Violence
in Schools:
Identification,
Prevention & Intervention Strategies
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
Welcome to Violence in Schools, an interactive computer-based instruction course, designed to give you a better understanding of school violence and increase your interventions strategies. Violence in Schools provides a foundational understanding of violence and the motivational purposes behind aggression. The correlation with and impact of the media, community, and family upon violence will be investigated. The course teaches identification and intervention approaches for working with out-of-control behaviors. In addition, each student will receive information on available national resources for both parents and teachers. This course will help each person to increase his or her understanding of violence, the motivations behind the use of violence, and specific strategies to minimize the occurrence of violence in a school and community.
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.
Title:
Violence in Schools:
Identification, Prevention & Intervention Strategies
Instructor: Dr. Karen Lea
Publisher:
Virtual Education Software, inc.
2000, Revised 2004, Revised 2010, Revised 2013, Revised 2016, Revised 2019,
Revised 2022
The structure and format of most distance-learning courses presume a high level of personal and academic integrity in completion and submission of coursework. Individuals enrolled in a distance-learning course are expected to adhere to the following standards of academic conduct.
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.
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 and work-related settings. The intervention strategies presented in this course may be generalized to all students (pre-kindergarten through 12th grade) and adults. While an intervention may be geared toward a specific age population, with minimal modifications an educator should be able to adapt the strategy for his or her students.
As a result of this course,
participants will demonstrate their ability to:
·
Identify factors contributing to
violent behaviors
·
Develop strategies to address
school/community violence
·
Effectively intervene, provide
safety and minimize violent actions
·
Develop a “school violence”
assessment with specific intervention strategies
·
Assess the climate of the classroom
and school, making the necessary adjustments to increase safety
·
Address preventative methods within
the school system for students
Anger management strategies have become an important topic in schools, businesses, homes, and communities. Our society is inundated with classes, books, and counseling programs that explain various ways to “manage anger.” Despite our best attempts, aggression and violence are still on the rise. We regularly hear and read from various media sources how dangerous our society has become, especially our youth population. This class will focus on developing new ways of handling violence without getting involved in the typical power struggles. During this course, each person will learn specific strategies and practical ideas to aid in the reduction of school violence. Key intervention ideas for developing a civil climate within each school will be presented, and identification and recognition of potential violence will be discussed. Included in this approach will be an emphasis on safety for students and educators. This course is not attempting to be a “cure all” or “fix it” approach, but will aid educators in their ability to develop a safer environment in a school and community. In addition, it will help each person feel more qualified and capable of handling emerging violent behaviors within a school, home, or community 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%, and
successfully complete ALL writing assignments 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
all course journal article and essay writing assignments with the minimum word
count shown for each writing assignment.
·
Complete
a course evaluation form at the end of the course.
1.
Introduction
2.
Statistics
3.
Types
4.
Risk Factors
5.
Why Escalating Violence, Part I
6.
Why Escalating Violence, Part II
7.
Media
8.
Reasons
9.
Characteristics
10.
Warning Signs
11.
Self-Awareness Activity
12.
Learned vs. Instinctive
13.
Gang Assessment Tools
14.
Anger/Aggression Activity
15.
Summary
1.
Behavior Response
2.
How to Respond
3.
Avoiding Power Struggles
4.
Tips
5.
Controlling Anxiety
6.
Control & Direct Activity
1.
Action Steps for Students
2.
Action Steps for Teachers
3.
Action Steps for Parents
5.
Patterns of Aggression
6.
Preventing Behavior
7.
Making Peace
8.
Decision Making Activity
9.
Confrontation Communication
10.
Changing Behavior
11.
Prevention Strategies
12.
Conflict Negotiation
13.
Crisis Planning Guidelines
14.
Possible Interventions
15.
Anger: It Won’t Work Here
1.
Case Study
2.
Violence Prevention Training/Tools
3.
Summary
At the end of each course 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. The average from your exam scores will be printed on your certificate. However, this is not your final grade since your required writing assignments have not been reviewed. Exceptionally written or poorly written required writing assignments, or violation of the academic integrity policy in the course syllabus, will affect your grade. 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.
All assignments are
reviewed and may impact your final grade. Exceptionally
or poorly written assignments, or violation of the Academic Integrity Policy
(see course syllabus for policy), will affect your grade. Fifty percent of your
grade is determined by your writing assignments, and your overall exam score
determines the other fifty percent. Refer to the Essay Grading Guidelines that were sent as an attachment with your
original course link. You should also
refer to the Course Syllabus Addendum, which was sent as an attachment with
your original course link, to determine if you have any writing assignments in
addition to the Critical Thinking Questions (CTQs) and Journal Article
Summations (JAS). If you do, the Essay Grading Guidelines will also apply.
Your writing assignments must meet the minimum word count and are not to include the question or your final citations as part of your word count. In other words, the question and citations are not to be used as a means to meet the minimum word count.
There are four CTQs that you are required to complete. You will need to write a minimum of 500 words (maximum 1,000) per essay. You should explain how the information that you gained from the course will be applied and clearly convey a strong understanding of the course content as it relates to each CTQ. To view the questions, click on REQUIRED ESSAY and choose the CTQ that you are ready to complete; this will bring up a screen where you may enter your essay. Prior to course submission, you may go back at any point to edit your essay, but you must be certain to click SAVE once you are done with your edits.
You
must click SAVE before you write another essay or move on to another part of
the course.
You are required to write, in your own words, a summary on a total of three peer-reviewed or scholarly journal articles (one article per JAS), written by an author with a Ph.D., Ed.D., or similar, on the topic outlined within each JAS section in the “Required Essays” portion of the course (blogs, abstracts, news articles, or similar are not acceptable). Your article choice must relate specifically to the discussion topic listed in each individual JAS. You will choose a total of three relevant articles (one article per JAS) and write a thorough summary of the information presented in each article (you must write a minimum of 200 words with a 400 word maximum per JAS). Be sure to provide the URL or the journal name, volume, date, and any other critical information to allow the facilitator to access and review each article.
To write your summary, click on REQUIRED ESSAYS and choose the JAS that you would like to complete. A writing program will automatically launch where you can write your summary. When you are ready to stop, click SAVE. Prior to course submission you may go back at any point to edit your summaries but you must be certain to click SAVE once you are done with your edits. For more information on the features of this assignment, please consult the HELP menu.
You must click SAVE before you write
another summary or move on to another part of the course.
Karen Lea holds a Ph.D. in education. Dr. Lea has 15 years of experience teaching at the K–12 level and another 14 years’ experience teaching education courses at the undergraduate and post-graduate levels. Those 14 years in higher education included 6 years as a dean at a university and 7 additional years in charge of assessment and accreditation at a university. Currently, she is a lead program development owner at Western Governors University. Dr. Lea has been professionally published more than 15 times and has served on over a dozen panels and boards, including the NCATE (CAEP) Board of Examiners.
You may contact the instructor by emailing Dr. Lea at karen_lea@virtualeduc.com or by calling her at 509-891-7219, Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. PST. Phone messages will be answered within 24 hours. Phone conferences will be limited to 10 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.
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.
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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.
9/27/23 JN