Curriculum Materials
Our materials include:
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Working Together to Resolve Conflict - includes a conflict resolution curriculum and peer mediation training materials for middle school students
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Tools for Getting Along: Teaching Students to Problem Solve - anger management and social problem solving for upper elementary students
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Take CHARGE! - anger management & social problem solving for middle school students
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Managing Difficult Behaviors Through Problem Solving Instruction: Strategies for the Elementary Classroom (Stephen W. Smith & Ann P. Daunic) published by Allyn & Bacon.
By the time they are in middle school, adolescents have learned a variety of responses to conflict from observing and interacting with family and friends. This process usually takes place without much reflection or conscious awareness. Learning how to deal with frustration and anger, communicate effectively, and respect others' viewpoints are topics that often are not "front and center" for most middle school students. The Working Together to Resolve Conflict curriculum and Peer Mediation Training manual provide a constructive focus on conflict, introduce helpful ways to respond, and provide students with positive experiences as they learn how to get along with others.
Our curriculum consists of the following five units:
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Understanding Conflict
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Effective Communication
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Understanding Anger
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Handling Anger
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Peer Mediation
In each of the first four units, there are three lessons (each designed for approximately one class period) with progressive, interrelated content. The fifth unit, Peer Mediation, contains one lesson designed to introduce students to the concept of mediation and what they might expect if they sought mediation at their school.
The curriculum can be presented by (a) teaching the lessons within each unit consecutively or (b) teaching one lesson from each unit to introduce each topic area to students within a group of five lessons.
Each lesson includes suggestions for teacher-led activities, student practice activities, and overhead transparencies (or hand-outs). Lessons are "teacher friendly" and can be expanded or condensed, depending on time available.
Samples in PDF format:
Introduction
Teacher Page
Student Page
Overhead Page
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Working Together to Resolve Conflict
Peer Mediation Training Manual
(Student & Teacher Version)
This set of material for training students to be peer mediators includes a manual with or without teacher instructions. You would need one manual with teacher instructions for each instructor and as many student manuals as there are participants.
The training is designed for a minimum of 10-12 hours, usually accomplished with a two-day workshop. The manual is based on an understanding of conflict resolution concepts as provided in the conflict resolution curriculum but includes some review of these concepts before focusing on the structured mediation process. Concepts and skills include the following:
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Understanding Conflict
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Confidentiality
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Effective Communication
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Listening
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The Mediation Process
Also included is a Peer Mediation Agreement form to document mediation activities.
Samples in PDF format:
Teacher Version Page
Teacher Version Table of Contents
Student Version Page
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Tools for Getting Along
Teaching Students to Problem Solve
An anger management curriculum for upper elementary students
This 26-lesson curriculum is designed to help upper elementary school teachers establish a positive, cooperative classroom atmosphere. Tools for Getting Along enables students to become more self-reliant, effective, proactive problem solvers as they encounter the social challenges that are part of their developing years. Its instructional focus is on understanding and dealing with frustration and anger, since anger is a frequent correlate of disruptive and aggressive behavior and is often preceded by frustration. The lessons help students learn how to recognize and manage anger, how it may lead to or exacerbate social problems, and how to use problem-solving steps to generate, implement, and evaluate solutions to problems students face every day.
Teacher friendly and self-contained, Tools for Getting Along lessons include concepts and skills related to anger management and problem solving and incorporate direct instruction, modeling, guided practice, independent practice, and skill generalization. Five lessons are devoted to practicing learned skills through role-plays, and there are six booster lessons to assist in the generalization of learned skills.
Samples in PDF format:
Introduction
Table of Contents
Lesson & Overheads
Tool Kit
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Take CHARGE! provides teachers a means of helping middle/jr high school students address many of the social challenges that are part of the critical developmental transition from childhood to adulthood. It is designed to help them become self-reliant and use a contructive approach to situations that may produce strong emotions, such as anger and frustration, rather than acting impulsively. Take CHARGE! provides students with concepts and skills that enable them to be proactive social problem solvers.
This 26-lesson curriculum is teacher friendly and self-contained, and consists of lessons about recognizing frustration and anger, calming down and engaging cognition, and working through the steps of social problem solving, such as generating alternative solutions and evaluating outcomes. Take CHARGE! also helps middle/jr. high school students to practice learned skills through booster lessons that specifically focus on generalizing the concepts and skills learned in class to situations the students encounter in their own lives.
Samples in PDF format:
Table of Contents
Lesson
Student Worksheet
Role Play
Power Practice
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Stephen W. Smith, Ph.D. & Ann P. Daunic, Ph.D.
This research-supported text provides a comprehensive and practical approach for teaching elementary school students at a critical developmental stage to use social problem solving to self-manage their behavior. The book contains practical and easy-to-implement ideas for teachers and other school professionals as they help students learn this process. The approach can be used in regular or special education classrooms, small groups, or individual counseling sessions.
Features
- The practical application of social problem solving in school situations is blended with a clear description of the theory and research underlying the basic concepts, providing readers with information about how and why social problem solving can work in schools.
- Real world examples of teaching situations throughout the text encourage student understanding of when and how to apply major concepts and techniques presented in each chapter.
- A classroom-related scenario opens appropriate chapters, helping readers see the need for the teaching strategies described within.
- Boxed features throughout the text highlight important concepts and provide readers with visual representations of basic concepts.
- Learning objectives at the beginning of each chapter provide readers with easy advance access to the major chapter concepts.
- Frequently Asked Questions at the end of each chapter provide readers information beyond the narrative and address the most common reader questions.
