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Getting Back Into the Groove of Things

Thank you Melanie Steenbergen, Franklin Middle School, Plano ISD, Plano Texas – for this excellent TLE for staff and their students!

CONTENT/THEME: Getting Back Into the Groove of Things
Audience: special education department teachers at start of school year
*The group will be sitting with desks in a circle facing each other.
*Name plates will be on each desk when teacher arrive to room.

PROVIDE FOR INCLUSION: 2 Truths & A Lie about your summer break
*Explain the activity – each person will think of 3 statements regarding their summer break. 2 statements must be true and 1 must be false. I will set the timer for 2 minutes to give everyone time to think of their statements. When the timer goes off, each person will share their statements.

IDENTIFY THE OBJECTIVES:
Content Objective: Introducing Tribe Agreements

Collaborative Objective:
Thinking Constructively
Participating fully
Listening Attentively
Valuing Diversity of Culture/Ideas

IDENTIFY THE STRATEGY(IES): Outlines Activity
*each person will be given a falcon outline (falcons is our school mascot)
*I’m going to set a timer for 3 minutes. During that time, I want you to write all behaviors you want to see from your students in your classroom this year. You write single words, phrases, sentences, whatever works best for you.
*After the timer goes off, tell everyone to finish writing their thought and then put pens down and out of reach.
*We are going to practice listening attentively to each other as we go around the room sharing what is on our falcon outline. Listening attentively means we will not continue writing on our own falcon while someone is sharing or interrupt someone who is talking.
*allow each person to share

*introduce the four agreements
*attentive listening
*appreciations/no put downs
*the right to pass – the right to participate
*mutual respect

*group teachers into groups of 3 – they will have each picked up a puzzle piece when they arrived to the meeting. They will group together by putting together their puzzle pieces. Puzzle pieces will pictures cut into 3 sections.

*once in groups of 3 – pass out graphic organizer that has 4 squares each square labeled with an agreement
*spend 10 minutes talking with your group mates about how the behaviors you wrote on your falcon outlines fit into the four agreements
*write down the behaviors in each square to fill out the organizer
*thumbs up or down on understanding task of your group

*we will come back to together as a whole group and each group will share their graphic organizers with everyone

ASK REFLECTION QUESTIONS BASED ON THE OBJECTIVES:
We are going to take a few minutes to reflect on our learning today.

Content:
*Which agreement do you think is most important? Why?
*How do these four agreements fit into the SOAR behavior expectations of students within the common areas of school? (Falcons SOAR; S=safe, O=on task, A=accountable, R=respectful)

Collaborative:
*How well did you listen to each other? How could you tell?
*What skills did you need to implement in order to complete part of the tasks today?

Personal:
*What did you learn about someone else today?
*What activities can you use within your classroom to help students write classroom rules?
*How will you teach your students the agreements?

PROVIDE AN OPPORTUNITY FOR APPRECIATION:
Come back to our original desk circle
Who would like vocalize an appreciation from our time together today?
*Thank you (name) for …
*I really appreciated when …
*What a difference for me was …

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