What is a Friend?

Summary

This lesson plan is a culminating activity for a unit on Friendship and/or social skills.

Materials

• Internet access - https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/education/intel-education.html
• Helpful to have Eiki projection unit.
• Put students into groups, either numbered or named. Or use another class to do this activity with. Use this information when creating your ranking.

Background for Teachers

Use this web site. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/education/intel-education.html

This site can be used to promote visual ranking activities that promote critical thinking skills and decision making. Teacher needs to use the Intel web site mentioned before and create a visual ranking activity that lists the characteristics of good and bad friends. Once you get to the site, click on the visual ranking icon/hot link. This link will direct you to either the Student Log-in or Teacher Workspace. Log on to the teacher workspace to create your personal ranking profile/list. Follow the directions given.

Student Prior Knowledge

Students need to be able to define positive and negative characteristics that will be on the ranking activity. The following are examples: telling secrets leaving people out being bossy hitting trustworthy honest sharing saying kind things good listener selfish playing everybody writing mean notes being a leader

Intended Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to compare and contrast their own views of friendship with that of other groups of students. Student do not need to be on the same grade level. They will learn to discuss and talk persuasively as they come to agreements on the ranking of characteristics.

Instructional Procedures

1. Through a classroom discussion, create a list of positive and negative friendship characteristics.
2. The teacher needs to create a classroom profile on the Intel web site provided that includes the list the class created. The teacher creates her profile depending on how she wants to structure the activity, group-to-group in own classroom or class to class with other participating classes.
3. Within each participating classroom the teacher needs to divide the students into small groups of 4-6 members.
4. Once they are in their groups give the students a list of characteristics and time to rank them in order from best to worst friendship qualities/characteristics.
5. If you are doing this activity within your own classroom, have students enter their group date into the Intel web site. Then compare to other groups. If you are comparing results from classroom to classroom, your classroom groups must reach a single consensus. The teacher can put the data into the computer on the Intel site and compare results with other participating classes. These procedures can create much discussion among the students. They may need to discuss persuasively to come to a consensus.

Strategies for Diverse Learners

Partnering and small group work will encourage diverse learners to engage in this activity.

Extensions

Writing extension - students can write stories about what it means to be a good friend. They can make step books on the steps to being a good friend.

Math - students can compare and write fractions for how certain friendship characteristics should be ranked. This has to be done during the data gathering. Example: for the third ranking 2/4 vote honesty, 1/4 vote trustworthy, 1/4 vote being a good leader.

Assessment Plan

Teacher should be using on going assessment of students' abilities to work cooperatively and their knowledge of friendship terminology. This can be done through individual and group questioning techniques, student participation in class discussions, and group self-evaluations of cooperative behaviors within the group.

Bibliography

Interactive Thinking Tools from Intel http://www.intel.com/education/tools