Miss Nattanan Chartsakulsak
Satit Pattana school Bangkok, Thailand
nattanan@satitpattana.ac.th
Background and Problems:
Leaving home to the new context of school learning socity, kindergarten 1 students have to adapt themselves to a new social context and culture. Therefore, social adaptability is the primary ability that gradually affects the learning performance of kindergarten 1students. Kindergarten 1 teachers are required to help each student learn to adapt himself/herself to the new environment and society since social adaptability is the foundation that can lead him/her to a happy and valuable life.
Satit Pattana School is a large private school in suburb of Bangkok, Thailand; our kindergarten 1 program consists of two groups of students: 1) the kindergarten students who have studied at the school since they were in pre-kindergarten level and 2) the new students. The teacher paired up a student from group 1 with a newcomer to create a learning buddy. This is to assist the new students to have an appropriate social adaptability development. Moreover, our school supports teacher learning and professional practice through Lesson Study (LS) with Professional Learning Community to develop our students’ social adaptability.
The study objectives were:
- To analyze important aspects of the redesigned lesson plans to support social adaptability development by integrating the buddy assisted activity.
- To analyze the changes in social adaptability development of Kindergarten 1 students after using the buddy assisted activity.
- To study teachers’ professional learning and practice development through Lesson Study (LS) and Professional Learning Community (PLC).
Target Group:
21 Kindergarten 1 students of Satit Pattana School
Study Instruments:
- a social adaptability development assessment form
- 6 lesson plan with buddy assisted activity
- a teacher log book
- a self-evaluation of planning form (using in the activity)
- a self-evaluation lesson plan implementation form (using in the activity)
The findings were as follows:
- Each of the 6 redesigned lesson plans was structured by integrating the buddy assisted activity to create an opportunity for the students to play with their peer, verbally communicate and interact with other people. The 6 lessons were conducted in 2 weeks. In each week the teacher ran 3 lessons: one of the three lessons was designed as part of the LS activity at the beginning of each week.
- 14 (66%) students had shown social adaptability development, while 7 (33%) students maintain their good performance in social adaptability.
- Collaboration in redesigning the lessons and classroom observations and reflections with my buddy teachers and PLC members supported my professional learning and practice in enhancing social adaptability development of the Kindergarten 1 students more effectively.
