Teaching and Guidance Counseling

Have you every been in a situation where you needed one of your PowerPoints but did not have it with you? I have. Being in three buildings as a guidance counselor each week, I found it a challenge to always remember what to bring with me. Slideshare solved my problem. With the use of slideshare your PowerPoints are stored on the Web and you can use them anywhere you have a computer with an internet connection. You can open a free account, upload your PowerPoint, and mark it private or public.

Tags: bcejan08pls, Instructional Strategies, Slideshare, Web 2.0

A paperless guidance office would change my role from that of a paperpusher to one of facilitator of learning, a guide on the side as students and parents take in and interact with the information we have for them.  If the guidance office went paperless, we would save a ton of money that could be used for other services.  There is no reason why parents and students could not register for school online.  Any communications with the school, can be done on email or through our Blackboard Internet system.  Parent permission slips for many things can be done online: registration for gifted testing, changes in class schedules, permission for group or individual counseling.  Invites for special events can be posted online.   Other areas of information that can be put online are:  Developmental guidance lessons, parenting strategies, Strengthening Families pod or video casts, Family Home Evening ideas, things to do with your at-risk students, summer activities, teenage job leads, college and  career search links, surveys, and resource information for parents, teachers, and students.  Information would be out to parents, students and staff in a more timely manner and feedback would be received quicker. 

Students who interact with guidance curriculum on Wikis and Blogs will retain more information than if they just sat and listed to a counselor lecture.   Learning would be measured by choices the students make as they apply guidance curriculum principles.  The students would create a learning community that would enrich their learning as they apply what they learned and write about the results of their choices,and the ideas they have about those results.   I would feel more comfortable as a guidance counselor if I knew that I was reaching all my staff, students and parents with the correct guidance information if we communicated with Web 2.0 technology tools instead of paper.  Web 2.0 tools facilitate a two-way communicationn in a much more user friendly way. 

Tags: bcejan08pls, Guidance Counseling

Service Delivery from the Guidance Office is seeing big shifts:                                     

Students in my middle schools are no longer just readers of or listens to information put out by guidance counselors. Within the password protected Blackboard site our District has set up for me for guidance curriculum, we have Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, Videocasts, Email, Homepages, Calendars, Discussion Boards, Questions forums, Guidance PowerPoints, Articles, etc. Our students are able to interact with the information we post and with each other as they share their thoughts, ideas, and suggestions for application of guidance curriculum. Because we have more than one middle school, we are able to put students in touch with students from other buildings within a safe internet system. As students learn that our site is a Read/Write site we are getting more and more participation.

 Right now I am doing a project with my 8th grade gifted students on Blackboard. We are using the message system, discussion board, Blogs, Wikis, course documents, etc to learn more about the 7 Habits and how they can be applied. I have three middle schools so my time in each building is limited. Being able to communicate with students through Blackboard enables me to better meet their needs. In the future, I can see doing group counseling through password protected Wikis or chat rooms within our system. 

When I first started learning about Web 2.0 technology in the classroom, my brain hurt and I thought this would be over my head. After only a few weeks of training, I see Web 2.0 tools helping me provide great  service my students more effectively. Using technology in the guidance office is a shift that my colleagues were originally surprised by and resistant to. Now after seeing what I am doing, they want a guidance page set up for our whole Guidance department so they can do what I am doing. The more students we reach out and help students and their families, the more other staff will see the usefulness of Web 2.0 technology in all areas of education.

Tags: beejan08pls, Guidance Counseling, Instructional Strategies, Web 2.0

Guidance Counselors should make Podcasting part of their approach to developmental guidance counseling.  The National Standards for School Counseling can give you the framework you need to start your developmental guidance program.  The standards contain a multitude of topics that you can use in your Podcasting.  These Podcasts need to be timely, pertinant, interesting, concise and show that you know your audience  (5 to 10 minutes at the maximum). 

Ideas for Guidance Podcasting include:

• Students telling their experiences and advice for transitioning to a new school or grade level.

• Guidance Counselors recording interviews with students about Time Management, Study Skills and Test Taking Strategies.

• Guidance Counselors recording the upcoming calendar of college speakers, standardized tests, or other guidance activities.

• Guidance Counselors giving strategies for dealing with stress, decision making, goal setting, implementing the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, and bullying.  bullying.   CAS007 - Bullying: Intervention Strategies for the Victim and Bully w/ Dr.  Walter B. Roberts.  Airdate 2/16/2006.   I would recommend using this Podcast in staff development or with students in small group or individual counseling as you work with the bullies, bystanders, or the targets.   

• Guidance Counselors recording presentations for students or parents who could not attend (this may need to be longer than the 5-10 minutes maximum-it depends on the content and who the presenter is).

 The easiest way to begin is to create a podcast or vodcast (video podcast) of  a presentation or topic you have already worked with for years.   Check out Podcasts for Educators, Schools and Colleges for help getting started.    The Counselor’s Podcast™, a service of the Naviance Network™, features leading voices from the  school counseling community speaking on topics of professional interest.  The CounselorAudioSourse.net is another great site for examples of  School Counselor Podcasting. 

Tags: bcejan08pls, Bullying, Guidance Counseling, Parenting Teens, Podcsting

To be literate in the 21st Century you need to be able to compete, cooperate, and collaborate with your peers in the global job place.   

 http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=d29b62a286909165517b

As part of our unit on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, we are setting up a Wiki site on our in district Blackboard.   Working on a Wiki for the BCE PLS graduate course, inspired me to get my students to work on a Wiki as we put together our interactive multimedia project on the 7 Habits.  Creating a Wiki as a group has many challenges:  Timing, who does what, how much latitude to take as you make updates to someone else’s submission, how far to go in initiating new pages, etc.   I learned that anyone can make changes and that if you do not like them you can discuss it in the discussion page.  I also was happy to learn about restoring previous pages if you make a mistake to the page you are working on.  Wiki’s are not as overwhelming as I thought when I first looked at it this week.  Practice makes things go smoother. 

I was surprised last Saturday when I brought up Web 2.0 technology at the lunch table with other SAT proctors.  They were all resistent to the new additions to the district Blackboard page because they saw  having to Wiki and Blog as a burden instead of a help.  More training needs to be done so that they and others feel comfortable and move forward in their use of Wiki’s and Blogs.  My response is always to ask for more staff development classes.  We are actually, on Tuesday,  having a class that will teach district staff about Wiki’s and Blogs that can be done within our Blackboard system.   I plan to attend and learn as much as possible. 

Tags: bcejan08pls, Guidance Counseling, school counseling

The Emotional Bank Account is a useful way to consider the relationships which contribute to your success. Think of it in the same way that you would an actual bank account. If you deposit money in the bank, the bank pays you interest and your account continues to grow. If you withdraw money from the account too often, your account will shrink quickly. 

In the same way, your relationships with teachers, teammates, coaches, parents and friends can be thought of as individual bank accounts. You can either make deposits to build and strengthen the relationship or you can make repeated withdrawals from the relationship and cause it to fall apart. This is the idea behind the Emotional Bank Account.

 Relationships take time to build, and strong relationships are based on many Emotional Deposits over time. What is an Emotional Deposit?

Unfortunately, it is much easier to damage or destroy a relationship than it is to build and improve one. Making one withdrawal from a friendship can erase many months of hard work making deposits. Some Emotional Withdrawals might include:

We all want to have friends, and we all want to be well liked. Understanding the Emotional Bank Account and making repeated deposits in your relationships is the key to being trusted and liked. And when you are trusted and liked, your Circle of Influence expands!

Please comment to me about your experiences applying the Emotional Bank Account Concepts. 

 This information is adapted directly from the Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, by Steven Covey. Please read the real book, or one of the many companion books in the series.

Tags: , Deposits, Emotional Bank Account, Guidance Counseling, Relationships, Teens, Withdrawals

Bullying.  It seems like it has been around as long as people have been around.  One young student wrote the following: 

“Thousands of Jews were dying, and nobody stopped the Nazis . . .We just watched it happen, as if it were a movie. We were bystanders. . . The main point is that you should never be a bystander, whether on the playground or in a war. For if you do, you never know, history might just repeat itself.”

http://trinityweblog.org/emmku0708/2008/01/23/disbelieving-the-disaster/#comment-92

What is the answer? 

National Crime Prevention Council says:

 http://www.ncpc.org/topics/by-audience/parents/bullying/bystanders 

What can kids do?  “There are effective and safe ways for kids to step in and help others being bullied.

Some work better in certain situations than others. You can help kids decide when to use each method by role-playing bullying situations with them. Remember to emphasize that kids should only step in when they feel safe.

• Walk away. This shows bullies that their behavior is not funny or okay.

• Speak up. Tell bullies that what they are doing is wrong. By saying, “that’s not funny, let’s get out of here” or something similar, kids can stand up for each other. This may also give other bystanders the confidence to speak up or walk away.

• Be a friend. Sometimes kids get picked on because they don’t have any friends or anyone to stand up for them. When kids befriend someone being bullied, bullies are less likely to pick on them. Friendship can also give children the support and the confidence to stand up for themselves.

• Ask others to help. When more kids stand up to bullies, the bullies will be more likely to realize their actions are not okay.

• Get an adult. Sometime kids who are bullied are scared to ask an adult for help because they think it will make the bullying worse. Kids can help by telling an adult what is happening, or going to speak to an adult with kids being bullied. “

What can parents do? 

Standing up to peers is a hard thing to do for people of all ages. But you can make it easier for kids by giving them the confidence and the support they need to do so. Here are some ways parents can help children develop these traits:

• Teach children to be assertive. Emphasize peaceful ways to solve problems and encourage kids to stand up for themselves verbally, not violently.

• Show kids safe ways to help others. Make it clear that you expect kids to take action if they see someone being hurt, or if they are hurt themselves.

• Hold kids accountable. If children stand by and watch someone being bullied, make it clear that their behavior hurts the victim too.

• Get to know their friends. Encourage your children to invite their friends to your home or accompany you on family outings.

• Be a good example. If you see someone being bullied or hurt, help them.

• Build empathy in your kids. If you see examples of people being bullied or hurt in movies, television, or books, talk with your children about how these people must feel. Ask your children how they would feel in that situation and what they would do to make it better. Point out ways characters helped out, or didn’t, and have your children think up different ways to help.

• Help them develop social skills. From a young age, encourage your children to play with others and to be friends with many different people. Have them spend time with people of different ages, backgrounds, races, ethnicities, religions, and mental and physical abilities.

I think guidance curriculum would be more effective when it is presented to students using interactive multimedia and Web 2 tools.  Our District Blackboard page has recently been enhanced to include blogging, podcasts, and wikis.  Having had no training on how to use these tools,  I needed to learn them on my own.  I will then use guidance curriculum to teach my students how to use them.  We have such a limited about of time for guidance curriculum that having my students be able to access information from my Blackboard page, Edublog, or google web page will help me make better use of time and get more information to them and their parents and teachers. 

Tags: guidance, guidance curriculum, school counseling

Sean Covey says, “Life for teens is no playground.” What then do we educators and counselors do to teach them skills to build a good life. I have long been an avid fan of using his book the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens to assist parents in raising their teenagers.

 Speaking of teenagers, Chuck Norris said:   “WE CAN’T MAKE THEIR DECISIONS FOR THEM, BUT WE CAN GIVE THEM THE RIGHT TOOLS THEY NEED TO MAKE RIGHT DECISIONS.” 

What tools or skills do they need?  What is an effective teen? 

Are they reactive or proactive?

Do they know where they are going?

Do they prioritize the things they have to do?

Do they see life as a competition?

Do they talk first and then pretend to listen or listen actively?

Do they cooperate with others or do they think they are better off doing everything by themselves?

 Are they so busy with life that they do not have time to:

•         Spend quality time with family and friends

•         To do their homework

•         Read good books

•         Exercise

•         Take time for nature or other inspirational

Here is a presentation on this topic:

http://tagcblog.googlepages.com/home

Social Bookmarking Plan for Teens 

Social bookmarking is one method teens can use to help them gathering tools to help them make right decisions.

Go to http://del.icio.us/    Create your own account.  Think about what is important for you to know and apply as you make right decisions.  Decide what keywords or tags you wish to search for and do a search.   Remember you are the creator of how these tags will be used in organizing and storing your information.  Create your own list of saved sites and put in  a tag of tagcblog so I can find your list.  Email me at tagcblog@gmail.com when you are finished. 

Tags: 7 Habits, Parenting Teens, Teens