Is it Bullying?

Lesson Content

• Lesson Plan Template:

  CTE Lesson Plan

• CTE Course Info and Benchmark Notes

  
  

  Program Name (as applicable):

  Principals of Teaching

  Course Title:

  Foundations of Curriculum and Instruction

  Course Number:

  8909030

  Career Cluster:

  Education and Training

  CIP Number:

  0713129900

  Course Type:

  High School – Career Preparatory

• Unit Outline

  
  

  This lesson is designed to be used with the case study, “Norma’s Concern.” See CPALMS resource ID# 221963.

• Career Connection

  
  

  Students will enhance critical thinking skills as they examine the definition of bullying and how it differs from harassment in educational settings. In schools, student reports of bullying are often downgraded to variations of harassment. Education professionals may field complaints from students about others, but observable actions, perceived power imbalance, and repetitive harm must be evidenced in order to pursue claims of bullying. To reduce the backlog of complaints to administration under the wrong violation, new teachers must be well versed in how to discern bullying from harassment. After this lesson, students will be able to clearly communicate situations, support student well-being, and classify behaviors under the appropriate category.

• Learning Objectives

  
  

  Students will be able to:

  • Articulate the definition of bullying and harassment as defined in the education profession.
  • Explain when student behaviors require escalation to administration.

• Prior Knowledge

  
  

  Students should be familiar with/able to:

  • Following disciplinary procedures like referral writing.
  • Understanding the importance of documenting concerns.
  • Differentiating between hearsay and direct observations.

• Guiding Questions

  
  
  • What criteria must be met for accusations of student bullying?
  • How do the consequences for bullying differ from consequences of harassment?

• Procedure

  
  
  1. Begin the lesson by generating a whole-class discussion about students' experiences with bullying. Ask, "Have you or someone you know ever experienced bullying or harassment?" Expand on their ideas by asking thought-provoking questions like, "What made you classify it as either bullying or harassment?" Facilitating this brief reflection will activate students' prior knowedge and personal takes in order to prep students for the lesson on differentiating bullying from harassment.
  2. Provide the case study “Norma’s Concern” and give students time to read. Teacher may ask students to read independently or in pairs.
  3. Afer reading is complete, lead a guided discussion with comprehension questions regarding the case study. Overarching question: What is the difference between bullying and harassment? "Was Chrystal being bullied or harassed?" Ask students to justify their answers.
  4. Show the PowerPoint for clear definitions. Ask, "How do education professionals define bullying? How do they define harassment?"
  5. Next, group students and ask them to complete the Venn diagram about whether Chrystal was being bullied or harassed. Provide the graphic organizer for completion (see attached). After adequate time for groups to discuss and fill in the Venn diagram, discuss whether each action was bullying, harassment, or both. Encourage students to refer to the case study and slideshow for evidence. The teacher should circulate the room offering guidance to groups.
  6. Next, explain to students that they will create a reference guide for their future career as an educator. They can choose to create their graphic by hand, use a word processor, or employ a slideshow to create their resource. Ultimately, they should have “Bullying” definition and student actions that meet the criteria; then they should have “Harassment” definition and student actions that reflect that term. Show examples from the teacher resource slide show (see attached).
  7. Circulate the room observing student creations and offer feedback. Share examples of well done reference guides. For digital creations, print and display or create a running presentation show to digitally convey and share student work.
  8. To bring the lesson to a close, reconvene as a class and lead a whole-group discussion about the Reference guide content as compared to the Venn diagrams they created earlier. Allow students to revisit their Venn diagrams during this discussion.
  9. Teacher can use rubric (see attached) to assess Reference guides.
  10. Future of Work reflection question: How do education professionals determine when to escalate a situation to administration?

• Teacher Notes

  
  
  • Teachers may choose to have students read in pairs or small groups; students may take turns reading sections of the case study aloud to their partner or group.
  • The teacher may want to create a few reference guides to use as examples, and in future classes they may use previous submissions as examples.
  • Possible extension: Have students research the state reporting system: how many instances of bullying were reported last year? Were there more or fewer instances of harassment than bullying?