Group Learning ideas....

So, the initial project will be working with 20-30 kids in 2 groups divided by age, probably 3-4 times this semester. We have 3 hours of instruction, 1 hour for lunch, and then 2 more hours for hands-on, fun activities that hopefully reinforce the ideas form the morning.

It would not be a bad idea to think of this group as a CR 'day camp'. Now it's figuring out exactly how to teach, what to teach, and how to incorporate hands-on CR work in a way that is both fun and informative.

Some Ideas:
- Contact Manhattan Children's Theater and Theater Dept. for skit ideas? Effectiveness?

- Have the kids make a video - CREATE content that they can view and perhaps we can use? I don't know if that would cross a line somewhere... Perhaps not if we don't really do anything with it post-exercise.

- Board games?

- Leadership/communication, trust/team building exercises adapted for this?

- adapted circle of conflict?

- incorporate songs about conflict? perhaps write new lyrics?

- Fun exercise - Zen force deflection?

There are lots of ideas to throw around. Some goals for reflective listening and understanding might be to emphasize viewing people from different POVs and then "walking in someone else's shoes" - conflict circle or skits? One thing that we could look at for inspiration is perhaps how different cultures resolve conflict and also how their children play/become acculturated. Another goal is to make a clear link between the didactic portion of the lessons and the interactive (remind them of what they learned) -> interactive instruction? Multiple levels/modes of learning will also be quite helpful. Basically, PLAN a LOT and then see how it goes.

Preliminary Notes - ideas to explore/research/throw away

So this research project is aiming to develop an effective syllabus and course to teach high and middle school students about conflict resolution strategies and peer mediation. The idea is to educate all students. Hopefully this will work as an anti-bullying, peer mediation, anti-suicide, open communication increasing exercise. The ideal end product will be an effective course packet that can be used by counselors, teachers, and students to both learn and teach CR skills and hopefully increase effective communication in all sectors. The packet should be a complete DIY kit on understanding and enacting some basic, core CR skills.

Some questions that I have had concern program evaluations - how can we test/see if our concepts are effective teaching/training? Also, are we crossing any lines with IRB?

Also, after we are done our own 'field work' teaching, should we create a web site, a video clip, something easy for people to access and use? There is a possibility of extending the project into the summer - that might be awesome to polish up a finished product and to perhaps incorporate more technology?

The main creation idea is to collate research and then create a participant booklet with a trainer's guide (a kind of "teacher's edition") to allow self-teaching of the principles so that whatever good comes out of this exercise becomes much more accessible to a wider range of people, both geographically and socioeconomically.


My role in this is to work with the technological aspects, help collate, and to really focus on developing activities/teaching methods to really facilitate and understanding and good use of the CR principles...

Intro to the blog

This is merely a blog to try to collate my research for the Manhattan-Topeka CR project and to then use it to collaborate with my research group. Test Test one two three ^_^