Uncovering the hidden: Constructing visibility through three pedagogical steps
Social skills represent a complex context of human behaviour, and these can be understood as a set of formal rules and informal conventions. While some skills reflect rule-governed behaviour across time and place (e.g., Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms), most occupy a space that varies according to gender, occupation, history, location, and culture (e.g., Wortley Road Public School, 2017), thus shaping the limits of what and how skills can be generalized and taught.
While a common social situation for most individuals, greeting someone involves a considerable degree of complexity. How someone demonstrates social etiquette to another depends to a large extent on whether the context is a formal (e.g., in the classroom) or informal (e.g., at home) environment; their respective ages; and whether such has happened several times before or none at all. The language used, including words, body movements, and emotional reciprocity, depends on whether the interaction takes place between fellow teachers or students. Accordingly, the act of social exchange that occurs in the contexts of greetings are extraordinarily complex.
The school environments where I visit as an occasional teacher occupy spaces of learning that are each different. The expectations for one type of behaviour (washroom routines) may be suitable in one school (e.g., end of day routines) and not another, and furthermore acceptable in one classroom (classroom responsibilities) and not others. In each of these contexts, social skills as encompassed in social etiquette are fundamental to the participation of learning in a safe, respectful, and healthy environment, and students being able to access resources fairly, equitably, and inclusively to further the goals of education overall. An example that comes to mind is one where social etiquette guides the movie theatre experience; specifically Glove and Boots work to reveal these implicit or "hidden" norms in the following video:
The Hidden Curriculum
The experience of the awry is an all to familiar one for those living with social participation limitations or challenges, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), learning disabilities, and developmental disabilities (Hood, 2011). The teachings involved in becoming aware of what is socially acceptable in one place but perhaps not another is to a large extent not perceptible to these persons, because such teachings are often transmitted through nonverbal communication while being promulgated in and through a particular environment; thus, the social dress, values, skills, beliefs, actions, and underlying intentions within and among a particular community are mainly learned through a finely tuned and acute social receptivity. This collection of implicit norms of a particular group, community, or environment make up the hidden curriculum (Lee, 2011). Miles and Simpson (2001) have offered two poignant cases in which the hidden curriculum acts like "the third teacher," (Capacity Building Series, 2012) silently and systematically shaping the norms of a given situation:
Before school, Mark saunters up to Sam, a third-grade student with AS, and says, "How’s it hangin’, dog?" Sam gets extremely upset and yells, "I am not a dog!" Mark, who was merely using the latest "in" greeting, shrugs his shoulders and comments to a friend walking with him, "Man, he's weird. Just gonna stay out of his way." Sam, on the other hand, remains unsettled until he has an opportunity to meet with his resource teacher Mrs. Miller at 10:30. During a 15-minute discussion, his teacher interprets the situation for him and helps him understand that Mark was just saying a friendly hello. When Sam asks Mrs. Miller how she and the other kids have learned that greeting, Mrs. Miller shrugs her shoulders, unable to come up with a response.
Ramona, who has always had difficulty with social situations, noticed that many students at her middle school cursed. Noticing that the colorful words appeared to cause laughter she concluded that cursing could help her make friends. Consequently, during the passing periods between second and third hour she walked up to a girl she knew and began to talk to her infusing into her conversation some curse words. The girl stared at Ramona in amazement but said nothing. Ramona was startled when the principal interrupted her conversation and told her to come to the once NOW! Ramona did not know the hidden curriculum about cursing in middle school: Before you curse, look around and make sure no adults are around (p. 280).
Pedagogical interventions
The following three teaching and learning strategies can be practiced to support transitioning the hidden curriculum into a familiar, informed, everyday experience for students with difficulty being involved in social participation. While there are many approaches, perspectives, and practices available to support such students, these three are known as key interventions useful for the learning environments at school.
Explicit Instruction
Explicit or "direct" instruction is a structured, systematic, and effective methodology for teaching students with exceptionalities related to appropriate social functioning (e.g., students with ASD, learning disabilities, developmental disabilities). It is explicit because such an intervention features an unambiguous and direct approach to teaching that blends both instructional and delivery procedures (Archer & Hughes, 2011, p. 1). As students participate in explicit instruction, the teacher provides them with a series of scaffolds or supports that are attuned to their zone of proximal development, whereby the purpose, rationale, and corresponding demonstrations reflect accessible but motivational-charged pedagogy. Archer and Hughes (2011) provides an overview of explicit instruction according to sixteen basic "elements" (pp. 2-3).
1. Focus instruction on critical content. Teach skills, strategies, vocabulary terms, concepts, and rules that will empower students in the future and match the students’ instructional needs.
2. Sequence skills logically. Consider several curricular variables, such as teaching easier skills before harder skills, teaching high-frequency skills before skills that are less frequent in usage, ensuring mastery of prerequisites to a skill before teaching the skill itself, and separating skills and strategies that are similar and thus may be confusing to students.
3. Break down complex skills and strategies into smaller instructional units. Teach in small steps. Segmenting complex skills into smaller instructional units of new material addresses concerns about cognitive overloading, processing demands, and the capacity of students’ working memory. Once mastered, units are synthesized (i.e., practiced as a whole).
4. Design organized and focused lessons. Make sure lessons are organized and focused, in order to make optimal use of instructional time. Organized lessons are on topic, well sequenced, and contain no irrelevant digressions.
5. Begin lessons with a clear statement of the lesson’s goals and your expectations. Tell learners clearly what is to be learned and why it is important. Students achieve better if they understand the instructional goals and outcomes expected, as well as how the information or skills presented will help them.
6. Review prior skills and knowledge before beginning instruction. Provide a review of relevant information. Verify that students have the prerequisite skills and knowledge to learn the skill being taught in the lesson. This element also provides an opportunity to link the new skill with other related skills.
7. Provide step-by-step demonstrations. Model the skill and clarify the decision-making processes needed to complete a task or procedure by thinking aloud as you perform the skill. Clearly demonstrate the target skill or strategy, in order to show the students a model of proficient performance.
8. Use clear and concise language. Use consistent, unambiguous wording and terminology. The complexity of your speech (e.g., vocabulary, sentence structure) should depend on students’ receptive vocabulary, to reduce possible confusion.
9. Provide an adequate range of examples and non-examples. In order to establish the boundaries of when and when not to apply a skill, strategy, concept, or rule, provide a wide range of examples and non-examples. A wide range of examples illustrating situations when the skill will be used or applied is necessary so that students do not underuse it. Conversely, presenting a wide range of non-examples reduces the possibility that students will use the skill inappropriately.
10. Provide guided and supported practice. In order to promote initial success and build confidence, regulate the difficulty of practice opportunities during the lesson, and provide students with guidance in skill performance. When students demonstrate success, you can gradually increase task difficulty as you decrease the level of guidance. As noted earlier, effective and explicit instruction can be viewed as providing a series of instructional supports or scaffolds—first through the logical selection and sequencing of content, and then by breaking down that content into manageable instructional units based on students’ cognitive capabilities (e.g., working memory capacity, attention, and prior knowledge). Instructional delivery is characterized by clear descriptions and demonstrations of a skill, followed by supported practice and timely feedback. Initial practice is carried out with high levels of teacher involvement; however, once student success is evident, the teacher’s support is systematically withdrawn, and the students move toward independent performance. The 16 elements of explicit instruction can also be combined into a smaller number.
11. Require frequent responses. Plan for a high level of student–teacher interaction via the use of questioning. Having the students respond frequently (i.e., oral responses, written responses, or action responses) helps them focus on the lesson content, provides opportunities for student elaboration, assists you in checking understanding, and keeps students active and attentive.
12. Monitor student performance closely. Carefully watch and listen to students’ responses, so that you can verify student mastery as well as make timely adjustments in instruction if students are making errors. Close monitoring also allows you to provide feedback to students about how well they are doing.
13. Provide immediate affirmative and corrective feedback. Follow up on students’ responses as quickly as you can. Immediate feedback to students about the accuracy of their responses helps ensure high rates of success and reduces the likelihood of practicing errors.
14. Deliver the lesson at a brisk pace. Deliver instruction at an appropriate pace to optimize instructional time, the amount of content that can be presented, and on-task behavior. Use a rate of presentation that is brisk but includes a reasonable amount of time for students’ thinking/ processing, especially when they are learning new material. The desired pace is neither so slow that students get bored nor so quick that they can’t keep up.
15. Help students organize knowledge. Because many students have difficulty seeing how some skills and concepts fit together, it is important to use teaching techniques that make these connections more apparent or explicit. Well-organized and connected information makes it easier for students to retrieve information and facilitate its integration with new material.
16. Provide distributed and cumulative practice. Distributed (vs. massed) practice refers to multiple opportunities to practice a skill over time. Cumulative practice is a method for providing distributed practice by including practice opportunities that address both previously and newly acquired skills. Provide students with multiple practice attempts, in order to address issues of retention as well as automaticity.
According to Alphonse and LeBlanc (2014), explicit instruction is implemented into three sequential steps: (i) modeling, (ii) guided or directed practice, and (iii) independent practice. The first stage facilitates an understanding of learning objectives and methods to acquire the standards of practice to gain a skill or ability; the second stage consists of students extending the ideas and practices demonstrated by the teacher, so that understanding and know-how become experiential; the last stage offers students the time and place need to acquire mastery and further fine-tune their understanding of the material for the lesson or unit.
Self-regulation
Self-regulation is a key and decisive factor in shaping learning outcomes for students (Zumbrunn, Tadlock, & Roberts, 2011). It refers to "the ability to manage your own energy states, emotions, behaviours and attention, in ways that are socially acceptable and help achieve positive goals, such as maintaining good relationships, learning and maintaining well-being" (Shanker, 2017). In the learning environment, teachers can educate students about self-regulation and how to acquire it through several evidence-based strategies, including goal setting, planning, attention control, flexible use of learning strategies, self-monitoring, appropriate help-seeking, and self-evaluation (Zumbrunn, Tadlock, & Roberts, 2011). The fundamental purpose in teaching for self-regulation is in equipping learners with the ability to detect stressors (perceived and experienced conflicts) and respond accordingly in socially constructive ways.
Throughout the teaching and learning cycle in self-regulation, teachers and students can keep track of how self-regulation emerges in context through ongoing assessments and reflective practice (See Student Profiles, 2011).
Social Stories
Originally developed to support individuals with autism (Gray, 2010), social stories are "a written or visual guide describing various social interactions, situations, behaviours, skills or concepts" (Cosgrave, 2017). The purpose of social stories is to instill an understanding about relevant social cues, perspectives, and responses useful for those who find it difficult or challenging to participate in social interactions. Carol Gray presents her understanding of social stories in the following clip:
An example of a social story taking place in the classroom might be one where the teacher allots 10 minutes for a demonstration among peers and a critical discussion; for example, there might be reflected a conflict between two friends, whom introduced the social conflict; the teacher mentions the feelings of each character and why they feel that way; and the peers propose an appropriate strategy to resolve the conflict (Mansour & Wiener, 2014). An example of a social story presented through a visual presentation is outlined below: