The Good, the Bad

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Welcome
The Good, the Bad the Ugly Connecting with
Students in Changing Times
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Dawson Student Culture

• Karina Leonard
• Educational Consultant
• Instructional Development

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Agenda

• Dawson Students
• Generation Y Examined
• Gen Y Who are they?
• Multiculturalism at Dawson
• Implications on our Teaching
• A Case Study

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Dawson Students

• Not a huge difference in the breakdown of
  cultures over the last 10 years.
• Real difference is a product of society

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Generation Y Examined
Self Importance
Connectedness
Blame Shifting
Emotional Outburts
Helicopter Parents
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Gen Y Who are They?

• 1977-1995 or 1980 1990
• Characterized by
• Ambition
• Connectedness (Hotel Y)
• Different reference points (WWII)
• Openness
• Technology as a way of life

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Gen Y Who are they?

• Issues they face
• Rising costs of living / materialism
• Competitive workforce
• Need for Higher education
• Fear of choosing wrong occupation / career path
• Preoccupation with appearance
• Legacy of divorce
• Cynicism about Global issues / politics
• Less Community (connectedness grocery store
  phenomenon)
• Not able to handle emotions

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Multiculturalism

• Strengths of the multicultural classroom
• Drive
• Respect for education
• Positive work ethic
• Prior Learning Experience
• Issues
• (In some cases) English
• Culture shock / conflicts
• Effects of trauma
• Family issues (expectations)
• Gender roles
• Systematic discrimination / lack of role models

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Implications on our Teaching

• Reflection
• Harsh evaluations
• Deferral to authority / relationship building
• Sharing of thoughts
• Group work
• Demand for answers
• Low attention spans

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Case Study

• Search for talents actors.
• Please refer to your handouts.

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• The Adolescent Brain
• Caveat a question
• Susie Wileman
• Counselling

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inside the adolescent brain

• A VERY SCARY PLACE!

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What we thought

• Adolescent risk-taking
• impaired judgment
• aggressive/oppositional behaviours
• were all a function of

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• Hormones!
• Early childhood experiences!
• Parenting!
• Social pressure!

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• What we thought about their brains was based on
  years of work by developmental psychologists and
  studies of brain volume, (size) that told us that
  about 95 of brain development happened by age 5.
  So, the first few years of life became known as
  the critical years.

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What we know now

• Technological advances in neuroscience (MRIs)
  have provided detailed information about the
  anatomy and physiology of the brain.
• Massive structural change occurs in adolescent
  brains.
• The development of the most sophisticated parts
  of the brain is not complete until adolescence is
  pretty much over at around age 21!

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Dr. Jay Geidds NIMH Longitudinal Study of Brain
Development in Health and Illness

• Participants followed from age 3 27 years.
• 5000 MRI scans from 2000 subjects
• Behavioural assessments, and DNA samples
• Rigorous screening of healthy subjects 387
  children adolescents

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So what did Dr. Geidd and his colleagues find out?

• Brain size bigger is not necessarily better!
• Receptor density and neuronal activity matter a
  whole lot more.

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Giedds work (contd.)

• Substantial growth in the corpus callosum during
  adolescence.
• (think blue wires)
• 2. Pre-frontal cortex growth spurt that
  coincides with the onset of adolescence. This is
  the part of the brain that does the bulk of
  maturing during between ages 12-20.

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Pre-frontal Cortex

• executive functioning
• Emotional regulation
• Impulse control
• Rational decision-making

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Yurgelun-Todds study

• Showed a group of adults and teens picture of
  faces contorted with fear and then asked the
  participants to interpret the emotion conveyed.
• MRIs showed that adults use two different areas
  of the brain to make sophisticated judgments, the
  limbic system and the pre-frontal cortex.
• The teens limbic systems were aroused, but they
  did not show the same activity in the pre-frontal
  cortex.
• I.O.Ws. Teens were aroused by the pictures, but
  not always able to figure out what the pictures
  meant.

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Good News

• According to Dr. Michael Bradley, Lots of
  learning going on in the expanding adolescent
  brain
• Academic achievement
• Responsibility
• Social consciousness
• Music/Art/Sport, etc.

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Bad News

• Teen years that are filled with rage, dysfunction
  and alienation may end up being hard-wired into
  the sensitive adolescent brains.

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Bradley, contd.

• New, unpredictable thought pathways mean that
  thoughts related to actions can outweigh judgment
  capability.
• Teens are neurologically handicapped in the area
  of recognizing important social cues.
• Teens have neurologically deficient controls to
  moderate impulses and understand outcomes.

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• Implications in the college classroom?

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• Group think
• Alice Havel
• Centre for Students with Disabilities

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Group Think

• Labeled by William H. Whyte (1952)
• Researched by Irving Janis (1972)
• Mode of thinking involved in a cohesive in-group,
  members desire for unanimity prevents realistic
  examination of alternatives

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Group think

• Conditions required
• Homogeneity of members social background and
  ideology
• Lack of impartial leadership
• Isolation of the group
• Stress from external threats

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Group think

• Eight symptoms (Janis)
• Illusions of invulnerability encouraging risk
  taking
• Rationalizing warnings that might challenge
  assumptions
• Unquestioned belief in morality of group
• Stereotyping those opposed to group

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Group think

• Direct pressure to conform - otherwise disloyal
• Self-censorship of ideas that deviate from group
• Illusions of unanimity silence viewed as
  agreement
• Mind guards shield group from dissenting
  information

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Social Cliques

• Tight groups that have a strict code of
  membership and ways to act
• Focus on maintaining status and popularity
• Exclude others from clique or worse, victimize
  them
• Lots of pressure and rules

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Social Cliques

• Members tightly controlled by leaders
• Members can be dropped
• Use flattery, humiliation or rumors to manipulate
• More prevalent in high school and among girls

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Friendship Groups

• Form around things people have in common
• Can move in and out of different groups, be part
  of several groups at a time
• Group can help develop relationship skills

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Social Cliques

• In most schools
• 35 - social cliques
• 10 - on the fringe
• 45 - friendship groups
• 10 - loners
• Most stressful to be part of clique or loner
• Clique reflects a type of group think

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Choice theory

• Developed by William Glasser
• Almost all behaviour is chosen
• Driven by 5 basic needs
• To survive
• To belong
• To gain power
• To be free
• To have fun

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Choice theory

• Social cliques appear to answer needs of
  belonging and power
• However, clique members actually have little
  power or freedom

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Summary

• What can teachers do to
• Deter group think in the classroom?
• Facilitate inclusion/engagement in the classroom?
• Help students meet their basic needs, including
  belonging and power?

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• Literacy Changing concepts
• Linda Shohet
• Center for Literacy of Quebec

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Overview

• Definitions of literacy Changing concepts
• Measuring literacy levels Canadian QC data
• Other barriers to learning
• - violence multiple forms
• - policies systems

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Definition Literacy as changing concept

• Until 1980s dichotomy literate/illiterate
• Surrogate measures Years of school
• 1980s on Continuum of skills demands
• New measures Test what adults can do on
  real-life reading tasks

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International Adult Literacy Surveys

• IALS 1994 IALSS 2003
• 2003 data released in May 2005
• OECD, StatsCan, and NCES (US)
• Compares literacy rates in participating
  industrialized countries
• 5 levels of literacy on 3 or 4 scales

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IALSS

• Measured 4 scales
• Prose Document Numeracy Problem-solving
• Key Finding of IALS and IALSS
• Up to half of North American adults have some
  difficulty with the printed word
• Little change between 1994 and 2003
• IALS International Adult Literacy Survey
  Database http//www.statscan.ca/english/freepub/89
  -588-XIE/about.htm4
• IALSShttp//www.statcan.ca/cgibin/imdb/p2SV.pl?Fu
  nctiongetSurveySDDS4406langendbIMDBdbgfa
  dm8dis2

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International Adult Literacy SurveysNarrow
definition of literacy

• Using printed and written information to
  function in society, to achieve ones goals and
  to develop ones knowledge and potential
• International Adult Literacy and Skills
  Survey ( IALSS, 2003)

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Literacy A broader definition

• Literacy is a complex set of abilities needed to
  understand and use the dominant symbol systems of
  a culture alphabets, numbers, visual icons
  for personal and community development. The
  nature of these abilities, and the demand for
  them, vary from one context to another.
• The Centre for Literacy of Quebec
  (www.centreforliteracy.qc.ca)

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IALSS Prose literacy scale

• Level 1 - People have great difficulty reading
  simple text and using printed information
• Level 2 - People are limited in their reading
  skills.  They can only deal with material that is
  simple and laid out clearly.
• Level 3 - Respondents can make low-level
  inferences from what they read in a text. (The
  minimum literacy skills level required for
  todays workplace.)
• Level 4 and 5 - People can combine several pieces
  of information and solve complex problems.
• 1 adapted from IALSS Background Information,
  Yukon Literacy Coalition, http//www.yukonliteracy
  .ca/resources/IALSS.html

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Skills needed to function in todays world

• Level 3 Average level of prose literacy of
  daily materials and information
• - newspapers, brochures, information sheets
• Level 4/5 Level of most post-secondary texts and
  prose requirements

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Average proficiency score and percent of
population at each proficiency level, Quebec,
Ontario, Canada, 2003

• Prose literacy
•   Average proficiency score Level 1 Level
  2 Level 3 Level 4/5     
• Quebec 266 22.3 32.3 32.8 12.6
• Ontario 270 21.3 26.7 35.0 17.0
• Canada 272 19.9 27.8 35.4 17.0

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IALSS Level 4-5

• Ability to integrates skills to read, analyze and
  synthesize ideas from multiple sources
• In Canada 17 In Quebec 12.6
• Percent of those in Ontario in Levels 1 and 2
  with post-secondary education
• Level 1 22 Level 2 39

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Information-literate person

• able to recognize when information is needed
  and have the ability to locate, evaluate and use
  effectively the needed information"
• American Library Association
  (1989)
• One who has the analytical and critical skills
  to formulate research questions and evaluate
  results, and the skills to search for and access
  a variety of information types in order to meet
  his or her information need.
• Lenox and Walker (1993)

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Information literacy

• Information Literacy, which encompasses
  knowledge of one's information needs and the
  ability to identify, locate, evaluate, organize
  and effectively use information to address issues
  or problems at hand, is a prerequisite for
  participating effectively in the information
  society, and is part of the basic human right of
  life long learning.
• The Prague
  Declaration (2003)

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Links to literacy

• Family influence - genetic and socio-economic
• Community values, peers, institutions
• Reading for pleasure, for function
• Libraries
• Quality of school learning

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Quality of school learning

• ? Student family context commitment,
  habits, skills
• ? Teacher, educational environment
  curriculum, pedagogical management
• ? Institutional management Principal, DG
• ? Public policy Ministerial and
  institutional,
• syndical

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Violence as a barrier to learning

• www.learningandviolence.net Jenny Horsman
• A site about teaching and learning, recognizing
  (often invisible) signs of violence past or
  present in our students
• Grew from research on women in literacy programs
  disproportionate number experienced violence
• Creating safe, supportive learning spaces
• Students bullying, trauma (war, gangs, etc),.

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Systemic pressures-institutions and policy

• Class size
• Success for all
• Accountability requirements Accountable to
  whom? For what?
• Standards Whose? What measures?
• Increasing pressures on teachers students

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What can teachers do

• To bridge the literacy expectations we have and
  the average skill level of the students we teach?
• To recognize the many forms of visible and
  invisible stresses our students may face that can
  create barriers to learning?
• To use the resources we have and find the spaces
  in the system to both respond to student needs
  and protect our own well-being?

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• Relationship Building classroom Conflicts
• Ray Boucher
• Director of Student Services

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Relationship Building
Classroom Conflicts
Introduction
Relationship Building
Your Students An un-scientific perspective
Sailing The 7 Cs
Conclusion
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Relationship Building
Teaching An interactive process
At every level of education
The students perspective
Kindergarten
High School
Teacher cares about you and/or your learning
process
Elementary School
College
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Relationship Building
Expectations
Normal component of any relationship building
process
Integral component of the classroom management
process
Provides opportunity to create your classroom
culture
Process allows for insight into students
personalities
Establishes the teacher/student roles
Establishes framework for conflict resolution
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Your Students An un-scientific perspective
Most are 2 months out of High School
Most are under 18, some are still 16
Many havent left holiday mode in late August
Many are out of their comfort zone
Many are experiencing freedom/independence for
the first time
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Sailing the 7 Cs
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Caring
Captain You are the Captain
Communication
Clarity
Confidence
Consistency
Humor
Consequences
Spontaneity
Creativity
Objectivity
Common Sense
Sensitivity
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Conclusion
Relationship Building can be very effective as a
deterrent to classroom conflict
When conflict does occur, having invested in the
Relationship Building process can facilitate
resolution
The time invested in a Relationship Building
process enriches the educational experience for
everyone involved
People dont care how much we know until they
know how much we care
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The End
The Good, the Bad the Ugly Connecting with
Students in Changing Times