Christine Alves Exemplar 2 Exemplar 2: Core Classroom Curriculum Project Stress Management Core Curriculum: XYZ School CSP

624: Learning, Achievement and Instruction for School Counselors, Fall 2013 Standards: 21 & 24 Introduction: I chose the Stress Management Core Curriculum that I presented to all 6th-8th grade students at XYZ school as an exemplar because it demonstrates my knowledge and skills in implementing one aspect of a comprehensive school counseling program. Research has found that low academic performance in middle school can be linked to stress (D. Kaplan, Ruth, & H. Kaplan, 2005). After analyzing data from XYZs health survey, many of the students reported having environmental stress, which included home and school stress. Some of the stress triggers that students identified were chores, taking care of siblings, safety, homework, projects, and bullying. This implies that students were constantly in stress inducing environments because triggers were at home and at school. In the survey, 100 students, 14 percent, reported missing school or skipping class as a result of stress or to manage stress, A proposed recommendation was stress management activities. After reviewing the data, and identifying a time in which I could enter the classroom without disrupting the teachers schedules, I presented the idea to the middle school department. The team agreed that students would benefit from stress management curriculum. From there, I created a pre and post test to collect students attitude, knowledge and skills, also known as perception data, on stress management. After analyzing the perception data, I used researched based curriculums obtained from Missouri Center for Career Education and adapted them to fit the needs of XYZs students. A colleague and myself presented the curriculum over two days. After the curriculum was presented to all middle school students, the post test was administered and then analyzed to evaluate the effectiveness of the curriculum. All grade levels showed an increase in the perception data. Sixth grade students showed the largest gain in attitudes, knowledge and skills. A flashlight presentation was created to showcase the results to the student support services team and graduate student trainees. Standard 21: Personal & Social Development Five personal/social ASCA National Student Standards were incorporated into the curriculum. PS:A1.6 Distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate behaviors,

Christine Alves Exemplar 2 PS:B1.4 Develop effective coping skills for dealing with problems and PS:C1.10 Learn techniques for managing stress and conflict were addressed through discussion on safe and unsafe ways to manage stress and applying these skills to a hypothetical scenario. For example, taking the dog for a walk during the day is a safe way to manage stress, but walking the dog at night might not be safe, so students identified alternatives. Flagging the minefield is a counseling term for this technique (Ivey, Ivey, Zalaquett, & Quirk, 2012). PS:A1.5 Identify and express feelings was covered through discussing different ways our bodies react to stress (mentally, emotionally, and physically), in order to identify stress. Students provided examples on how they identify stress: sweaty palms, fast heart rate, and stomach ache. Lastly, PS:C1.6 Identify resource people in the school and community, and know how to seek their help was achieved through creating support teams that included school, family and community members. We had discussions about appropriate ways to ask for help and identifying when a good time is to ask for help. Students wrote down the names in their booklet. Standard 24: Learning, Achievement, & Instruction Knows classroom management strategies for assisting teachers: Classroom management strategies were used to keep the students engaged, interacting, and learning. Strategies such as Think-Pair-Share and cold calling were used to engage students. Students created their own stress booklet throughout the presentation, and the PowerPoint guided them through each step of the booklet. The first page of the booklet said My Stressors. After we discussed stressors as a class, students wrote their personal stressors in the booklet. The second page said How Do I Know I am Stressed? Students were prompted to write down several ways they identify stress. The third page was used to write down safe ways to manage stress. Lastly, students identified their support team. The booklet activity was directly linked to the information I wanted students to learn. Students were then asked these questions in a post test two weeks later. Understands curriculum design, lesson plan development and instructional strategies for teaching counseling and guidance related material: The lesson plan was developed by adapting research-based curriculum to meet the needs of students. Information was

Christine Alves Exemplar 2 gathered from free curriculum found on Missouri Center for Career Education website; a resource recommended by Dr. Trish Hatch in her book, The Use of Data in School Counseling (2014). The needs of the students were identified through perception data from the pre test. The results indicated that several students did not know how to identify when they were stressed, safely manage stress, and who could help them when they were stressed. Conclusion: Through this exemplar, I learned how beneficial it is to implement core curriculum when trying to effectively and efficiently target a large number of students displaying a data driven need. Not only did I learn how time efficient core curriculum is, through the use of pre and post test data, I was able to identify students who needed extra support after the curriculum. For example, students who identified hitting people as a safe way to manage stress or students who could not identify people for their support team were referred to the counseling office for individual support. If I were to do anything different, regarding this curriculum, I would use new information that I obtained from professional development. New studies show that our perception of stress is what makes stress good or bad for our health (McGonigal, 2013). Students verbally labeled stress as a bad feeling during the curriculum and based upon new research, this could be detrimental to their health. I would focus the curriculum more on students perceptions of stress. The need for this curriculum was identified using many forms of data, specifically the health survey. When the health survey is implemented again, the school will be able to analyze the data to see if fewer students are missing class or school due to stress. Although many factors can contribute to the decrease in absenteeism, the perception data I collected would support the link between the curriculum and the decrease. I am aware that not all counselors are provided with the luxury of entering classrooms to implement core curriculum, but as an advocate for the ASCA National Model, I hope to continue to demonstrate the effectiveness of core curriculum through process, perception and outcome data.