Special Education Project
Emotional Awareness and You!
An activity built around a classroom pet and the impacts it has on learning with sound planning.
This activity is aimed at working with students to develop social-emotional skills in a real-world environment. While designed around special education, it is intended to be accessible to all students at the age level. This activity starts as hands-on with teacher input as students develop the necessary skills required. The overall goal is for students to complete the assigned roles independently, with teachers only acting as observers.
This activity is currently ongoing in my L2 class and is working great.
Summary
This activity starts as a controlled introduction to animal care and the impacts of emotions on daily activities. The goal is to learn about their emotions, their implications for those around them, and positive social skills. Students will be given various tasks relating to animal care and play, with regular assessments to establish progress and areas for modification.
The results should have students display empathy, positive team skills and the ability to be reflective with their own emotions.
This breakdown will cover the entire project, goals, and activities planned to meet the targets.
Goal
Students will improve their ability to work with others and manage their own emotions and critical thinking skills. The students will learn to care for the class pet independently, track changes in behaviour or environment and report on independent findings from home visits.
STEAM Design Layout
The goal behind my project is an overall revamp of a classroom environment with modifications geared towards social-emotional learning at its core.
Activities will be built around being inclusive and constantly be in use to maximize the impact.
Design Theory
The activities are planned to be accessible to students with different social-emotional levels and work with students struggling with emotional learning disabilities in a safe environment for growth. The activity is designed around L1 learners (Can be done in any language) but can be modified to suit students in L2 languages.
Target Group
These activities are designed for early childhood to kindergarten (4 – 6 years old) in an L1 learning environment. The core activity plan was designed for students in special education and modified to suit students in an L2 environment.
Core Concept
The STEAM activities will be designed around a classroom pet as a sub-theme for student reference, with the central theme addressing the goals outlined by the teaching plan. The activity duration will be set to a single semester, with student progress monitored during activities. After the semester has ended, the activity can be modified according to the results to increase growth or more independence with student activities.
Real-World Skills being targeted
• Self-Awareness
• Self-Management
• Social Awareness
• Relationship Skills
• Responsible Decision-Making
There will be a series of linked activities in this project, which will be used in tandem to achieve the outlined goal.
Activity Plans
How the activities line up to the STEAM application:
Science
Animal Diet, Behavioural Patterns, Maintenance
TECHNOLOGY
Feeding plans
ENGINEERING
Cage Design, Maze Play
ART
Hamster Snack Craft, Maze Play, My Pet, Cage Design
MATH
Growth Charts, Feeding plans
Activity Lesson Outline
Animal Diet
Behavioural Patterns
Feeding Plans
Cage Design and Layout
Maze Play
Hamster Snack Craft
Growth Charts
My Pet
Maintenance
Supporting Activities
Feelings Tracker
The classroom will have a feelings board where students will have a picture of their faces and several different emotion zones. They'll be able to freely move their picture to different spaces as their feelings change. During classroom activities, rewards, chores and group sessions, the teacher will ask students to reflect on their feeling position and if they have noticed any changes.
Set Rules
Each activity will have clearly defined rules. In addition, the classroom pet will have handling, hygiene and safety rules. Students will need to wash their hands before and after handling any pet-related materials (including pets). They'll need to wear protective gloves when handling the pet and follow the "Humpty Dumpty" mindset. That refers to dropping gentle things that can leave them broken beyond repair.
Assign Responsibilities
This activity plan will include many different areas that students will need to be responsible for during the semester. For example, care, cleaning, feeding and managing each other's behaviours (keeping rules). In addition, there is an additional responsibility regarding reward motivations.
Teamwork
There will be many opportunities for teamwork during this activity plan; the main area will be cage maintenance.
Rewards
Students will be rewarded with their designs, plans and other work being voted on by peers and then implemented by the teacher (as best as realistically possible). Students will also be assigned to workgroups for the semester; each group will have tokens (balls, toy gems, coins or other small trinkets). They will give these tokens to other groups whenever they feel that someone has done something awesome. To avoid competition, this will not have a single team outcome; instead, the class will all be rewarded when any group fills their jar.
Home Visits
Students will be taking turns to take the class pet home over weekends to provide care, record activity and report findings to the class group.
Assessment Outline
Key Criteria
Self-assessment
The student can discuss emotions, providing examples of negative and positive situations.
The student shows growth in decision making.
The student shows self-awareness during the assessment.
Scoring simulated scenarios
For group criteria, teachers will be checking students ability to work effectively.
Track participation, teamwork, problem-solving and group-specific interactions.
Modifications included randomized groups
Formal Assessment
This will assess the five main areas for social-emotional growth during each month. Previous assessment data will be used to track progress and supplement the information needed for this assessment.
The criteria checked are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision-making.
For SPED students, the assessment needs to be modified to suit their IEP guidelines.
Assessment
Self-assessment
Students will be asked to complete a self-assessment on their experiences during class activities at the end of each week. This will be done in an oral format, with students just needing to discuss their feelings, friends and interactions in the week.
The data collected will be used in the teacher's final assessment.
Scoring simulated scenarios
During group activities, teachers will actively observe student interactions and monitor interactions. Scoring will monitor student engagement, handling of conflicts and completion speeds for group tasks. This data will be used to adjust working pairs to balance ability levels in groups.
The data collected will be used in the teacher's final assessment.
Randomized Controlled Trials
Students will be divided into groups based on their show social abilities, with one group being used as a control. Randomize other groups to allow teachers to monitor students interacting in different situations.
This assessment method will be used to improve data during simulated scenarios.
Formal Assessment
Teachers will be tracking data on a formal sheet designed for monthly feedback. This data will track student progress and group efficiency and assist in planning modifications to the structures being used.
Bonus Activity Plan
Real-world Learning Points
Environmental Protection - recycling materials
Animal Safety - impacts of waste materials on animal diets and habitats
(Local Education District Specific) Animal Care - proper care, handling and treatment of small pets at school
Recyclable Maze
Activity plan:
Students will take part in researching and designing a maze or play area for the class hamster.
The maze needs to be made out of recyclable materials that are safe for the hamster, follow a design planned by a group and be assembled for testing.
Student Scoring:
Points assigned for complexity in build
Amount of time hamster spends playing in their maze / play area
Recycled materials used
Complexity of design and accuracy of build
Work Expectation:
Design a maze / play area
Research safe materials for a hamster
Source materials
Build the maze / play area
Test the maze / play area as a class demonstration
Summary
The entire hamster project is planned to take place over the students three year kindergarten period. This activity would be the last or closing activity for this project as it will require the students to be more independent in their ability to complete tasks. They will be using data collected throughout their experience with this project when thinking about their designs. An example would be deciding what treats to use in their maze based on the treats they’ve tracked being the hamsters favourite.
