Presentation prepare by the teachers as the result of the course.

1. PSYCHOLOGICAL
APPROACH TO
TEACHING

2. Between 6th and 13th November 2022, five teachers of our school
took part in a professional training course entitled Psychological
Approach to Teaching. The main goal of the course was to:
 understand what factors within the student, teacher and context
(home and school) affect student functioning and how they can be
better managed to ensure that the student gets the most out of the
teaching environment;
 teach conflict resolution and problem solving skills while fostering
students’ personal qualities;
 help the school utilise a comprehensive school-wide approach
while improving parents’ and tachers’ knowledge and skills in areas
realted to learning;
 help teachers to utilise interpersonal and behaviour management
skills that assist within the classroom.

3. The key points of the program:
1. The Biopsychosocial Approach
2. The Parents and Their Role in Students’ Development
3. Emotional Intelligence
4. Emotion Coaching
5. Managing Child Disruptive Behaviours in Different Contexts
6. Seven Crucial Cs of Resilience
7. Overview of Autism
8. Overview of ADHD
9. Overview of Dyslexia
10.Top 20 Principles on Pre K-12 Teaching and Learning
11.Stress

4. The Biopsychosocial
Approach

5. The Biopsychosocial Approach emphasizes the unique interactions
among biological, psychological, and social factors that need to be
taken into consideration in order to better understand students’
development.
 Biological factors: physical health, disability, genetic
vulnerabilities, drug effects,
nutrition, IQ, temperament
 Psychological factors: coping skills, social skills, self-esteem,
mental health,
family relationships
 Social factors: peers, family circumstances, family relationships,
school,
socioeconomics
Teachers should always be aware of the factors that come into
play in the process of students’ development and try to understand

6. The Parents and Their Role in
Students’ Development

7. We can distinguish 4 parenting styles:
 Emotion Coaching: high in empathy, guidance and feelings, values
emotions, helps to label emotions;
 Permissive/Laissez-faire: high in empathy, low in guidance and feelings,
no set
limits, unable to teach problem solving strategies
 Emotion Disapproval: low in empathy, high in guidance, judgemental,
criticising,
showing emotions is considered as a weakness;
 Emotion Dismissiveness: low in empathy, low in guidance, no
acknowledgement
of feelings, ignoring uncomfortable emotions;
The last three communication styles may lead a child to conclude that his
or her feelings are unimportant, leading to low self-esteem and other
potential psychosocial difficulties.
This concept might be extended to teachers whose different
communication styles may affect their students.

8. Children who develop warm and positive
relationships with their teachers:
 are more excited about learning
 are more positive about coming to school
 are more self-confident
 achieve more in the classroom
 develop greater social competence

9. Emotional
Intelligence

10. Emotional intelligence is the ability to:
 identify and understand one’s
emotions
 use emotions appropriately
during social interactions
 use emotional awareness to
help when solving problems
 deal with frustration and be able
to wait to get what one wants
 keep distress from
overwhelming one’s ability to
think
 be in control of how and when
to express feelings

11. The importance of Emotional Intelligence
 it results in increased awareness and control over
one’s actions
 it is associated with lower levels of stress, which are
associated with better health
 it helps in making and maintaining friendships
 it is related to increased self-soothing, resulting in
improved focus and cognitive capacity in difficult
situations
 it results in increased resilience and an improved
stress response

12. Emotional intelligence helps students better analyse situations. Not
only does it help students interact with others better but also helps them
tackle academic issues with greater panache. The better a student is
able to come to grips with a situation, the more in control they are of it.
Emotionally Intelligent teachers have good sense of self-
management as they can control impulsive feeling and can regulate the
emotions in healthy way. They create a healthy and conducive learning
environment in the classroom and it helps them to produce better results
in smoother ways.

13. Emotion Coaching

14. To emotion coach a child one must:
 become aware of their emotion, especially if it is of a lower intensity, for
example, disappointment
 view their emotion as an opportunity for intimacy and teaching
 communicate your understanding and acceptance of the emotion
 help the child use words to describe how they feel, communicating that
all feelings are acceptable yet some behaviours are not
 if necessary, help them to solve problems

15. Emotion-coaching phrases that can be used by teachers when
dealing with an upset student:
 It’s okay to be upset — it’s good to let it out.
 I hear you — I’m here for you — I’ll stay with you.
 It’s okay to feel how you feel. It is not okay to (hit ) someone.
 How you feel right now won’t last forever. It’s okay to feel how you
are
feeling. It will pass and you will feel better again soon.
 Let’s take a breath, take a break, sit down, pause for a minute…
 You are good and kind.
 I’ll be over here when you need me.
 Let’s have a do-over!
 What can we learn from this? What is the lesson in this?
 You’ll remember next time.

16. Managing Child Disruptive
Behaviours in Different Contexts

17.  Disruptiveness can be defined as a difficulty in a chid managing his or
her behaviours. The behaviours may not be in keeping with expectations
of adults or may not be considered age-appropriate.
 To some extent disruptiveness is seen frequently in childhood and
adolescence. It is universal and is a way for children to assert their
independence and test boundaries. It is when it is severe and interferes
with normal day to day functioning that it becomes problematic.
 High level disruptiveness may occur due to a number of factors
including temperament, neuropsychological difficulties, environmental
factors or a mix of all these factors.

18. Best practices for managing disruptive behavior
 Be steady, consistent
and firm.
 Acknowledge the
feelings of the
individual.
 Remember that
disruptive behavior is
often caused by stress
or frustration.
 Address the disruption
individually, directly and
immediately.
 Be specific about the
behavior that is
disruptive and set limits.
 Explore the causes of
the incident and discuss
appropriate behavior.

19. Seven Crucial Cs of
Resilience

20. Dr Ginsburg, child paediatrician and human development expert, proposes
that there are 7 integral and interrelated components that make up being
resilient:
 Competence – is the ability to know how to handle stressful situations
effectively.
 Confidence – is the belief in one’s own abilities and is rooted in
competence.
 Connection – children with close ties to friends, family, and community
groups are likely to have a stronger sense of security and sense of
belonging.
 Character – a fundamental sense of right and wrong that allows children
to stick to their own values and demonstrate a caring attitude toward
others; encourages sense of self-worth and confidence.
 Contribution - gives children a sense of purpose and motivates them to
take actions and make choices that will improve the world.
 Coping - capacity to enact a wide array of positive, adaptive coping
strategies protects against unsafe behaviors; children who learn to cope
with stress are better prepared to overcome challenges.
 Control - children who realize that they can control the outcomes of their
decisions have more trust in their ability to handle adverse situations.
By learning these behaviors and modeling them for students, teachers can
instill resilience in children that will help them cope with all the curves that

21. Overview of Autism

22. What is Autism?
 Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are a group of disorders with common
disabilities in three key areas:
* Social awareness and interaction
* Language and other communication skills
* Imaginative play (variable interests and behaviours)
 Autism Strengths:
* Good memory
* Persistence
* IQ
* Perfectionism
Autism Weaknesses:
* Social interaction and communication
* Bizzare and repetitive behaviours
* Sensory and motor issues

23. How to help with social and communication difficulties:
Receptive Language
 Reduce language
 Pause between instructions
 Break down longer instructions into steps
 Give an end ( „then we will go home”, etc.)
 Check that the child has understood
 Encourage questions
 Use clear language and teach sayings
Expressive Language
 Teach sequencing
 Teach rescue phrases
 Be direct
 Practice scenarios using role play and use audio and video
 Use visual prompts

24. Overview of ADHD

25. Students diagnosed ADHD:
Inattention
 fail to give close attention and make careless mistakes
 often do not listen when spoken directly
 have difficulty remaining focused during lectures, conversations, or lengthy
reading
 Often do not follow through on instructions and fails to finish schoolwork
 Often lose things necessary for tasks or activities
 are often easily distracted by extraneous stimuli
Hyperactivity
 are often fidgety and squirmy
 often leave a seat when remaining seated is expected
 are often unable to play or engage in leisure activities quietly
Impulsivity
 often interrupt or intrude on others
 often blurt out an answer before a question has been completed

26. How to manage ADHD:
 Teach self-evaluation, self-control and problem solving skills
 Use praise, rewards, limits, ignoring and redirection
 Accept limitations, educate others, consider special assistance
 Allow breaks or time to move around
 Make assignments clear—check with the student to see if they
understand what they need to do
 Provide choices to show mastery (for example, let the student
choose among written essay, oral report, online quiz, or hands-on
project)
 Minimize distractions in the classroom
 Use organizational tools, such as a homework folder, to limit the
number of things the child has to track.

27. Overview of Dyslexia

28. What is Dyslexia:
 It is a neurological-based specific learning difficulty that is characterised
by difficulties in one or more of reading, writing and spelling.
 Accompanying weaknesses may be identified in areas of language
acquisition, phonological processing, working memory, and sequencing.
 It occurs in learners with normal intelligence.
 It often affects oral language functioning. Children affected with this
disorder may have trouble finding the right words during a social
conversation.
 Letters seem to swap in and out of place when people with the
condition look at the words.

29. How to support students with dyslexia:
Present new material in small and manageable chunks.
 Use concept-checking questions.
 Offer lots of opportunities for learners to recap and review.
 Use large-print text for worksheets.
 Allow the student to use a text reader like a Reading text-to-speech
software.
 Provide extra time for reading and writing.
 Use visual or audio support to help the student understand written
materials in the lecture.
 Give step-by-step directions and read written instructions out loud.
 Simplify directions using key words for the most important ideas.
 Check in frequently to make sure the student understands and can
repeat the directions.
 Show examples of correct and completed work to serve as a model.

30. Top 20 Principles on Pre K-12
Teaching and Learning

31. 1. Growth mindset helps learning – a growth mindset helps imrove
academic performance.
2. Baseline assessments – baseline assessments help organise
teaching goals.
3. Influences on students’ knowledge – contextual factors are
important in learning.
4. Context matters – Students should transfer their knowledge across
contexts.
5. Practice makes perfect – Deliberate practice is key to learn
information.
6. The importance of feedback – Feedback should be regular and
specific.
7. Self-regulatory skills – Skills such as attention help students.
8. Creativity can be developed – Encourage creativity within the
classroom.
9. Intrinsic over extrinsic motivation – Students have more enjoyment

32. 11. Teachers’ expectations – expectations shouldn’t be too high or
low.
12.Short-term and challenging goals – set short-term, specific and
moderately challenging goals.
13. Culture – Celebrate the different cultures within the classroom.
14. Importance of Interpersonal relationships – A safe
environment helps develop good relationships.
15. Emotional well-being – Model and encourage emotional
development.
16. Expectations in the classroom – Reinforce appropriate
behaviours within the classroom.
17. Effective classroom management – Set high expectations with
sufficient support.
18. Type of assessments – The type of assessment used depends
on its purpose.
19. Setting assessments – Tests should be reliable and valid.

33. Stress

34. We can divide stress into 3 categories:
1. Positive Stress - is a normal and essential part of healthy
development, characterized by brief increases in heart rate and mild
elevations in hormone levels.
2. Tolerable Stress - activates the body’s alert systems to a greater
degree as a result of more severe, longer-lasting difficulties, such as
the loss of a loved one, a natural disaster, or a frightening injury.
3. Toxic Stress - can occur, when a child experiences strong, frequent,
and/or long lasting difficult events — such as physical or emotional
abuse, caregiver substance abuse or mental illness and exposure to
violence without enough adult support. This kind of prolonged
activation of the stress response systems can disrupt brain building
and other organ systems, and increase the risk for stress-related
disease and intellectual impairment, throughout the adult years.

35. How teachers can help their students deal with stress:
 Reach out and talk. Create opportunities to have students talk, but do
not force them. You can be a model by sharing some of your own thoughts
as well as correct misinformation.
 Watch and listen. Be alert for any change in behavior. Are students
withdrawing from friends? Acting out? These changes may be early signs
that a student is struggling and needs extra support from the school and
family.
 Maintain normal routines. A regular classroom and school schedule
can provide a sense of stability and safety. Encourage students to keep up
with their schoolwork and extracurricular activities but do not push them if
they seem overwhelmed.
 Take care of yourself. You are better able to support your students if
you are healthy, coping and taking care of yourself first. Eat healthy,
exercise, get plenty of sleep, and give yourself a break if you feel stressed