Chapter 1: Aspects of Human Behavior: Person, Environment ...



Chapter 1: Human Behavior: A Multidimensional Approach

Class Activities

1. Kaleidoscope Activity. Bring several kaleidoscopes to class. Have the students write down a concern/problem they are dealing with. As they look through the kaleidoscope, have them explore their concern/problem considering the multiple aspects of human behavior including person, environment, and time. Discuss what they discovered about the multiple dimensions of their concern/problem.

2. Values Exercise. Values are a way of understanding. Have students write the following on a piece of paper: Identify five values you believe are important guidelines to behavior in your personal life and identify five values which you believe would be important guides to your behavior as a professional social worker. After completing the exercise, discuss types of understanding as summarized in exhibit 1.6 on page 26 of book.

3. Getting to Know You Activity. The purpose of this activity is to give students an opportunity to talk about themselves. Materials needed include paper plates, pencils or pens, and markers. The plate represents someone’s world. Have each student draw their world in reference to certain questions. Possible questions could include: What is your favorite dessert? What is your favorite food? What is your career goal? What do you like to do for fun? What is your favorite TV program? What are your talents? Who is a part of your support system? Have each student pair up with someone else in class and share their world. Encourage the students to pay attention to how the person describes their person-environment configurations.

4. Exploring Your Motivation for the Profession — Possible Reasons:

• To help others

• To save people (from harm of some sort)

• To fully live religious obligations

• To heal the world

• I can’t stand to see others suffer

• People always turn to me for help

• I love to talk

• I’m curious

• I have so much myself

• I had a hard time & no one was there for me

• I just like people

• Social workers are who I want to work with

Choose the six motivations that are most important to you. Rank them.

Discussion questions: What do these rankings tell you about yourself? How has your life course and life events influenced your motivations?

5. Diverse and Heterogeneous Groups

Randomly assign students to groups of 5 or 6. Have each student in the group exchange 3 or 4 bits of identifying information about him/herself. Based on this information, have each of the groups describe themselves in terms of the range of heterogeneity and diversity within their group. Share their group profile with other class members and then develop a class profile based on heterogeneity and diversity.

6. Multiple Dimensions Pair Share

Review Exhibit 1.2 Definitions and Examples of Dimensions of Person, Environment, and Time on page 12 of the book.

Have students choose a partner and share with each other something about him/herself specific to each of the dimensions. Have each student consider and then share whether there are one or two particular dimensions that seem to be more important than or dominate the other dimensions in understanding his/her life story.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download