Apr. 29 In-House SEL Pro-D: Morning Session 1 - Staff Well-being and Group Work in the Classroom (Kristie Spyksma)

Notes Outline

Recap from last SEL Pro-D: 

• Who are we as educators?
• Brain/Body State Check-in
• Wellness Inventory
• Negativity Bias

• Who are our students? 
• Stress backpacks
• Working memory -- sticky notes sizes (stress affects)
• Fight, flight, or freeze behaviours
• Fight: questioning/arguing, bargaining, "When are we ever going to use this in real life?", sarcastic non-answers, groaning/noise-making
• Flight: distracting others, derailing conversations, working on other homework rather than the task at hand, bathroom/water breaks, not coming to school, daydreaming
• Freeze: completely shut down/disengaged, not opening computer (didn't ask for one if don't have one), "I don't know", stuttering, not pulling out materials needed, staring, crying, hiding
• The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (Jonathan Haidt)
• Our children are over-protected in the real world and under-protected in the virtual world. 
• Has lots of responses and suggestions within, rather than just pointing out the problems. 
• "We can't expect children and adolescents to develop adult-level real-world socials skills when their social interactions are largely happening in the virtual world." (J. Haidt)
• Goes through brain research:
• Age 5 - 90% of adult size; more neurons and synapses than adults
• Adolescence - Major structural changes (rewiring, pruning, strengthening); not as much "adding to", but undergoing changes; a time of risk AND a window of opportunity
• Benevolent Childhood Experiences/Protective Factors 
• Protecting against Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
• Examples: 
• Feels safe with a caregiver
• One good friend
• Likes school
• Supportive adult other than caregiver
• Beliefs that give comfort
• Resilience Resources:
• Structure
• Consequences
• Strong relationships (parent-child connections; friendships, supportive adults)
• A powerful sense of identify 
• A sense of control
• A sense of belonging
• A sense of culture 
• Rights and responsibilities (social justice)
• Safety and support (physical/psychological)
• What do our students need? 
• Teacher Readiness
• Self-awareness, self-compassion
• Mutual support
• Seeking help when needed
• Can we model these? 
• "These four sentences, when easily said, lead to wisdom: I don't know. I need help. I'm sorry. I was wrong." (Louise Penny - Inspector Gamache)
• Belonging and Relationship
• I know that I'm missed when I'm away. 
• Someone knows me. 
• A Posture of Curiosity
• What is something else is going on?
• How might I find out? 
• What might the barrier be?

Group Work

• What skills do you need to be successful at group work?
• Listening
• Focus
• Motivation
• Communication
• Participation
• Sharing
• Patience
• Collaboration
• Structure/scaffolding
• Understanding of the task
• Kindness
• Understanding of each other
• Some kind of leader (at least a little bit)

Designing for Effective Learning in Groups

1. Assumed Skills
   - Reminders?
   - Practice? 
   - How much of our direction is focused on the content or task? How much is focused on the process? 
   
2. Expectations
   - Be more explicit than you think they might need!
   - In collaboration with students: This is how we do group work in this classroom; this is what will happen if we are unable to accomplish this.
   - Here are the expectations for this particular task: end goal, steps to follow, student roles, etc
3. Barriers
   - Class Profile
   - Variability is the Norm...let's design for it. 

• "They've been doing it for years...do I still need to teach it?" 
• How often do we (adults) need to relearn things for new situations? 
• "Where do I find time to teach students how to do group work?"
• The time spent in the beginning can help students to be engaged and decrease behaviours later on.