Fostering Social Skills and Inclusive Classrooms
Social Studies: A school curriculum focused on social relationships and societal functioning. It explores why people work, their similarities and differences, understanding and following rules, recognizing others’ feelings, and discussing the reasons behind rules.
Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS): A multi-tiered approach to cultivate a positive school culture through clearly defined behavioral expectations. This includes teaching expected behaviors, identifying at-risk students, and implementing evidence-based interventions.
Teacher’s Role
Teachers guide children in exploring social concepts through play, discussions, and activities, encouraging curiosity about their community. This involves hands-on activities, storytelling, positive interactions, and cooperative learning to foster teamwork.
Including Social Studies
It promotes tolerance, awareness of discrimination, cultural understanding, and prejudice reduction through peer-to-peer interventions (cooperation), adult-child interventions (mutual respect), and interventions addressing children’s understanding of social relations (morality). It also helps them develop critical thinking skills and understand diversity.
Modeling Emotional Education
Describe feelings when interacting with children, use books, encourage children to express their feelings, and allow ample time for pretend play.
Instructional Differentiation
An approach where teachers adapt and vary their strategies to meet individual student needs, backgrounds, skill levels, and talents.
Benefits:
- Supports student success
- Flexibility in student projects
- Use of multiple modalities for effective learning
Addressing:
Adjusts learning based on cultural styles, language, and special needs through tiered activities and integrating technology to accommodate different learning styles.
Effective Cooperative Learning
Emphasizes teamwork, accountability, and communication.
Meaningful:
Teamwork across different social identities and levels, reduces prejudice, and supports equity through activities like numbered heads together and jigsaw activities.
Assessment
Should be fair, inclusive, and promote values like justice and respect through scoring guides, individualized feedback, and grading against learning objectives, not against other students.
Honoring Student Experience
Creating a safe space where students feel respected, learn from diverse experiences, and improve relationships between teachers and students through classroom milieu, arrangement of furniture and supplies, student roles and responsibilities, and classroom norms.
Shared Inquiry
Inclusive classrooms must function as learning communities built on shared inquiry and dialogue, requiring skills like listening, humility, respect, trust, and voice.
Safe Environment
Strategies include classroom agreements, open communication, and proactive conflict resolution to maintain a respectful atmosphere.
Central to Classroom Culture
Respect, empathy, and cooperation through behavior management strategies, teaching emotional regulation, respectful interactions, and encouraging student responsibility.
Restorative Justice
Focuses on repairing harm rather than punishment through strategies like peace circles (group meetings to discuss) or mediation (intervention of an impartial mediator).
Culturally Sensitive Communication
Essential to avoid misunderstandings that can create distance between schools and families by using inclusive language, building partnerships with families, and respecting different communication styles.
Cultural Competency
Teachers should engage in self-reflection and ongoing learning through professional development and dialogue with colleagues.
Family and Community Engagement
Family interviews (with family members), inviting guest speakers (family or community members), and community explorations (local historical or cultural sites).
Local Resources
Events (cultural celebrations, political actions), people (community leaders, local historians), and organizations (local groups engaged in cultural activities).
Teacher’s Perception
Influenced by their own background, life experiences, personal biases, and cultural stereotypes, which shape how they view students’ abilities and potential.
Promoting Social Justice
Teachers can promote social justice by addressing biases, diversifying curricula, and leading inclusive school initiatives.
Building Alliances
- Teacher Alliances: Creates a network of support, shared knowledge, and collaborative problem-solving.
- Community Action Project: Students work with a local organization to address a real issue, fostering alliances between schools and communities.
Engaging in professional learning communities and collaborating with local organizations.
Ongoing Reflection
Through journaling (documenting thoughts on diversity and classroom experiences) and professional development (attending workshops and conferences) enhances inclusivity. Visual symbols like multicultural artwork and diverse books promote inclusion.