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This month's focus: Teacher Modeling
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Importance of Teacher Modeling
Students learn by seeing others practice a skill and being encouraged to practice that skill as a group. We encourage you to model the PATHS� concepts for your students regularly in order for them to see what the skill looks like and how it can be used. This will help students begin to intrinsically learn the skill both individually and in group settings.
Here's an excellent example of modeling in the classroom.
"Using the Control Signal Poster has helped me gain calm at times in the classroom, when I used to really lose control with my students. They see me taking a deep breath and know that it is time for all of us to calm down together."
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Key Concepts: Self-Control & Problem Solving
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PATHS� begins teaching self control by teaching children how to be aware of their feelings and then teaching them to stop and calm down in order to be able to solve problems. We want children to become strong confident problem solvers! These skills are taught in an appropriate way for a child's developmental age. We've included a cross-curricular link for each concept to encourage generalization of the concepts across all subjects.
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Learning "Turtle" & 3 Steps for Calming Down
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Stop  Take a Deep Breath
Say the Problem and How You Feel
Cross-curricular link for MATH - Have students sequence steps of the Turtle Technique and graph or tally the number of times they "Turtle"
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Stop-Take one long deep breath. Say the problem and how you feel
Make a Plan-Think-What could I do? Would it work?
Go-Try your best idea. How did it work?
Cross-curricular link for Social Studies: Use a historical figure that faces a problem and use the Control Signals to problem solve with your students what steps the person took to achieve their goal.
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STOP and CALM DOWN
- Identify the PROBLEM (collect lots of information
- Identify the FEELINGS (your own and other peoples')
- Decide on a GOAL
- Think of lots of SOLUTIONS
- Think about the CONSEQUENCES
- Choose the BEST solution (evaluate all the alternatives)
- Make a good PLAN (think about possible obstacles)
- TRY MY plan
- EVALUATE - How did I do?
- If you need, TRY AGAIN
Cross-curricular link: Role play how people in different countries solve problems and how solutions may be different based on the culture of the country.
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Quote Corner-Here's what you are saying!
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Both teachers and students alike find using the self control strategies beneficial in their schools.
Here are some quotes from our colleagues in the UK!
- "Calming down strategy 'Doing Turtle' seems to have big impact and is used to good effect...also a useful tool for the grownups."
- "I have seen several children on different occasions reminding others to stop, calm down and take a deep breath."
What do the students think about learning self-control?
- "If you want to shout at your mum, you think hang on a minute calm yourself down - 'Do Turtle'.
- "When someone messed up my game I had to calm down. When I had a fall out with my friends it helped."
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