In this career and transferable skills unit, we will focus on empathy and teambuilding skills and how they relate and can be used in the workplace. According to The Pongo Blog, employers want employees to have leadership, interpersonal, problem-solving, motivation, and efficiency skills. Through team building exercises, students will learn how to work together to problem solve, how to motivate others and stay motivated themselves, how to use what they have to their advantage, and how to lead others in a respectful way. These are just a few of the skills that team-building projects offer. But how do we get started? We must create empathetic students. Students must understand what empathy is and why it is important to be empathetic in the workplace. So often, classroom activities are solely based around core concepts such as history knowledge, math skills, and science endeavors. It is important to set aside time to increase these "transferable skills" so that we help foster an environment designed for the future citizen. Piaget, the founder of constructivism, believes that people construct their own understandings of things through experience. Through those experiences, they are able to reconstruct their previous knowledge based on new findings. The idea behind this unit of acquiring empathy and teambuilding skills is to take what you have learned throughout your life, in the classroom and out, and apply them to the workplace as well as other social situations.
According to this article by Sarah Halzack from the Washington Post, it states that "compassion... might be the most important quality an employee might bring to his or her job." These are skills we need to survive in any career and it must be a pivotal point in the classroom. Although these lessons have been designed for a high school career or vocational based classroom, they are easily integrated into core classrooms. This unit is very malleable in regards to technology as well.
Standards:
This unit focuses on social emotional standards as they relate to workplace skills.
SEL 2A - Recognize the feelings and perspectives of others.
SEL 2B - Recognize individual and group similarities and differences.
SEL 2C - Use communication and social skills to interact effectively with others.
SEL 2D - Demonstrate an ability to prevent, manage, and resolve interpersonal conflicts in constructive ways.
SEL 3A - Consider ethical, safety, and societal factors in making decisions.
SEL 3B - Apply decision-making skills to deal responsibly with daily academic and social situations.
SEL 3C - Contribute to the well-being of one’s school and community.
For detailed descriptions of the standards to tailor them to classroom needs: PERFORMANCE DESCRIPTORS SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING
In this unit, students may/will use the following technologies:
Objectives:
Activities:
For homework: Take this quiz. Be ready to discuss your results.
Objectives:
Materials Needed:
Example (may need brief summary of Cast Away with Tom Hanks):
Procedure:
Rationale for lesson:
This lesson is to provide the basics of empathy. Students use their previous knowledge and build off that by connecting with media, their peers, and others.
Resources:
Adapted from Edutopia Lesson on Empathy
Objectives:
Activities:
Objectives:
Materials Needed:
Procedure:
Rationale for lesson:
Transferable skills are extremely important to have, which is why this lesson has been created. Students need to understand the skills they have and don't have so that they can better themselves for the career and life they want. Using the Frayer Model, the lesson dives into student centered activities. It is important to get to know your students, as well as what they know so that you can help them understand what they need to know.
This lesson also uses edmodo or the so called "facebook for education." The students respond to their peers to acquire that instant feedback millenials are so used to.
Resources:
www.gotoquiz.com/the_empathy_test
https://www.pongoresume.com/blogPosts/602/are-your-skills-on-employers-most-wanted-list-.cfm
Objective:
Activities:
For Homework: Using the classroom edmodo group, respond to the topic entitled Songs about Empathy. Responses should be 50 words. Respond to three other updates of your peers.
Objective:
Materials Needed:
Procedure:
Rationale for lesson:
The reason that this lesson was incorporated was to put into action their feelings and emotions. We can talk and talk about how one might feel in certain situations, but taking students out of their comfort zones gives them an opportunity to gain empathy.
Resources:
Adapted from Scouts du Canada
Objective:
Activities:
For homework: Using the classroom edmodo group, respond to the topic entitled Remember the Titans: A Team. Responses should be 50 words. Respond to three other updates of your peers.
Objective:
Materials Needed:
Procedure:
Answer the questions that appear on the screen (What makes a strong team? What makes a cohesive team? What makes a team?) based on what is happening in the video and what we have talked about in class. Responses must be 50 words or more. Comment on at least 3 other responses.
Rationale for lesson:
This lesson provides many different kinds of media (movies, shorts, and edmodo). Students are ubiquitous learners and fostering that learning outside of school really can make an impact. Many of the questions asked in this lesson focus on their understanding and individual thoughts on certain topics. It is important to center the learning around their interests.
Resources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUXdrl9ch_Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S02D9QzDe4s
Objective:
Activities:
For Homework: Watch the following video:
Create an account if you have not done so alreadyCome to class with any questions.
Objective:
Materials Needed:
Procedure:
Rationale for lesson:
This lesson is to enrich what the students have already learned by applying their skills to a group activity. Similar to Lev Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development Theory, this lesson creates an experience that is within their limits, but also promotes new learning and understanding by being in the teamwork situations described in class. Throught the peer evaluations, they are also opening themselves up for criticism, good or bad.
Resources:
http://chnm.gmu.edu/7tah/unitdocs/unit10/lesson5/peereval.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9mdHMtxOjY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI4zp7yeuMU
Adapted from the BA
Objectives:
Activities (may take more than one class period):
For Homework: Set up an account for a blogging website (wordpress, weebly, blog.com, blogger.com, squarespace, etc.)
Objectives:
Materials Needed:
Procedure (may take more than one class period):
Rationale for lesson:
This lesson is to incorporate what they know into media. By putting them in groups, it promotes teamwork and learning about people. They are also learning how to use different software. The hope is that this ignites a fire inside of them to use different forms of media in their homework or projects (without someone asking).
References:
Powtoon - set up accounts beforehand
Objective:
Activities:
Objective:
Materials Needed:
Procedure:
The details for the blog posts are as follows:
Rationale for lesson:
This lesson is to promote creativity and ubiquitous learning. It also gives students a chance to think about their own lives and goals. Incorporating a blog into their studies makes it more realistic and interesting to the students.
Objective:
Activities:
Objective:
Materials Needed:
Procedure:
Rationale for lesson:
Once again, this lesson leaves it in their hands. I wanted to incorporate their personal expriences because I think it is very important to understand your student before you can even teach them anything substantial.
References:
http://www.literacynet.org/icans/chapter07/six.html