Lesson 1: Activities 1 & 2

Lesson 2: Activities 3 & 4

Lesson 3: Activities 5 & 6

See 'Rotations timetable' for further lessons.

Purpose

The purpose is to energise students as they draw out their prior knowledge of Exhibitions.

Teaching tips

The Affinity Diagram is introduced here as a practice for categorising ideas in a later activity. Using and reusing a small number of cooperative learning and thinking tools will set up routines in your class which will support student management as well as further student learning.

In the Affinity Diagram. as students place their post-its on the board, they can recategorise the post-its of other students. They can ask for clarification of an idea by its author. Take care to prevent judgement of any ideas in this process.

Allow about 10 minutes in total for this activity. Students can refer back to it when they are writing their reflective journal in Activity 2.

Baseline data: All students should complete the 'giving' survey before this initial activity. the link is: insert link

Purpose

The youtube clip is used as the initial activity to engage students in the topic of 'giving' and to inspire and excite them about Exhibitions. This activity also aims to give students information about the Exhibitions process and introduce them to writing reflective journals.

Teaching tips

Be very specific about time limits in the discussion activities. For example in the Think-Pair Shares, allow one minute for thinking and demand silence while this occurs. Then allow two minutes for sharing (one minute for each person). After one minute, tell students that the second person should now be sharing. Too much time will lead to a loss of focus for some students. Initially some students may not participate fully but have high expectations of them and build in accountability wherever possible, eg recording ideas on post-its, calling upon someone to share or to share what their partner said.

Emphasise to students that active listening and contributing ideas in cooperative learning and thinking activities will be central to the Exhibitions rotations in order to practise 'giving' to each other as well as developing deeper knowledge and understanding of the topics being covered.

Further, name the cooperative learning tools for the students as they use them. This is important as after a while you won't have to explain the processes of the activities. For example, in a Think-Pair-Square, students will know the process of moving from pairs to fours, and listening and contributing ideas.

Free Hugs official website provides more information.

The PPT provides an overview of the operational side of Exhibitions and will also include a timetable for the rotations. Key elements include:

• What are Exhibitions
• Portfolios
• Creative Project
• Roundtable Presentation
• Rotations

The worksheet should help students to focus their listening, identify important details and introduce them to reflective journals. This inital reflection will be good baseline data for them to go back to at the end of their Exhibitions journey to see how far they have travelled.

There are some key questions that can guide this and other reflective journals that students will be required to ensure metacognition throughout the term. These include:

What have I learned - facts, knowledge, skills?

What are my questions?

What connections have I made, eg to other learning, to my life in and outside of school?

How am I feeling - confident, unsure, happy, unhappy? Why?

What are my concerns?

What am I planning to do next?

The ongoing self-reflection will also enable students to monitor their mood and general wellbeing.

As students finish their reflections, give them their portfolios. Tell them to record their names neatly and to create a title page if they wish as their homework.

Purpose

The savouring activity and you tube clip are used to further engage students in the 'giving' topic and to expand their thinking about 'giving'.

Teaching tips

This activity will be difficult for some students; others may not like chocolate. These students can be observers, recording what they see as the rest of the class savour the chocolate. So students should have a book or paper on hand and if they eat the chocolate too quickly, they can then become an observer for the rest of the activity. Value the input of the observers by asking them to share what they record. Not everyone has to share but create an expectation that they will and then call upon a few, ensuring that over a few lessons, everyone has a turn.

Encourage discussion of the experience in pairs or fours before sharing with the whole class. Each student's experience can be valued in this way, including the observers; it also ensures everyone is thinking!

The savouring activity should take about 10 minutes.

Identifying forms of giving

Purpose

The purpose here is to broaden the idea of giving from giving to self to giving to each other, the community and the environment. It is also to experience giving to each other through sharing ideas.

Teaching tips

To encourage giving to each other, allocate roles of recorder, reporter, cop and spy. These roles are based on the functional roles in MyRead. Once students have been given information about their roles, allow them about 10 minutes to work on the Giving Activity worksheet.

The Cooperative Learning roles are included in the Giving Activity worksheet but are also on a 'single sheet' if you wish to use them in other activities. Please note that these are functional roles and different to the Cooperative Reading roles of codebreaker, text analyst, text user and text participant that students will have used in English.

Purpose

In this activity students deepen their understanding of giving by learning about its significance for both the giver and the receiver.

Teaching tips

Background information

In 2012 our school is part of a Giving project supported by an environmental group, the Southern ACT Catchment group and ACTEWAGL, our local water supply agency. The focus is on action is to protect the source water for our water catchment area. However all acts of giving are being encouraged.

Giving

Giving is said to make you healthier, more resilient to deal with stress in your life, and give you a greater sense of well being. Giving up smoking will help you to live longer. Well giving is even more powerful to enable you to live longer than giving up smoking! See the work of Thomas Nielsen on giving, well being, resilience and academic success, and also the work of Martin Seligman on authentic happiness.

The reflective journal is critical in this activity so students have metacognition of the significance of giving.

Resources: 'Retrval Chart'

Timing: 1/2 lesson

Resources: 'SWOT analysis'

Timing: 1/2 lesson

Resources: Free Hugs Mock proposal

Guiding Answers:

• Create a sign
• Pick a location
• Pick a date
• Get permission '
• Write a proposal including location, date, equipment requirements
• Get permission from home group teacher (they might have concerns or ideas you have not thought of).
  

Resources: 'Creative response proposal' including:

• Creative Response proposal draft
• Proposal details
• Act of giving to do list
• Planning timeline
  

These lessons are in week 4 of the Exhibitions rotations. Hence students will have completed the introductory week of three lessons and three rotations.

During week 4 students will have specific lessons on the elements of a creative piece, the portfolio and presentation skills for the Roundtable. This will break up the lessons so half the time can be spent on planning etc. If the time is too long, they will lose focus.

In this week, a teacher could also be invited to share his/her action research on giving - this is a great example of a creative project and students may be able to see how they can use elements of it.

Introduce the students to the idea that their brain changes and grows.

Show the video the Learning Brain.

After sharing, introduce the students to the Zooming in and out chart before reading the article "The Impact of Language on the Brain"

Guide the students step by step through the chart.

In preparation for their Personal Plan. have the students complete the "Impact of My Language" flowchart to understand how their choice of words impacts others and themselves.

'Powerpoint One'

'The Learning Brain'

'Zoom In and Out Chart'

'Impact of My Language Flowchart'

In this activity the students learn what self-talk is, its impacts and evaluate their own self-talk.

Start the lesson with the "Crossing the Line" activity:

Everyone line up against the windows

If a statement applies to you cross the room to the other side.

The purpose of this activity is to see how words and language affect all of us.

Guide the students through the article "ABC of Self-talk", using the ABC Scenario to cement their learning.

Then guide them section by section through their self-evaluation chart that will be included in their portfolio.

'Powerpoint'

'ABC of Self Talk'

'ABC of Self-Talk: Self Evaluation'

'Impact of Self-Talk Flow Chart'

As a culmination of their language rotation the students will complete a personal plan regarding their self-talk and use of language.

'Powerpoint'

'Personal Plan'

'Positive Emotion Powerpoint Lesson 1'

'Quiz sheet for students'

Affinity Diagram

The Affinity diagram is designed for groups of students to collect data and to sort it in a short period of time by looking for similarities and relationships.

'Affinity Diagram'

Flow Diagrams

Flow Chart diagrams are useful in examining linear cause-and-effect processes and other processes that unfold sequentially. The student must be able to identify the first step in the process, all of the resulting stages in the procedure as they unfold, and the outcome (the final stage). In this process, the student realises how one step leads to the next in the process, and eventually, to the outcome. They can be used for preliminary planning or, with appropriate annotations, they can represent a timeline or final action plan.

'Generating Positive Emotions' sheet

Sociogram

A literary sociogram is a graphic organiser that represents the relationships among characters in a literary text. In a sociogram, the central character is placed at the centre of the page and the other characters are placed around it. Arrows are used to show the direction of the relationship and a brief description of the nature of the relationship is placed alongside each arrow. Students manipulate pieces of paper with the names of characters, until they feel they have arranged them in the best way to reflect their understanding of the text. Then the names can be attached to a piece of paper and the rest of the sociogram devised. A number of conventions may be useful in developing sociograms:

• Place the central character/s at the centre of the diagram.
• Let the physical distance between characters reflect the perceived psychological distance between characters.
• Let the size of the shape representing a character vary with (a) the importance, or (b) the power of the character.
• Show the direction of a relationship by an arrow, and its nature by a brief label.
• Represent substantiated relationships by a solid line and inferred relationships by a broken line.
• Circle active characters with a solid line. Circle significantly absent characters with a broken line
• Place the characters who support the main character on one side of a dividing line, and antagonistic characters on the other (goodies vs baddies).

When working with simple stories, one sociogram may be enough to capture the relationships. With longer or more complex stories, a series of diagrams will help to capture the changing relationships. Students can work independently and then share their sociograms or small groups of students can work collaboratively.

Younger students can use pictures of characters and word cards to construct their sociograms. Software such as Inspiration or MindMan could also be used. Sociograms can be used to help explore power relationships implied in non-fiction texts such as newspaper reports and feature articles, aiding in the development of critical literacy skills. Listening carefully to students’ explanations of their sociograms helps to provide insight into their comprehension and their ability to make inferences from texts.

'Sociogram'

'Positive Relationships Powerpoint'

Comparison Chart

Identify the similarities and differences between two things.

'Support Model Printout'

Cause and Effect Pattern Organiser

Create a cause and effect diagram, in which a number of causes contribute to creating an effect.

'Cause and Effect Pattern Organiser'

1) "Find Someone in this Class Who . . . " Scavenger Hunt

A scavenger hunt is an easy way to get students out of their seats, talking and interacting within minutes! The teacher can easily create a sheet (there are many variations on the web) listing several categories with a line next to each one. Then students circulate and must find someone who has experienced each category. (For example, "Has been to the ocean," "Has a brother and a sister" or "Has broken a bone.") The student must ask for their classmate's name and write it on the line next to the category. The teacher could collect the sheets, choose different items to share and, depending upon the class and comfort level, ask students to share more details about a specific experience.

2) Two Truths and a Lie

This activity is commonly used as an "icebreaker" and works great with students who don't know a lot about each other. The teacher first models the activity by writing down three statements about himself/herself on an index card and explaining that two of the statements are true, but one is a lie. (For example, "I can play the guitar" or "I was born in New York City.") Students can talk in pairs and guess which one is the "lie." Then each student writes two truths and one lie on an index card. Students can share their statements in pairs, small groups or to the entire class and take turns guessing each other's lies. The teacher can facilitate a follow-up discussion by asking students to share more about their "truths" either by speaking or in writing.

3) Four Squares

The Four Squares activity helps students get to know each other better, while getting both writing and speaking practice. The teacher models how to fold a piece of paper into four boxes and numbers them 1, 2, 3 and 4. Students then write a different category/topic next to the number at the top of each box. The categories could include: family, what I like about school, what I don't like about school, places I've lived, my favorite movie/why, etc. Students are given time to write about each category and then asked to stand up. The teacher then instructs students to share their "Box Ones" with a partner, then "Box Twos" with a different partner, and so on. This activity could be varied in multiple ways -- different topics to write about, number of boxes, how it is shared, etc. It could also be used at any point during the year. For example, it could be used at the end of the semester with a box for the student's biggest accomplishment, one for the biggest challenge, one for goals for the next semester, etc.

'Positive Relationships - Journal Reflection Sheet'

'Three Different Lives Information'

You will need either Butcher's Paper or A3 - something that a poster can be drawn up on.

'Living a Full Life PowerPoint'

Predict, Explore, Reflect

Select at least one question from each section or create your own. After viewing or reading the text, write your responses.

'Predict, Explore, Reflect sheet'

'Giving Makes Us Happy'

'Frayer Model'

'Gratitude Journal'

'Flourishing PowerPoint'

• Define Up: What or bigger idea or larger group of concepts, does the concept belong to? (The parent or parents of the concept.)
  
• Define Against: What are the other concepts in its group? How is this concept similar or different to these concepts? (The concept’s siblings.)
• Define Down: What are examples or instances of this concept? What does the concept include or consist of? (The children of the concept.)

'Define Up, Against, Down sheet'

Concept Organiser

Create a concept graphic organiser:

• Name the concept, putting it in a circle at the middle of the page.
• Connect it with Characteristics, in boxes linked to the concept with lines.
• Provide Examples of each characteristic, in different-colored boxes linked to that characteristics.
  

'Positive/Negative Chart'

'Positive Introduction'

'Pathway to Achievement'

Coaching MInd Map

Students are to create a mind map of this they can think of about coaching.

Encourage them to think about everything they know about coaching.

Purpose

To gather what our understanding of what coaching is, and how it can link to others.

Coaching Activity 2

Break the students into 5 groups. (About groups of 4)

2 Students will be aiming to get the paper into the tub

The other 2 students will be observing the active pair and monitoring their communication.

Encourage the student to use supportive, encouraging language to achieve the goal.

Debrief: After the activity, get the students to think about the activity and describe what they saw in the activity. How did coaching help? how did the coach give? Did the coach celebrate when the paper went in? What was hard about it?

Coaching Activity 3

The aim of this activity is for the students to use specific instructions to coach the teacher how to light the match.

You as the teacher need to play dumb.

e.g. If they ask you to strike the match box with a match, actually do it. Hit the match box with the match.

Take what they say literally.

If they are able to achieve the task. Debrief with them

Purpose

To get the students to use specific instructions to get the right result.

The use of inaccurate or poor instructions will mean the desired result will not be achieved.

Coaching is a skill.

There are specific elements to coaching.

Knowledge, Motivation, Encouragement, Communication, etc.

Giving In Music

1. Students will use a concept map to brainstorm examples of how there is giving in music.

For example: Music for different situations (fundraising/Live Aid, grief, sorrow, togetherness, music for different moods, memories, exercise, combat/war, movie soundtracks).

Traditions - Birthdays, Christmas carols, funerals, weddings.

2. Students list listening examples of songs of giving and complete a Retrieval Chart on how the song and music enables giving.

Categories: Physical, emotional, traditional, religious.

Artists & Songwriters and How They Give

Background on Live Aid.

View example as an informative session.

Students complete a song analysis of the song and clip We Are The World by USA For Africa. Use the lyrics for the listening example.

Students can choose ONE of the following activities:

1. Text Innovation: Choose a song that is traditionally used for an event or tradition. You need to change its lyrics and structure for a new mood, emotion and giving context. E.g. Fractured Fairytales.

2. Song Innovation: Write, rehearse and present a song that is giving an emotion or environment.