SOCIAL AWARENESS
OBJECTIVE
Develop Social Awareness such as Perspective Taking and Theory of Mind
The purpose of these activities is to provide guidelines for the parents to develop children's social awareness such as perspective taking and theory of mind with educational apps. The activities are divided into 4 sessions according to Cope and Kalantzis' (2015) Learning by Design framework.
MATERIALS
Resources
Tablet/IPad
Video Recorder or Smartphone
Internet
Video or Photo Editing apps
Toys or Lego figurines
The Three Little Pigs, Little Red Riding Hood, Dr Seuss' The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, and so on.
SESSION 1 - EXPERIENCING/SITUATED PRACTICE
Duration - 30 mins (variable)
During the first reading session, when using educational apps such as The Three Little Pigs, Little Red Riding Hood, and Dr Seuss' The Cat in the Hat Comes Back to teach children perspective taking and theory of mind, parents can connect the use of design features of the app such as the use of animation, music, framing, narration, and the representations such as the characters' facial expressions to the characters' perspectives.
Parents can prompt the children to explore the reasons for behaviour using the following questions:
What is the character doing?
Why is the character doing that?
SESSION 2 - CONCEPTUALISING/OVERT INSTRUCTION
Duration - 30 mins (variable)
During the second reading, as children internalise the concept of perspective taking and theory of mind, parents can guide the children to recognise the quality traits of the characters:
What is a good quality trait that the character represents?
What is a bad quality trait that the character represents?
SESSION 3 - ANALYSING/CRITICAL FRAMING
Duration - 30 mins (variable)
During the third reading, to develop children's critical thinking and promote reflection, parents can prompt children to consider the purpose behind different character representations:
Why do the characters behave like human beings even though they are animals?
Why do you think animals are portrayed as human in the stories?
SESSION 4 - APPLYING/TRANSFORMED PRACTICE
Duration - 30 mins (variable)
During the fourth session, parents can prompt children to reflect on the learning from the story:
What is one lesson that you learnt from the story?
Why do you think that is important?
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Contributor: TWM