PowToon is an animation site students love to use and they master it pretty quickly because they enjoy making animated presentations. The site is free to use and you can save and share the animated videos. This video has been made in PowToon and gives you an idea of what you could achieve if you decided to look at information in this way. While students are making something like this they are looking at options and ideas without being put on the spot. They are thinking about the different aspects of self-awareness, if that is what you choose to do with them , and making a video for an audience. They will take it seriously because of this. That also means they will be mulling over the ideas and information. Understood has a checklist of things to discuss with self-awareness. It has actually been designed for parents to use with teenagers, but there is no reason why teenagers couldn’t use it at school to create a presentation on self-awareness. Sometimes it helps to think in the third person rather than to focus on yourself.
It’s true. We are quick to respond with physical first aid. We are learning to offer and accept mental first aid but we keep running into an emotional block with emotions. We can find them embarrassing, unacceptable, intolerable. We forget we are human and others are human so our first reaction is often to deny the emotions or tell ourselves off and put ourselves down. This video straightens the picture and gives insight into how we can help ourselves and others more appropriately and effectively.
Metacognition: Nurturing self- awareness in the classroom is a very thorough and well formulated article about how to help students reflect on their learning so that they gain insight and self-awareness. It introduces you to the concept of the Compass Advantage which is a very handy way of looking at how you deliver content and then get some good outcomes for the students. Dr. Marilyn Price-Mitchell argues a strong case for metacognition to aid self-awareness and learning:
Metacognition plays an important role in all learning and life experiences. Beyond academic learning, when students gain awareness of their own mental states, they begin to answer important questions:
- How do I live a happy life?
- How do I become a respected human being?
- How do I feel good about myself?
The article offers a number of strategies for building self-awareness in students and so is well worth reading and considering.
Image: Free Management Books
I am not going to replicate what is in the article I am giving you a link to. You are quite capable of reading it for yourself. What is interesting is Christopher Pappas has linked emotional intelligence to e-learning and what we can do as teachers to acknowledge and build in the personal and social capabilities as we work with technology in our classrooms. ACARA supplies indicators and elements for us so it is a matter of ensuring we are addressing those as we implement tasks and content via technology.
Maysoon Zayid. What a powerful performance. Watch this talk. She is someone who can cover the all the indicators of the personal and social capability in one talk. Her leadership in this area is extraordinary.
This video has had over 4 million views on You Tube. The construction of the video, so that it has an impact, is worth paying attention to. This man is a teacher. He knows how to take a piece of information and plant it right into another human being so that it grows. He has very good social management skills which is why the video has had so many views. The message addresses the criteria/ indicators for self-awareness but by the end of the video he is addressing the criteria for self- management. We have to take a positive view of ourselves and push through on it so we become confident, resilient and adaptable.
To cut a long story short, I am tired of looking up what each of the capabilities are. I have a broad idea and broad knowledge but cannot spout them out accurately. There is a lot we have to know for the general competencies , so anything to make it easier. I have just made myself an image of the four areas for the personal and social capability. This way I can see it in one glance.