Reaching Today's Students

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Course Description
Reaching Today's Students: Building the Community Circle of Caring is an exciting synthesis of the most current theories, strategies, and practices to comprehensively address the needs of children and youth at risk within educational settings. Building upon traditional philosophy and educational commitment with current research and proven strategies, Reaching Today's Students strives to fulfill the promise that all children and teachers can succeed.

In Reaching Today's Students, teachers begin by exploring the motives and dynamics surrounding misbehavior and the desire to learn. They learn how prevailing assumptions and practices within the four worlds of socialization - school, family, work, and friends - actually reinforce misbehavior while interfering with learning.

Before launching into strategies and techniques for dealing with conflict, teachers first learn how to create a Community Circle of Caring - a healthy and positive environment that meets children's four basic needs: connection, competence, self-control, and contribution. By building this foundation, teachers can reclaim youth and prevent conflict before it occurs. For example, teachers learn how to:
    • Build relationships with resistant students (connection)
    • Use instructional strategies that produce positive student behavior (competence and contribution)
    • Instill a sense of responsibility in children (self-control)

Meanwhile, teachers and administrators briefly examine their beliefs, attitudes, and skills about instruction and behavior management, considering their traditional responses to discover various new alternatives to conflict situations. They also learn how to decode student behavior in light of the four basic needs model.

The course then describes specific interventions, strategies, and techniques to avoid and to diffuse potential conflict situations. The course presents these strategies along a continuum of intensity. For example: "low-key" responses can prevent power struggles from escalating; "unconventional" interventions can be effective when "low-key" responses do not work; and "interventions of last resort" help to bring a situation under control safely. This part of the course concludes with promising strategies for resolving conflict and for drawing troubled students back into the Community Circle of Caring.

In the final part of the course, the circle is intact. Using a state-of-the art change process and several hands-on activities, teachers look at ways to expand the circle and thereby strengthen the opportunities for all children to succeed. First, teachers develop a shared vision of their ideal school. They measure this vision against the current structure and culture of their schools. Then they learn how to realize this vision by building consensus, by documenting the need for change, and by initiating the change.

Course Outcome
The participants in this class will increase their knowledge of techniques and strategies proven effective for classroom instruction and individual student behavior management. Specifically, participants in this class will enhance their current knowledge of instructional and behavioral approaches to use every day within their classrooms and schools to productively create a more supportive, accepting instructional environment. In addition, this course will describe and model researched techniques and strategies to use within a problem-solving format to address the needs of all students.

Objectives
Competencies to be demonstrated and mastered by participants in this class include:
• Identify, discuss, and enhance current beliefs and strategies implemented to build a community circle of caring within individual classrooms and schools
• Demonstrate enhanced professional knowledge of methodologies, materials, and theories to be used with students with academic and behavioral needs within the area of classroom and behavioral management
• Demonstrate knowledge of classroom organizational and management skills through various planning, self-reporting, and observational procedures
• Demonstrate applied knowledge of planning of classroom and behavioral prevention and intervention techniques for classroom and individual students through use of planning and implementation guide
• Demonstrate knowledge of and interventions for student behaviors along the continuum of intensity, from low-key to crisis management responses
• Demonstrate the knowledge of various techniques and methods of problem solving approaches within a team setting given an individual student academic and/or behavioral concern
• Demonstrate applied knowledge of problem solving approaches within a team setting given an individual student academic and/or behavior concern through actual implementation of procedures
• Demonstrate the continuation of the community circle of caring on a school-wide basis through the development of an individual implementation plan
• Demonstrate professional communication and collaboration through class participation, attendance, and journal writing

Curriculum Design
Reaching Today's Students: Building the Community Circle of Caring is a 3 credit graduate level or forty-five hour professional development course taught on weekends or over five full days. The following methodologies will be used during the course: lectures, discussion circles, role-plays, brainstorming sessions, case studies, and scenarios.

Course Materials
The textbook for this course is Reclaiming Youth at Risk, Larry K. Brendtro, Martin Brokenleg, & Steven VanBockern, National Education Service, 1998, and the Reaching Today's Students: Building the Community Circle of Caring Participant Workbook.

Session Outline
Module 1: Building Community Circle of Caring
Objective: Identify, discuss, and enhance current beliefs and strategies implemented to build a community circle of caring within individual classrooms and schools.
Contents:
  1. Awareness Activities
  2. Norm setting for class
  3. The community circle of caring: rationale
  4. The community circle of caring: characteristics

Module 2: Caring Classroom Management
Objective: Demonstrate enhanced professional knowledge of methodologies, materials, and theories to be used with students with academic and behavior needs within the area of classroom and behavioral management.
Contents:
  1. Course and personal vision statements
  2. Why do kids misbehave?
  3. Four major theories for behavior management

Module 3: Outstanding Instruction
Objective: Demonstrate knowledge of classroom organizational and management skills through various planning, self-reporting and observational procedures.
Contents:
  1. Creating caring classrooms
  2. Effective/ineffective teaching procedures

Module 4: Caring Environments
Objective: Discuss and review effective strategies and techniques to develop an effective, caring classroom environment for all students.
Contents:
  1. Prevent, intervene, communicate, and motivate students within the classroom
  2. The principles of effective discipline
  3. The strategies of effective discipline
  4. Proactive action planning

Module 5: Planning for Prevention
Objective: Demonstrate applied knowledge of planning of classroom and behavioral prevention and intervention techniques for classroom and individual students through use of planning and implementation guides.
Contents:
  1. Decision-making context within classrooms
  2. Classroom prevention/intervention planning

Module 6: Interventions
Objective: Demonstrate knowledge of and interventions for student behaviors along the continuum of intensity, from low-key to crisis management responses.
Contents:
  1. Review classroom prevention/intervention plans
  2. Anecdotal records/case studies
  3. "Power"
  4. Intensive interventions
  5. Resolving conflicts to draw students back into the community circle

Module 7: Crisis Management
Objective: Discuss and review strategies of crisis management and diffusing power situations.
Contents:
  1. Teacher strategies
  2. Student strategies
  3. Maintaining classroom integrity

Module 8: Team Problem-Solving
Objective: Demonstrate the knowledge of various techniques and methods of problem solving within a team setting given an individual student academic and/or behavioral concern.
Contents:
  1. Collecting observational data
  2. Decision-making matrix
  3. Problem-solving process
  4. Brainstorming for positive environments

Module 9: Applying Team Problem-Solving
Objective: Demonstrate applied knowledge of problem solving approaches within a team setting given an individual student academic and/or behavioral concern through actual implementation of procedures.
Contents:
  1. Individual child change projects
  2. Case studies

Module 10: Expanding the Circle
Objective: Demonstrate the continuation of the community circle of caring on a school-wide basis through the development of an individual, school-wide discipline plan.
Contents:
  1. School-wide vision
  2. Building consensus, communicating the vision
  3. Documenting the need for change
  4. Assessing school organizational structure and culture
  5. Planning for school-wide change

Grading

Assignment	Points	Grading Scale
Attendance & Participation	20	100 – 93	A
Classroom Self-Evaluation Checklists	15	92 – 85	B
Implementation Log/Journal writing	15	84 – 77	C
Two Action Plans (25 Points each)	16
Two Child Change Problem-Solving Projects (25 Points each)	16
Final Exam	18
Total Points	100

Student Requirements
Projects and Grades:

100 points

Formal Assessment of Knowledge

100 points

One Final Exam

100 points

Application of Knowledge.

	50 points	Two Action Plans (25 points each) (Classroom/Schoolwide)
	50 points	Two Child Change Problem-Solving Projects (25 points each)

100 points

Reflection Activities

	30 points	Classroom Self-Evaluation Checklists (Organization/Teaching/Schoolwide)
	50 points	Implementation Log/Journal writing (Including Vision Statement)
	20 points	Attendance/Participation

Attendance and Assignments
Class participants are expected to attend regularly and actively participate in each class. Therefore, assignments are due as per the syllabus to receive full credit for attendance and participation. If accommodations, modifications, and/or other arrangements are necessary, all prior arrangements must be made with instructor on an individual basis, as needed.

Final Grading
The quality of the participants' products (both tests and projects), as well as attendance and participation, will be evaluated by the instructor as described above in determining the final grade. In addition to the above, course instructors have the discretion to either add or substitute course requirements to address specific requests of course participants. They may opt for a final examination or paper that test both conceptual understanding and application skills.

Student Academic Integrity
Participants guarantee that all academic class work is original. Any academic dishonesty or plagiarism (to take ideas, writings, etc. from another and offer them as one's own), is a violation of student academic behavior standards as outlined by our partnering colleges and universities and is subject to academic disciplinary action.

Register
To register to take TEI's Reaching Today's Students classroom graduate course, go to the Course Registration page.