Planning for Learning Assignment

Co-creators: Adrienne Forseth, Amie Sutton, Avery Hunt, and Leanne Reiman

USC2.6 (Health Education)

Examine how communities benefit from the diversity of their individual community members. 

b. Investigate what it means to be special and unique (e.g., families, interests, talents, culture, gifts, faith, feelings, desires, learning styles, confidences, appearances).

c. Develop an awareness of differences in routines, practices, and/or preferences among people.

h. Participate in experiences where being treated as a unique and valued member of the class with particular abilities and personal qualities are recognized and appreciated.

Cross-curricular connections:

CC2.1 (English Language Arts)

Compose and create a range of visual, multimedia, oral, and written texts that explore:

• identity (e.g., My Family and Friends)
• community (e.g., Our Community)
• social responsibility (e.g., TV Ads for Children) and make connections to own life.

IN2.1 (Social Studies)

Determine characteristics of a community.

CH 2.1 (Arts Education)

Identify key features of arts and cultural traditions in your own community.

Students will understand…

• I can understand what it means to be special and unique.
• I can understand that there are differences within communities, families, interests, cultures, etc.
• I can treat others with respect and kindness.

• What does diversity mean to you?
• What makes you unique and special?
• How can we treat others with respect?

• Students will know who is in their community and who they are.
• Students will know there are differences within their community.

• Students will be able to recognize and celebrate differences within their community.
• Students will be able to create connections within themselves and other peers in their classroom, and the broader community.

Peer Assessment: Have students assess/share each other’s posters through responding to the following questions:

• One key takeaway about diversity
• Two questions they had while they were exploring diversity within the community
• Three things they like/learned about their poster

Formative Assessment:

• Before beginning the creating an identity poster activity, the teacher will ask the students if anyone has any questions about the who, what, where, when, why, or how of the activity.
• During the activity, the teacher will stop by each student’s desk, and compliment and encourage them on their work.
• The teacher will be observing/listening to students’ conversations from the peer assessment (1-2-3’s) to determine if learning about diversity in the community is taking place.

We thought that we could employ the following three Instructional Strategies during this learning experience:

Collaborative Learning: Students will be working together when they share their identity posters, and their 1-2-3’s while paired with a partner.

Inquiry-based learning: Students will be asking questions, and discovering new information on their own as they learn about diversity through their poster creations.

Differentiation: Adapting to the students by letting them use pictures off of the internet, and from  magazines, rather than only drawing the pictures.

We will welcome the students to our Health Education class, and explain that we will be learning about diversity today! We will begin the class by watching the following video: What Makes Us Unique? Our First Talk About Diversity, presented by Brenda Sewell. It is located at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2WEr3jLAlk

There will be a teacher-led class discussion after watching the video, with the following open-ended question: What was one thing that stood out to you in the video?

As an engagement tool we would play culturally diverse music from the communities our students, as well as the educators,  belong to. In doing this it is the goal of inspiration for their starting point in the creation of their poster in conjunction with the video resource we have provided.  

Development:                                              Time: 30 mins

 Students will be asked to create an identity poster that represents themselves including: their interests/hobbies, where they are from, their culture, their family/friends, etc.. They could draw pictures, write words or whatever they prefer to represent these things in their lives on paper. They can also colour their poster or attach images to it from other sources. The teacher can ask the students engaging questions such as the following:

• What do you like to do for fun?
• What makes you happy/brings a smile to your face?
• Where were you born?
• What is your favourite song?
• What is your favourite food?
• What is your favourite TV show/movie?
• Who do you live with?

Let the students know that everyone’s family is different, and that is okay.

 Closure:                                                     Time: 10 mins

For our closure we will invite the students to explain their completed poster to a partner. While engaging in conversation with peers about their poster, the hope is to show students the importance of their peers having different interests and life stories as the student identity posters will show diversity within the classroom. Everyone deserves to be respected, despite the differences they may discover among their peers. They may even see some similarities among their fellow classmates. After the students are finished presenting, they will share their 1-2-3’s* with their partner regarding each other’s finished poster. Hopefully, this will engage conversation involving diversity and uniqueness!

*1-2-3’s:

• One key takeaway about diversity
• Two questions they had while they were exploring diversity within the community
• Three things they like/learned about their poster

At the end of the class the students will hand in their poster to the teacher as an exit slip from the lesson. While they are doing this, we will thank each of our students for creating a poster, and for sharing with one another throughout the process. We will also let the students know that we are looking forward to viewing each of their identity posters, and that we will be displaying their identity posters on our classroom walls.

• Poster paper
• Pencils, Markers, Pencil Crayons, Crayons
• Cultural Music 
• Computer, Smartboard and Projector to access the video and the music
• Scissors
• Glue

 Possible Adaptations/

Differentiation:

• Using images off of the internet or found in magazines.

 Management Strategies:

• Remind students to be respectful of other students’ interests and work.

 Safety Considerations:

• Remind our students to be careful when using scissors.
• Remind our students to be careful when using glue, and let them know that we will assist any student who is uncomfortable using any of the materials provided for the creating the identity poster.
• We may need to help the students if they are moving their desk to sit next to a partner.

As a professional development goal, we want to ensure that this lesson and all of our lessons reflect the understanding that we are unique individuals, and we can connect through our similarities, and through our differences.