STUDY GROUP – 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE TEENS/ALEXANDER POND CURRICULUM


3/25/09 Meeting

· Debbie & Jill brought copies of the Introduction pages that we would include with copies of habit#1 from the book and disperse to the incoming 8th graders prior to going to Alexander Pond. This includes the riddle poem “What am I?”, followed by What Exactly Are Habits? and then a brief description of the habits of highly effective teens and the habits of highly ineffective teens (we changed the word from defective to ineffective). We also changed some of the names of the ineffective habits because we want to include an activity that would have the students identify each habit as effective or ineffective.
o Habit 2: Begin with No End in Mind becomes - Just Start
o Habit 3: Put First Things Last becomes - Procrastination
o Habit 5: Seek First to Talk Then Pretend to Listen becomes – Talk First Then Pretend to Listen
o Habit 6: Don’t Cooperate becomes – Be Your Own Island
o Habit 7: Wear Yourself Out becomes - Off Balance
The introduction concludes with a page on How the 7 Habits can help you…

· We agreed that we should purchase copies of The 7 Habits… for each teacher who facilitates at the pond: Frank M., Julie H., Roxanne M., Scott S., Maritza P., Heather S., Katie B.?, AJ R.? because as facilitators, it will be important for them to have the 7 Habits background.

· We started to look at the format of the days. We would keep the first 3 activities on day 1: Find Your Facilitator, Hike to the Pond & Name Toss involvement activity.

o 9:10 – 9:55 Intro to the Habits (all groups)
o Read the poem “What Am I?” - discuss
o Review – What Exactly Are Habits
§ Include Activity where a variety of habits are drawn from a hat ie. Brush your teeth every morning; play video games all night, etc. and have group determine which are good (effective) habits and bad (ineffective) habits
Covey Habit Match – Up
§ Draw the Covey Habits from a hat and have group determine which are effective & which ineffective and match them together.

o 9:55 – 10:30 Rotations – each group will be assigned a rotation from:
§ Fishing, Hike, Remote Control (we need to develop a remote control activity) – this would be based on Covey’s Habit #1: Be Proactive, What I know/H.S. Activity options

o 10:30 – 10:45 Break

o 10:45 – 11:20 Rotations – each group assigned to one from:
Fishing, Hike, Remote Control, What I Know

o 11:20 – 11:40 History of the Pond with Ross McGraw

o 11:40 – 12:10 Lunch

o 12:10 – 12:45 Rotations

o 12:45 – 1:10 Rotations

o 1:10 – 1:20 Break

o 1:20 – 2:00 Large Group Role play with processing?

This is a sketchy draft of the first day…

· For Day 2 we would develop a Circle of Control Activity to replace the sculpture activity. Each group would get colored poster board with a round circle and white circle center along with materials they could use to decorate. These would be presented by each group. “Who Control’s Who” poem could also be incorporated.

· Next meeting is Monday, March 30th - we will break up and start to work on developing activities… I will also invite Diane Arbes to talk about funding & training.