Module 6Building Confidence

and Competence

Mind in the Making:Review of key concepts

1. What makes learning memorable?

2. Essential connections, dance of being in and out of sync

3. Our role in helping children with state regulation

4. S- E-I Together2

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Module Five Review

• Have your new ideas for creating a better fit you explored in Module Five with the children you teach been easy or challenging to put into action?

• What have been the most effective strategies?

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Module Five Review

• What are you learning about the children you teach and their temperaments?

• What are you learning about yourself?

• Given this, how can you best promote children’s learning?

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Ice Breaker

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Learning Goal

Teachers will understand that children receive powerful messages about themselves from the ways that adults respond to and interact with them.

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Research shows…

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Research shows…

Children’s developing sense of self and their feelings of competence are greatly influenced by the quality of the relationships they have with others.

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Definitions

Inter-Subjectivity

The child has a sense that he has a mind, something

occupying his mind, and that the other person has his own

mind with something occupying it. It’s conceivable that

these two things are separate or could be the same.

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Definitions

Social Referencing

In situations of uncertainty, the child looks to the

adult to find out what to feel.

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Definitions

Affect Attunement

Selective imitation that shows you have shared an experience.

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Outcomes

• Participants will become better at:– Understanding the effect communication

has on feelings of confidence and competence;

– Being more intentional in promoting a sense of mastery;

– Responding in ways that help children fell known and understood;

– Responding authentically and specifically to children

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Get Ready!

Responses you might hear:

1. Why didn’t you make sure the child stayed dry in the first place? Then parents wouldn’t have criticized you.

2. At least you get to play with kids all day while I had to do real work.

3. Wait till you hear about my day. It was worse.

4. Wow, you sound really frustrated with your job tonight!

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Discussion

• How did each of these responses make you feel?

• Would the person’s tone or voice or facial expression make a difference?

• What might you want to hear? Why?

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Did You Know? – Research Video

Dr. Daniel SternUniversity of Geneva

Dr. Joseph CamposUniversity of California

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Did You Know?

• Discuss reactions to this video with your learning partner and/or group:

– What did you see or hear in the video that made you think about how your build confidence and competence in the children you teach?

– Did you have any new insights or “ahas?”

Ultimate act in being inter-subjective

“I know that you know that I know.” OR “I feel that you fell that I feel.” Then you’ve really done it. It’s the most important thing in the world for human beings because if you can’t have inter-subjective sharing, you are cosmically alone in the universe.

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What Do You Think?

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What Do You Think?

• Think about the child you got to know better while in the Module Two Moving on and Doing More activity

– What changed in your own thinking behavior?

– How did this affect your relationship with the child?

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What Do You Think?

– How did this affect the child’s learning?

– How did these changes affect the other children in your group?

– What changed and why?

– What did you learn from this experience that you could apply to your teaching?

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What Do You See? – Video Segment

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What Do You See?

• What did you see children doing?

• What did you see the adults

doing?

• What were the outcomes?

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What Do You See?

• Did you see social referencing?

• Did you see inter-subjectivity?

• How does your communication

build confidence and competency

in the children you teach?

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What Can You Do?

How can you make a child feel understood and known?

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What Can You Do?

With learning partner complete charts 6.1 through 6.3 (page 4-6)

Note how each response might make the child feel.

Identify other ways the teacher could help the child feel know and understood

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Tips – page 7

• Think of yourself as a mirror - what you say and do is reflected back to children

• Take time to listen to children and think about how to respond before you respond

• Acknowledge children’s feelings as legitimate

Journal

• Read the quotes on page 8 and write a reflective statement in your journal about what the quote means

OR• Write about what it felt like to be

misunderstood and how you can apply that experience to your work with children

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Quotes – page 8

• Giving children a good sense of self really means being authentic with them. It means understanding who they are and sharing the fact that you know who they are and that you accept that.

-- Dr. Daniel Stern

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Moving On and Doing More pg 9 & 10

• Make a tape recording of yourself and the children for 5 - 10 minutes several times during the week.

• How do you respond to children? What words do you use most often?

Warning

• Look for table groups to be moved next week!

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Story

Whistle for Willie• by Ezra Jack Keats

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