Monday, November 29, 2011

Mrs. Machado attended our last Strength Based Resilience program at the University of Toronto, Scarborough Campus location.  While we will not be implementing the program until Spring of 2012, I thought I would attach a photo of one of the exercises we did as a group.

This slide was meant to teach us positive forms of communication during an interview/discussion setting.  I have enjoyed the training a lot but can see how a lot of the material will have to be abridged (shortened and re-explained) for our class.  Not to disrespect to the class members, but many of the ideas will be new and complex.  It will be interesting and, I trust, a worthy investment to their education this school year.

During my absence on Friday, some of the material was not covered.  One of the items was the Occupy comprehension questions given for homework on Thursday.  I wanted the students to read the article and take a shot at answering the questions.  The students would then be shown the answers on the overhead projector and they would have to self-correct.  I do not think this happened and will have to review.  Here are some of the images from last week when the Jigsaw groups presented their expertise to the class.

I will have to add the photos another time.  It seems as though blogger.com is not permitting me to upload at  the moment.  There was only one group who was able to score a Level 3 (B) in their delivery.  This group discussed what they wrote and what they would say when it came time to present.  The other groups, unfortunately, were not cohesive in working together and using their time wisely before presenting.  Process is just as important as the end product.  

 

 

In addition to the French Culture and Health class today, we worked on a Community Circle which was inspired by some things I have been picking up from the SBR workshops.  Today, we placed an emphasis on what we are thankful for.  We followed the usual format for our circle, but this time we placed an emphasis on thinking of something positive and generative.  

I found it interesting that there was one student who was resistant to doing this exercise.  I asked him to name something that he hates.  Immediately, he was able to come up with a response to this but was hesitant in saying what he was thankful for.  I think this is an example of how negative energy often dominates how we feel and perceive our space.  Clearly this is an area we will need to work on in the Spring!

An Art assignment, in process, will be added to this Community Circle.