Unit 2: The Child

 
Guiding Questions

• What challenges do students bring to the classroom? (2.1)
• What teacher actions support the learning and development of ALL students despite these challenges?  What teacher actions are potentially detrimental to the learning and development of students, considering these challenges? (2.2)
• What does the ideal classroom look like? (2.3)
• What teaching strategies can a teacher use tomorrow in his or her classroom to improve student learning and become more child-friendly? (2.4)

 

Timing	Activity
35 min	Session 2.1
x min	Session 2.2
x min	Session 2.3
x min	Session 2.4
x min	Session 2.5
Total timing:

 

 

Session 2.1: What challenges do students bring to the classroom?
RATIONALE:  Just as teachers have lives outside of the classroom that impact their focus and success as teachers, students too are impacted by their lives outside of school.  Life at home and situations in the community can make it difficult for children to focus on learning.  Child-friendly schools work to create an environment that makes school a place where ALL students, despite what they might face outside of school, feel safe, are cared for, and are encouraged to be actively engaged in their learning. Before teachers and schools can do this, however, it is important to be aware of the multitude of vulnerabilities that children may bring to the classroom.

This puts a lot of pressure on teachers and schools because every child is different and some children, and often entire communities, face real hardships that make it difficult to make education the primary focus.   Unit 1 focuses on the teacher and his or her mindset and well-being.  Having a good command of these things is critical because a teacher faces the daily challenge of meeting the needs of each student in the classroom – not an easy task.  In this first section of Unit 2, the group will consider the ideal conditions for learning, the vulnerabilities that children face that make this difficult (in their communities specifically) and will learn strategies for creating welcoming, loving, inclusive environments for their students.

 

Session Goals:

• Generate a list of challenges that students bring the classroom both collectively and individually.
• Identify how these challenges may impact learning. 

 

Outline and Timing:

Timing	Activity
35 min	Think-Pair-Share
Total timing:  35 minutes

 

Materials:

Individual graphic organizer

Poster paper

Marker

Pens 

 

Preparing for the Session:

Have poster paper hung up on wall or board, ready to go.

Consider some of the challenges that affect students in the communities of the teachers participating in the program - so that you can assist and push their thinking.

 

Facilitating the Session:

Open up the day's session by reminding teachers of yesterdays events and setting up a clear picture of where they are going today.  You may want to say something like:

Yesterday, you reflected on yourselves, your teaching practices, and the things in your lives that prevent you from being the best teachers that you can be.  Today's sessions will focus on the children or the students - the challenges that they face, the "stuff" that they bring to school that may prevent them from learning and developing to their full capactity, and the strategies that you as teachers can implement in your classrooms to combat some of the challenges and to create a safe space that allows children to flourish.

 

Introduce first activity, with something along the lines of:

We will begin by brainstorming some of the challenges that your students face both as a whole and individually.  As you do this, I want you to think about the Life Maps you created yesterday.  For how many of your students could you anticipate some of the major events on their life maps?  You will begin by independently generating a list of common challenges that all your students face in one column and a list of unique challenges that some of your students face in another column.  For example, in the first column I might put "poverty" if all my students typically come from impoverished neighborhoods or I might put a negative effect of poverty such as "no shoes" or "poor health".  In the second column, I might put "deaf" if one of my students cannot hear or "orphan" if I had a student who is an orphan and I believe that might pose challenges to them in their life.  Be sure that if you write a challenge that you can explain how this challenge may present problems in the classroom for the student, the class, the teacher or everyone.

Any questions?

 

Provide participants with five minutes of silent, independent brainstorming.  Walk around the room and ask questions of those who seem stuck (they aren't writing).  Questions you may ask: 

What type of neighborhoods do your students come from?  What do you know about their families, their parents, their homes, their communities?  How many boys are in your class?  Girls?  Do they always have the proper uniform and the proper school supplies?  Do any of them have disabilities?  (Some disabilities teachers may not know about, so you may want to ask - Do any of your students seem to have difficulty learning or understanding concepts that others grasp quickly?)

 

When the five minutes have passed, instruct participants to get into pairs and share their lists.  Participants should add new ideas shared by their partnern to their own list.  Allow two minutes and then ask participants to find a new partner and repeat the process.

 

Once the time has passed, the group will come back together to generate a list together.  Ask for a volunteer to write all the ideas on the poster paper, as you moderate the discussion.  (Point out that this is always a great way to get students involved - as many LOVE to write on the board and to assist)

 

Begin by having members share challenges that may be common to all their students.  The "scribe" should write the challenge and then why it is a challenge in the classroom to the right of the challenge, creating two columns 1) challenge and 2) Effects in the classroom.  As the trainer be sure to ask follow up questions if ideas are unclear and make sure that participants are clearly explaining how the identified challenges can present challenges in school for the student and the teacher and the other students as well.  The goal is to create an exhaustive list that the group will later try to attack with creative solutions. 

 

When this list is complete, have the scribe start a new list of individual challenges that some students bring to the classroom - this may include disabilities, unique home problems, gender, etc.  Remind teachers not to use actual names of students or families.  Also, remind them that any stories that are shared should not go beyond the workshop as some people may be able to decipher who the story is about if shared with certain individuals. 

 

When the group has run out of ideas and has addressed how the various challenges may impact student learning, wrap up the session.  You may want to say something like:

This is an excellent list of all the challenges that students may bring to our classrooms.  Yesterday we examined the challenges that we as teachers face in our personal lives that may impact student learning but now we see that students also bring many challenges that can negatively impact their success in the classroom.  In our next session we will examine what children need to be successful and feel supported and will discuss what teacher actions can ensure that students get what they need while they are in our classrooms.

  

  

Session 2.2: What teacher actions support the learning and development of ALL students despite these challenges?  What teacher actions are potentially detrimental to the learning and development of students, considering these challenges? 
RATIONALE:
This question exists to expand teachers' view of their role.  Many teachers have a narrow view of their role and do not realize that beyond the delivery of content, a smile, a "How are you?" and "Nice job!" can really make a difference.

 

Session Goals:

•  
  

Outline and Timing:

Timing	Activity
x min
x min
x min
x min
x min
Total timing:

 

Materials:

 

Preparing for the Session:

 

Facilitating the Session:

 

Session 2.3: What does the ideal classroom look like?

RATIONALE:  This is a very tangible and practical place to begin.  Teachers can think about their ideal classroom - this may include better resources, a different feeling, or a different appearance.  Teachers may also identify attributes of their classes that they think make it an ideal classroom.  As a trainer, it is important to be prepared to ask questions and challenge teachers' thinking if they identify qualities that go against the child-friendly model such as: Why do you believe that makes an ideal classroom?  What if the classroom looked like ______? 

 

Session Goals:

• Reflect on current classroom spaces
• Remdoel classroom space to promote student learning
• Identify additional changes that may be made to the classroom in the future 

 

Outline and Timing:

Timing	Activity
x min	My classroom... looks like... sounds like... feels like...
x min	Classroom Settings that support students and student learning
x min	My classroom will... look like... sound like... feel like...
x min	Galery Walk
x min	Reflection
Total timing:

 

Materials:

 

Preparing for the Session:

 

Facilitating the Session:

Session 2.4:  What teaching strategies can a teacher use tomorrow in his or her classroom to improve student learning and become more child-friendly? 
RATIONALE: It would be impossible to provide teachers with every possible classroom strategy that they could use to make their classroom more child-friendly. This training will focus on the classroom environment discussed above, teacher behaviors, and then a handful of child-friendly teaching strategies that can make a lesson more student-centered and less teacher-centered.

 

Session Goals:

•  
  

Outline and Timing:

Timing	Activity
x min	Multiple Intelligences - Video with Sir Ken Robinson
x min
x min
x min
x min
Total timing:

 

Materials:

 

Preparing for the Session:

 

Facilitating the Session:

 

1. Multiple Intelligences.

 

 

Find the right timing for the story.  Include transcription.

 

 

Session 2.5:  Putting it into Practice

-Review major takeaways from the day with a partner
-Complete graphic organizer on “The Student”
    My classroom ___________ is currently ______________.
I can make my classroom more child-friendly by:
    
OR
    Examples of ways my classroom is already child-friendly
    Examples of ways my classroom is not child-friendly & steps I can take to change this

-Think-Pair-Share
Teachers will share some of their next steps.
Teachers that are struggling with ideas for how to address an issue will first get feedback from a partner and then get feedback from the group (if they would like it)

 

Session Goals:

•  

 

 

Outline and Timing:

Timing	Activity
x min
x min
x min
x min
x min
Total timing:

 

Materials:

 

Preparing for the Session:

 

Facilitating the Session:

 

 

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