Building Friendships in the Classroom - Professional Development Module

Overview

Audience: Teachers and Professionals looking to help build friendships in their learning environment

Responsibilities: SME, Content Creator, Instructional Designer

Tools Used: Canva, Canvas LMS

Problem and Solution

The proposed audience for this learning module is teachers and educational professionals who are looking for means to help build friendship and social skills in their learning environment. The module was created after seeing my students struggling with social connections with their peers. Following the Covid pandemic, many children lack the skills to approach other students to begin the process of becoming friends. Now more than ever their school environment plays a huge role in their social development. 

Through utilizing this learning module, education professionals will have the tools to help their students start to make friends with each other. The learning tools shared will allow them to grow their knowledge through reading educational articles and research based articles. There are also tools that accompany the module to share with students in the classroom and to share with families to use at home. 

Process

After brainstorming, I decided that using Canvas to create the learning module would be the best option for housing the module. It allows for the learning to be outlined in a organized and simplistic way. Learners will be able to have access to all the resources in one place and can access the materials at anytime with ease. I designed many components for the module to strengthen its efficiency and to give the educational professional a wide variety of resources at their disposal. 

The module includes:

  • research and blog articles
  • video links
  • book recommendations
  • Making Friends book
  • Let’s Be Friends Game
  • Parents Tips letter
  • annotated bibliography

 

Book Recommendations

This resource shares a few picture book possibilities to use in the unit with learners.

Making Friends Book

An emergent reader for young learners about ways to build friendships with others.

Parent's Tip Letter

This resource has family friendly tips to help caregivers build a learner's confidence at home to prepare them with skills for making friends in their learning environment.

The Finished Product Presentation

The learning module was created in Canvas through my graduate program. Due to licensing, I am not allowed to share a link to the module. This video shares a peek at many of the learning components created and the organization of the module itself. Individual learning tools are highlighted in the section above to give a closer view them and allow for a better understanding of the module tools.