For CIS Student Supports Managers in the high school setting, building connections with ninth graders – and their teachers – is vitally important.
Not only do those connections help ninth graders feel welcomed, safe, and included in their new school environment, but they help young people know they have somewhere and someone to turn to if they need extra support.
CIS Student Supports Manager, Jackie, provides direct, one-on-one support to students at a Southwest Side high school. Before the school year began, Jackie interviewed teachers about their needs in the classroom and how she could best support students.
During these conversations, one ninth-grade teacher asked Jackie to come by her classroom during the first week of school to introduce herself and her services.
Rather than just drop into the class and give a presentation on CIS of Chicago, Jackie decided to go a step further and facilitate a team-building activity for the ninth graders.
First, Jackie separated the class into two teams. Then, she presented each team with a half tube, a cup, and a ball. The goal of the ‘Channels’ activity, Jackie shared with the students, was to get the ball across the classroom as a team without anyone touching the ball and without the ball touching the ground.
At first, the students were quiet – hesitant to participate in something outside of their normal class period. But after Jackie and the teacher began questioning the students about their thought process for working together as a team and ways they thought they could reach their goal, the students’ critical thinking skills were ignited.
According to Jackie, these opportunities for critical thinking and team building have multiple benefits for young people. Jackie referenced one study which examined outcomes of student team-building activities. The study outlined a lack of emphasis on developing critical thinking skills with students at risk of dropping out.
The study found that when students participated in activities that boosted their critical thinking, they gained fundamental, lifelong skills. These skills included working collaboratively to solve a problem, active listening, learning how to encounter failure and try again to meet a goal, and building positive relationships with peers and teachers.
Jackie’s activity sparked engagement from the ninth graders – and gave them a chance to connect with each other during the school day.
At the end of the activity, Jackie made sure to link the activity to real-life skills the students needed to succeed at school. She asked them, “What were some things that worked for your team?” “What didn’t?” “What did you learn as a group?”
These questions sparked conversations on communication, critical thinking, and leadership that Jackie said easily translate to skills the students need in their current educational journeys – and in the future, whether they go on to post-secondary education or the workplace.
