OT 6389: School-Based Fieldwork

Positive Mental Health Assignment

Sydney Gately

Occupational Therapy Group Activity Report

Be sure to see resources on www.everymomentcounts.org and www.casel.org

1) Proposed goal of group. Define 1-2 overall goals and 1-2 objectives for this
activity. (5 pts)

Goal 1: Students will be able to identify the emotions expressed by story characters and
other group members during activity.
Goal 2: Students will be able to express emotions during group activity and give
examples of social situations in which one may feel this way to build empathy-
related skills.
Objective 1: Students will identify 6 feelings expressed by characters during story read-
aloud with visual cues for each emotion and verbal cues from S/OT.
Objective 2: Student will act out 6 emotions and identify the emotions expressed by their
partner to demonstrate skills essential for showing empathy in various social
scenarios.

2) Group composition (why each student was selected): Provide 1-2 words defining
the social participation strengths and limitations of each member. (5)

The groups is composed of two students who are typically seen as a pair. The first
student is successful in sharing her feelings, but can be overbearing and impulsive at
times. The second student is kind to his classmates, but not always vocal about his
feelings. He frequently becomes overly emotional when other students are not sensitive.
He does not have the proper tools to communicate with other students during conflict.
This intervention is appropriate for this group, as both students would benefit from
increased empathy and appropriate social skills to improve communication amongst
their peers.

3) Expected group activity preparation. Describe how you prepared the group
members (and others) for this activity. (5)

For the past several weeks, this group of students has been working together with the
S/OT to build relationships. At this stage, the students are comfortable interacting. They
are also accustomed to attending OT sessions and have been successfully completing
weekly interventions. To prepare for this particular group, the S/OT will discuss empathy
with the students and ask for examples of emotions. The S/OT will outline the plan for
the session and read the book aloud to the students. They will be asked to identify
emotions throughout to prepare for the charades activity later in the session. This
preparation will help the students to participate appropriately throughout the entire
intervention.
 4) Detailed plan for activities: Explain how you will use 1) occupation-based
activities, 2) social emotional learning, and 3) positive behavioral supports. (10)

When the students arrive for OT, the students will be seated at a table with the S/OT.
Distractions will be minimized and the S/OT will sit between the students to promote
positive behavior. S/OT will introduce the mental health group by asking the students to
name feelings and describe how they know when one of their classmates is feeling this
way. S/OT will briefly explain that when you understand and feel someone’s feelings it is
called empathy. At this time, the OT will distribute the emotions visual tool with images
of all 6 feelings that will be discussed during the group (nervous, sad, happy, surprised,
embarrassed and angry.) The S/OT will then begin reading the book “We Don’t Eat Our
Classmates” aloud to the group. Throughout the story, the S/OT will use verbal cues to
encourage the students to identify how each character is feeling. The students may use
the handout to identify appropriate emotions. At the end of the story, the S/OT will lead
a brief discussion about the feelings expressed throughout the story. The students will
then begin the emotional charades activity. The students will select a slip of paper out of
a hat with an emotion image on it. They will be asked to describe or act out this emotion
by using facial expressions and giving an example of when someone may feel this way.
This activity will provide further emotional insight and encourage the students to
consider the feelings of their classmates more frequently during the school day, at home
and during a variety of social events.

*Obtain FWEd approval for above before you run the group*

5) Outcomes. What happened? Describe participation. (10)

The students and S/OT began the session by discussing each emotion on the handout.
The students had some questions regarding feeling nervous or embarrassed. The group
discussed scenarios in which one may feel this way to provide a better understanding of
the emotions. The students then listened to the story read aloud. The S/OT prompted
the students with questions about how each character was feeling throughout. The
students were able to successfully use the visual tool to identify how the characters felt
and to empathize with the main character. The students remained engaged throughout
the read aloud. At the end of the story, the students accurately summarized how the
main character was feeling throughout the story. The group then began “feelings
charades.” During this activity, both students were able to accurately express the
emotions on the cards they picked up. They also successfully communicated with their
partner and were able to correctly guess the feeling displayed. As expected, the biggest
group participation challenge was the conflicting behaviors of the group members. As
one student is much more outspoken and the other is much more reserved, the more
outspoken student required many verbal cues to take turns and listen to her partner.
The more reserved student required verbal prompts throughout to share his opinions,
however he was willing to participate. He frequently raised his hand to ensure that he
could share his thoughts without being spoken over.
 6) Reflection. Lessons learned. Evaluation of the group, including social interaction.
(10)

While implementing this group, I learned a lot about behavior management. While
working with students of varying social skills and academic levels, I have had difficulty
determining when to provide each student with additional attention and when to set
limits to stop behaviors. As developing behavior management skills was one of my
goals at the beginning of fieldwork, this has been a very beneficial setting that has
provided many opportunities for practice. Though I feel that the group was successful,
as the students seemed to enjoy the group and gain a better understanding of
emotions, as planned, the students certainly required a significant number of prompts
from me. The students are completely capable of communicating with each other and
with me. However their conflicting personalities do make groups more challenging, as
one student is much more likely to share her thoughts, even those thoughts that are
unrelated to the activity, and the other student shares more infrequently and requires
encouragement. For example, the first student would speak over me about an
illustration in the story, while I was asking questions about a character’s feelings.
Meanwhile, the second student would raise his hand to answer the question posed, but
may not have the opportunity to respond due to the prompts I was giving the first
student to remain focused. These events are not conducive to group work and require
efficient cues from the leader to refocus student one and encourage her to respect
student two while he speaks.

7) What will you do differently next time? What is an optimal next activity for this
group of students? (5)

In future sessions, I would practice more behavior management skills to ensure that
both students were able to participate equally and that the feelings of all participants
were respected. As one student is much more outspoken, she can dominate the group
at times. I would emphasize equal time for both students to share and I would provide
further redirection and verbal cues to encourage the students to listen and respond to
one another.
While in the next session we will likely focus on handwriting, we will certainly continue to
practice social emotional skills, as well. A next step may be journaling about daily
feelings to practice writing while expressing emotions. In other sessions, the student
who displayed more outspoken behavior during group, will practice self-control when
responding to questions by raising her hand and taking turns. The S/OT will provide
verbal cues to encourage this and facilitate participation from other students. The more
reserved student will be further encouraged to share his feelings and opinions using
emotional language that was discussed during this session.