Understanding
Aggression:
Coping with Aggressive Behavior in the
Classroom
Instructor Name: Dr. Karen Lea
Phone: 509-891-7219
Office Hours: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
PST Monday - Friday
Email: karen_lea@virtualeduc.com
Address: Virtual Education Software
16201 E Indiana Ave,
Suite 1450
Spokane,
WA 99216
Technical Support: support@virtualeduc.com
This
course is about violence in America, about the aggression in our schools,
classrooms, streets, homes and elsewhere. The course speaks to the hate, the
fights, the anger, the crimes committed and the victims in our schools and
society. It is a course about students, children, teenagers, adults and
neighbors, all of us.
The
course will consider the many forms of aggression, both criminal and otherwise;
its costs and motivation; its perpetrators and targets; its likely and unlikely
locations; its impact on our schools, the children; and, most especially, its
several causes and promising solutions.
Topics
of interest will include violence and the challenge of raising and working with
children; aggression in our classrooms; American youth gangs and their
influence; past and future sports violence; “hot spot” locations of frequent
violence; and the aggression-promoting role of alcohol, temperature, driving,
television and other features of modern life. The course also will answer
questions such as: Is aggression always
bad? How do aggressive thoughts lead to aggressive actions? Is aggression, at
least for some people, an addiction? Does the victim contribute to being
attacked? Is dating a dangerous proposition? How are the acts of aggression
dealt with in other countries, and are there any lessons for America?
The
goal of this course is to help educators and adults in general better
understand how aggression affects our lives and the lives of children.
Hopefully such greater understanding and more skilled efforts at prevention
will substantially reduce the aggression and violence that has become all too
common in America’s schools.
This
computer-based instruction course is a self-supporting program that provides
instruction, structured practice, and evaluation all on your home or school
computer. Technical support information
can be found in the Help section of your course.
Course
Materials (Online)
Title: Understanding Aggression: Coping with
Aggressive Behavior in the Classroom
Instructor: Dr. Karen Lea
Publisher: Virtual
Education Software, inc. 2002, Revised 2008, Revised 2010, Revised 2013,
Revised 2016
Academic
Work
Academic work submitted by the individual
(such as papers, assignments, reports, tests) shall be the student’s own work
or appropriately attributed, in part or in whole, to its correct source.
Submission of commercially prepared (or group prepared) materials as if they
are one’s own work is unacceptable.
Aiding
Honesty in Others
The
individual will encourage honesty in others by refraining from providing
materials or information to another person with knowledge that these materials
or information will be used improperly.
Violations of these academic
standards will result in the assignment of a failing grade and subsequent loss
of credit for the course.
This
course is designed to be an informational course with application to work or
work-related settings. The intervention
strategies are informational and not to be used without proper training and
administrative approval.
As a result of this course, participants will
demonstrate their ability:
1)
To review the history of aggression
and how society came to be such an aggressive place
2)
To identify the causes of
aggressive behavior, both internal and external
3)
To explain how aggression is
expressed in various social settings such as schoolyards, classrooms, sports,
homes, etc.
4)
To identify perpetrators and
victims of aggression and violence
5)
To identify locations of high
aggression and violence
6)
To provide solutions for reducing
aggression and violence in classroom and other school settings
7)
To provide information on how
educators can help students/children reduce feelings of aggression and violent
tendencies
The
course, Understanding Aggression, has
been divided into four chapters and five to ten exercises within each chapter.
The first chapter reviews the history of aggression in America. It explains how
we (the country) got to where we are in terms of aggression and violence. The
chapter discusses the cost of aggression. It asks the question: Is America
Safe? It discusses whether aggression is always bad. The chapter concludes with
odds and ends and aggression in general.
The
second chapter deals with how we have learned to be aggressive. It discusses
how aggressive thoughts many times become aggressive actions. The course
reviews the “us versus them” side of aggression and violence. Chapter 2 also
deals with how alcohol, temperature and driving can increase aggression and
violence. The chapter reviews the role of television and how TV may be a tutor
for violent behavior. Is high aggression often found in people who tend to have
low empathy? This chapter will discuss this issue. The chapter will also cover
how words and teasing can be expressions and forms of aggression.
The
third chapter centers on aggression and violence as crimes. It explores arson,
assault and crimes of fear. The chapter also will discuss vigilante justice
and/or injustice. Along with criminal aggression the chapter takes a look at
guns and gangs in America’s schools; how bullying affects our schools and
classrooms; how dress can affect acts of aggression and violence in schools and
society. The chapter speaks to sexual harassment and the aggression involved
with acts of harassment. There are also several sections on aggression and
violence in the home, parental fighting and how this affects children in the
home.
Chapter
4 speaks to working with and raising children to resist violence. It gives
suggestions to educators and parents on how to deal with and counteract
aggressive or violent behavior, but educators should not use these
interventions without training and administrative approval. This chapter deals
with dating, and how it can be impacted by aggressive behavior and date
violence. It speaks to how television affects the aggressive behavior of our
children. The chapter reviews child tantrums, and what to do about them.
Chapter 4 is summarized with several exercises on win-win scenarios for
remediation and effective problem solving techniques.
The chapters and exercises are sequential
and, although it is not required, they should be completed in the order in
which they are presented in the program.
After completing these four chapters you should have a framework for
understanding and working with aggressive behavior. This also may help you understand
why students with high aggression are a challenge in a regular education setting.
As a student you will be
expected to:
·
Complete all four information sections showing a
competent understanding of the material presented in each section.
·
Complete all four section examinations, showing a
competent understanding of the material presented. You
must obtain an overall score of 70%
or higher, with no individual exam score below 50%, to pass this course. *Please note: Minimum exam score
requirements may vary by college or university; therefore, you should refer to
your course addendum to determine what your minimum exam score requirements
are.
·
Complete a review
of any section on which your examination score was below 50%.
·
Retake any
examination, after completing an information review, to increase that
examination score to a minimum of 50%, making sure to also be achieving an
overall exam score of a minimum 70% (maximum of three attempts). *Please note: Minimum exam score requirements may vary by
college or university; therefore, you should refer to your course addendum to
determine what your minimum exam score requirements are.
·
Complete a course
evaluation form at the end of the course.
Chapter
1: Introduction & Characteristics
·
Introduction
·
How Did We Get Here?
·
The Costs of Aggression
·
Is Aggression Always Bad?
·
America, the Safe
Chapter
2: Behaviors & Techniques
·
Learning to Be Aggressive
·
Us Versus Them
·
Aggressive Thoughts and Aggressive
Actions
·
Low Empathy, High Aggression
·
Television as a Tutor: Aggression 101
·
Alcohol and Aggression: Courage in a Bottle
·
Does the Victim Help Cause
Violence?
·
Words That Hurt
·
Hot Days, Hot Tempers
·
Auto Aggression
·
Jump! Jump! The Suicide-baiting
Crowd
Chapter
3: Acts & Forms of Violence
·
The Journey to Crime
·
Other Acts of Aggression
·
Vigilante Injustice
·
Fear of Crime
·
The Home & Family
·
Sports Violence: Past, Present & Future
·
Play Fighting & Real Fighting –
Is there a Connection?
·
The Ride to & Through
School: Safe or Scary?
·
Teaching Prosocial Behavior to
Antisocial Youth
·
A Short Course on Gangs
Chapter
4: Preventing Violence
·
Raising Children to Resist Violence
·
Tantrums
·
Nonaggressive Children From
Aggressive Environments
·
Dating as a Dangerous Game
·
Let’s Both Calm Down, Then We’ll
Talk
·
Take my Wife, Please
·
Why Is Aggression so Hard to
Change?
·
Downsizing Deviance
·
Complex Problems Demand Complex
Solutions
·
A Look to the Future
At the end of
each chapter, you will be expected to complete an examination designed to
assess your knowledge. You may take these exams a total of three times. Your last score
will save, not the highest score. After
your third attempt, each examination will lock and not allow further
access. Your final grade for the course
will be determined by calculating an average score of all exams. This score will be printed on your final
certificate. As
this is a self-paced computerized instruction program, you may review course
information as often as necessary. You will not be able to exit any
examinations until you have answered all questions. If you try to exit the exam
before you complete all questions, your information will be lost. You are
expected to complete the entire exam in one sitting.
You
may contact the instructor by emailing karen_lea@virtualeduc.com or by
calling (509) 891-7219 Monday through Friday. Calls made during office hours
will be answered within 24 hours. Phone conferences will be limited to ten minutes
per student, per day, given that this is a self-paced instructional program.
Please do not contact the instructor about technical problems, course glitches,
or other issues that involve the operation of the course.
If you have questions or problems related
to the operation of this course, please try everything twice. If the problem
persists please check our support pages for FAQs and known issues at www.virtualeduc.com and also the Help
section of your course.
If you need personal assistance then email
support@virtualeduc.com or call
(509) 891-7219. When contacting
technical support, please know your course version number (it is located at the
bottom left side of the Welcome Screen) and your operating system, and be
seated in front of the computer at the time of your call.
Minimum Computer
Requirements
Please
refer to VESi’s website: www.virtualeduc.com
or contact VESi if you have further questions about the compatibility of your
operating system.
Refer to the addendum regarding Grading Criteria, Course Completion
Information, Items to be Submitted and how to submit your completed
information. The addendum will also note any additional course assignments that
you may be required to complete that are not listed in this syllabus.
Bibliography (Suggested
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Course content is updated every three years. Due to this update timeline, some URL links may no longer be active or may have changed. Please type the title of the organization into the command line of any Internet browser search window and you will be able to find whether the URL link is still active or any new link to the corresponding organization's web home page.
3/21/17 JN