classmates, helps the student teacher master the term. If you can teach what something is you probably have a good understanding of what the true meaning is. Also by collaborating with different students in the class. Students will be getting diverse responses depending on the background from the student teacher. 

This activity helps students to develop collaboration skills and to really focus on one key term in greater detail to help them really understand the content being learned. 

Students will learn their ability to teach something by being given multiple opportunities to practice the skill. Information that students will receive from their peers will differ. So it is important as you receive information to really collaborate with your partner to find a solution that you both can agree upon and make sense of in your own definition. 

Students need to have resources readily accessible in order to complete this activity to its full potential. Students could be learning a completely new term so resources like a dictionary or the internet could be useful to provide them with enough information to get a grasp of the key term. As a teacher I need to be ready to answer questions and help promote discussion when there is little collaboration between partners.  

Students can struggle with this activity depending on the difficulty of the terms they are learning. To help send students in the right direction in their discussion you can do a lot of different things being the teacher. Try asking thought provoking questions that will get students moving in the right direction but being conscious of how much input you give. As the teacher you do not want to facilitate the entire discussion but rather let the discussion occur naturally and giving support when needed.

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What is Harassment

What Is Harassment LP7

I chose this activity because many middle level students may experience  or witness bullying or harassment on a daily basis. Many students lack the maturity or knowledge of how to handle these situations. Understanding and giving a name to the behaviors they are seeing will help guide them in their next steps of handling these incidences in a productive and effective manner. By the end of this lesson, students will be able to define harassment in their own words and distinguish between bullying and harassment.

This lesson discusses harassment and discrimination. It will focus on the types of harassment that increase during the middle  school years—sexual harassment, gender-based harassment, and racial harassment.. Learning about this is important because everyone deserves respect, and students need to share the responsibility of making their school community safe. 

Teachers review current knowledge of bullying and harassment and how they are the same and different. Students will know by the end of the lesson that harassment is aggression against someone based on real or perceived characteristics they have, such as their race, religion, sex, or gender. It’s about someone being mean or threatening to you because of who you are and aspects of yourself that you can’t change, like your race.

Review with students the definitions of bullying and harassment and how they are the same and different. 

Bullying: intentional physical, verbal, or social aggression. It’s often repeated over time and  occurs when there’s a real or perceived power imbalance. 

Harassment: aggression against someone based on a real or perceived  characteristic  they have, such as their race, religion, sex, or gender. It’s serious enough to create an unsafe  environment and is a form of discrimination. 

Students will be able to identify times they felt they were victims of bullying and/or harassment and recognize how that made them feel. Using information given in this lesson, the teacher will have students write in their own words what is bullying and harassment and how they are different. This will reinforce new concepts and learning.

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 Helping New students

Helping New Students LP7

I chose this activity because middle school can be a scary place for a lot of young adolescents. The middle school age is one of the most if not the most important time for these young adolescents to develop. In order for these students to develop the way they should we need to create a welcoming and equally responsive environment for all students. By creating an environment that accommodates all students needs and wants. Students will be able to focus on their schooling and not have to worry about all the other things that can get in the way of learning. This will also help to create better relationships among teachers and students, as well as student relationships while at school. This activity teaches students to be able to use empathy skills to identify why some students feel nervous when they are starting middle school. 

Teachers need to be active in getting to know all their students on a personal level to make sure that their students are comfortable and able to learn while at school. Some students have a hard time showing when they are dealing with an issue and will not seek help. This brings the idea of staying connected to light as teachers can constantly be more involved with their students' experiences. Staying connected with parents is a great way to find out if one of your students is dealing with something at home, or if they are being given the support they need at home. 

As the teacher I need to introduce and review students' understanding of how other students may feel when starting a new school. By having students reflect on a time they felt uncomfortable in a new environment will provide a connection point for students. Connecting this feeling with how they were able to work through this situation will help the student have empathy for others. 

Discussion surrounding new vocabulary such as: empathy, problem solving, self-advocacy will be beneficial in this lesson as well as future lessons or “teachable moments”. 

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Practicing Positive Self Talk

Practicing Positive Self-Talk LP

I chose this activity because middle school can be one of the toughest times in our lives. It is during this time that we find out about our strengths and weaknesses, our likes and dislikes, our values and our dreams. It is also a time when many children struggle with anxiety and depression. Students may feel socially left out. They may struggle with academics and the need to be more independent learners. Students are expected to be more organized and have the ability to multitask and self start.  Puberty is a time when strange things happen to our bodies and our emotions can be all over the place. Overall, middle school  is just a tough time of life. By the end of this lesson, students will be able  to practice using positive self-talk to reframe  unhelpful thoughts. 

I believe that students in middle school can be taught to reframe negative thoughts into positive thoughts. Negative thoughts can lead to a wide variety of problems, However, if students learn this skill and the skill is reinforced across settings, many students can be more successful in the many aspects of life in Middle school. 

Students need to be able to identify when negative thoughts are going through their minds and are repeating. The knowledge of how these thoughts can impact their self esteem and success is important for them to learn to reframe. Having a positive mindset and the tools for reframing will benefit the student not just in middle school but in life. 

Students can start this lesson by writing down all the things that went wrong today, and then another list of all the things that went right. Students will see that  it’s natural to focus more on the negatives than on the  positives, but they will learn that we can actually push ourselves and practice focusing more on the positives. Students will be using prior knowledge to relate to this topic.

Students will learn that Positive self-talk is a strategy they can use to manage their emotions and interrupt the cycle that can lead to negative decisions.  When you think more positive thoughts, your “feelings alarm” is less likely to  go off.  And when you make positive self-talk a habit, you can actually rewire your  brain to pay attention to the positives and have fewer unhelpful thoughts. 

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How emotions affect your decisions

How Emotions Affect Your Decisions LP

I chose this activity because young adolescents experience a range of strong emotions that can influence their decision making without even knowing it. Oftentimes students who experience different emotions are never taught how to effectively regulate their emotions and because of that they engage in poor decision making. This can be as simple as a student being overwhelmed with a difficult homework assignment and because their emotions got the best of them they decided to give up and not complete the assignment, resulting in them missing out on a learning opportunity. If they had been taught skills to regulate their emotions they may have stepped back and taken a break and allowed themselves some time to relax and come back and see the assignment in a different view-point and would not have missed the learning opportunity. The goal of this activity is to teach students and describe how strong emotions can influence their decisions they make.

When students start to see that their emotions are influencing their decision making. They can then begin to learn ways to regulate their emotions to help make better decisions. Making better decisions will be an overall benefit to the student not only in school but life outside of school as well. They will be more aware and sensitive to those around them who are reacting from an emotion in a poor way, and they can be a model to that student to show that things can always be handled appropriately. 

Students who have emotional behavioral disorders (EBD) will need that extra help in self regulation as well as a more intensive and thorough teaching of regulating emotions.  

Review with students previous learning and vocabulary.   Emotional information goes to the amygdala, or our “feelings alarm,” first, and then gets sent to our “thinking brain,” the cortex. This process shows how all emotions influence our decision-making.  We also learned that our cortex works slower than our amygdala, which means sometimes our emotions are so strong that our cortex gets overwhelmed. When this happens, we don’t have time to think things through, so we just decide and act on the spot. Check for understanding and clarification if needed. Remind students that emotions can play a big role in how we respond to situations. Sometimes they  can lead us to do things that we might regret. Have students reflect on a time this happened to them to create connections of concepts.