Resource Reviews
Peer Mediation Video Clips from the BBC
Posted by CR Ed on Oct 01, 10
The BBC has a large collection of educational video clips, and some of them are of special interest to readers of this blog. A video presenting peer mediation to 5th grade students was clipped to create a few shortened learning videos that might be used in teaching. You can see all three of them via this link.
Here’s the details and links to each one:
What is a peer mediator? - Duration: 02:45
What is a peer mediator? A class of Year Five children explore conflict and how best to deal with it.
What makes a good peer mediator? - Duration: 03:57
Explores what makes a good peer mediator, skills include understanding feelings, not taking sides, knowing how to help and how to listen.
Seeing both sides of a story - Duration: 01:37
Children learn how to support their peers in the playground to find resolutions to conflict.
Getting to Know You - Classroom Activities for Starting Off the School Year from Morningside Center
Posted by CR Ed on Sep 10, 10
As a new school year begins, teachers and students renew relationships after the long summer break, see new faces, and establish their routines for the year. The activities in this nice packet from the Morningside Center are designed to help you get the year off to a good start by engaging you and your students in getting to know each other, practicing listening skills, and discussing the values that will shape your classroom community.
There are separate sets of activities for grades Pre-K to 2, grades 3 to 5, and grades 6 to 12. They are adapted from exercises in the Resolving Conflict Creatively Program and the 4Rs Program (Reading, Writing, Respect & Resolution) developed by the Morningside Center.
A Good Read About SEL, Social Emotional Learning
Posted by Kathleen Doyle on Aug 29, 10
Readers may be interested to know that the informative current issue of “Better: Evidence-based Education” magazine from Johns Hopkins University School of Education’s Center for Research and Reform in Education carries a theme about Social Emotional Learning (SEL). Looking ahead this year, the magazine focuses on what works in education concerning Implementing an SEL program (nationally and school-wide) and how to imbed solutions for SEL into school cultures. The magazine also provides articles about how societal trends can alter SEL from a broader prospective. You’ll enjoy reading the magazine which also provides a series of short article updates on latest research reports and how to access them. You can view the magazine here: http://snipurl.com/evidencelearning
Check Out this Comic Book - Peace in Our Schools
Posted by CR Ed on May 27, 10
Students in the Cleveland Municipal School District helped create this special comic book created by youth for youth. Through a grant from the Cleveland Foundation, children in public school classes across Cleveland came together to take a stand against violence in school and in the city. The comic book that resulted is found below. The book is part of a larger series sponsored by the Comic Book Project. You can visit the project website to see books created elsewhere and to learn about how your schools might get involved.
Peace in Our Schools Cleveland Comic Book
Conflict Resolution Examiner
Posted by CR Ed on May 12, 10
The Examiner.com web network of syndicated writers now has a Conflict Resolution and Character Education examiner providing stories, role-plays, articles, and lesson plans. Lots of downloadable content of interest to teachers. The author is Debbie Dunn. Dunn is a professional storyteller, published author, a Conflict Resolution Specialist, and a Certified Teacher. She taught 14 1/2 years in elementary and middle school. She tells stories and writes full-time from her home in Mosheim, TN. Find out more here.
“For the Sake of Children-Peacebuilding Storytelling Guide”
Posted by Kathleen Doyle on Feb 24, 10
Interested in promoting the development of Peace Building in your curriculum? This online version of a book of story-based activities is now available in our CRE Resource catalog. The stories help to spark childrens imaginations to write creatively about their own understanding of peace and how they might create their own representation of having an active part in conflict resolution and the peace process. The activities in the book encourage the development, writing and sharing of stories highlighting many peace building elements such as: happy endings, win-win situations, challenges resisting stereotyping, peace within the environment and many more elements. You can view the book in our online resource collection: http://snipurl.com/peacestorytelling
Teachers.tv Anger Management video
Posted by CR Ed on Feb 10, 10
Teachers in the U.K. have a rich resource of videos and other support materials provided by teachers.tv which currently celebrating their 5th Anniversary. This video on Anger Management provides a look at the challenges faced by two teaching assistants who work to manage the anger and accompanying misbehavior of some students in their school. (Note: video downloads only work if your are based in the U.K.)
Teaching for Good Behavior - free OpenLearn course materials
Posted by CR Ed on Jan 28, 10
Readers may not be aware of the wealth of resources made available by The Open University in the United Kingdom. OpenLearn, built on the open source learning platform known as Moodle, provides lots of course materials at no cost. It is definitely worth a visit. One that might interest CREducation.org folks is a course known as Teaching for Good Behaviour. As the introduction explains,
The quality of our teaching inevitably has an impact on the behaviour of our students. This unit considers some of the factors that can contribute to misbehaviour in the classroom and some of the steps that we can take as teachers to re-engage students with the learning process. This unit considers the format of lessons, how lessons are delivered, how to present lesson content in an interesting and creative way, and the development of “engaging lessons”.
Here’s the outline of topics covered:
Introduction
1. Teaching and behaviour
2. Lesson format
3. Lesson delivery
4. Lesson content
5. Developing ‘engaging’ lessons
References and Acknowledgements
PeaceKidz Manual
Posted by Kathleen Doyle on Dec 09, 09
I just reviewed the information in the PeaceKidz Project Manual. The Manual is a compiled work of five groups of Conflict Management students at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. The manual is meant to help teachers start their own adventure of learning, educating and inspiring the young people in their classrooms to make informed choices about Conflict Resolution in their lives.
When utilizing the manual the “PeaceKidz Gang” encourages teachers to be self-directed in their learning about the program before they use it. It is important for teachers to make their own decisions about goals and effort of how to build the features of the Project into their curriculum to successfully evaluate progress made after using it. The program is also designed to be Constructivist in nature - teachers are encouraged to listen to the kids, build on everyday experiences in the framework of the lessons and be ready to change and learn new things while delivering the lesson plans.
Words Work - Conflict Resolution curriculum for middle-school youth now available
Posted by CR Ed on Oct 25, 09
The American Bar Association’s Section on Dispute Resolution teamed up with some experienced conflict resolution educators (Nancy Kaplan from CRU and Kathryn Liss from HIPP) to produce a new conflict resolution skills curriculum. And thanks to funding from the JAMS foundation, the materials are available at no cost. You can preview it online here - Words Work preview.
The Words Work curriculum is geared toward youth in grades six to eight. Through ten 45-minute sessions, educators guide youth through interactive lessons that focus on relationships, problem-solving, communication, and leadership skill-building. The package includes a facilitators manual and a set of supplemental worksheets. Note that, due to the extensive use of colorful graphics, the pdf files are rather large downloads.
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