3.1

(3.1) Personal and social development can have a major influence on both individual student learning and the learning environment as a whole. Identify a case from the CSEL guidelines* that you would like to address in your paper.  Then, examine the possible developmental factors that could be influencing your target student(s) or classroom in the case study. Consider all dimensions of personal and social development, including cognitive, language, social, emotional, and moral development. *CSEL guidelines can be found under CSEL Artifact. Cases are included at the end of the document. Choose the case that best suits your desired grade level.

The case study I will be examining is the high school education case study, with Tony, Jeff and Morris. These graduating seniors seem to care very little about learning.  Whenever they think your back is turned, they start passing notes and text messaging.  Worse, the three boys have started disrupting those engaged in learning.  No matter what you say, they laugh at the students who present their group projects to the class.  Yesterday, Tony, Jeff, and Morris started roughhousing; then all three of them refused to sit down and follow the class procedures that the classroom community agreed upon at the beginning of the year. According to the textbook, these students are having trouble with identity and role confusion. They pull numerous parts of themselves together and begin to form an identity. In their long term search for identity, the adolescents may initially take on temporary identities, aligning themselves strongly with a particular peer group, adhering rigidly to certain characteristics. 

(3.2) Check out tables 3.1 (p. 75), 3.2 (p. 83) and 3.3 (p. 91) with particular attention to the age ranges you are interested in teaching.  Identify your personal favorite ways that an educator can promote a child’s sense of self, perspective taking, and moral reasoning skills.

To promote a sense of self in the older students,  I would "give students to examine and experiment with with a variety of adult like roles." (pg 75) This would be especially important for students with disabilities because it will give them opportunities to examine what life could be like after high school. This will push them to see their potentials and see what jobs could fit those potentials.

To promote perspective taking in middle school age, I would "encourage students to look at historical and current events from the perspectives of various historical figures and cultural groups; use role-playing activities to enhance perspective taking" (pg 83). This would be a fun activity for letting students entertain perspective ideas. Students with disabilities would be able to act out and play with different characters.

To promote moral reasoning skills in elementary school, I would "give reasons that such behaviors are not acceptable, focusing on the harm and distress they have caused others" (pg 95). This type of reasoning is important for students to understand. Adults often use phrases like "because I said so" or simple directions like "stop that." They rarely give logical reasons for their commands, which makes the children feel belittled and may stop following rules if they see no point.