A+-+Historical+Background+&+++++++++Project+Description


 * Project Manager: Trevae **

**//__Historical Background: __//**

South-side Chicago Public Schools are experiencing challenging school safety concerns due to peer-to-peer violence in and around school environments. The familial environments of the targeted schools are overwhelmingly poor, single mother headed households with a high rate (85%) of poverty. Gang activity and drug crimes are rampant in these areas. Schools and housing are deteriorated structures, built mostly well before World War II, and ill maintained. The new superintendent of the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), Ron Huberman, //a former police officer and transit executive with a passion for data analysis plans to stop the violence within the city's public school populations with a plan that has nothing to do with guns or security guards. Instead, his plan uses statistics and probability, paired with empathy (// Saulny,  2009). The title of our instruction design project is Empathetic Listening and Conflict Resolution. GTS will develop a staff development-training program for administrators and teachers to use to deliver training to at risk students. As a follow up, GTS will also provide workbook support materials for teacher facilitation to the targeted student population.

On September 2010, Superintendent Huberman explained: //To help get student buy-in, the program includes part-time jobs for students who participate we believe that if we can change the behavior of these 10,000 students, we'll be able to make a significant difference in the level of violence in the city. No student who participates in the program would be publicly identified, officials said, except to the adults involved in his or her interventio//n. Morrison et al., (2010) report the first stage should focus on determining if instruction would be a solution to the problem. Accordingly, they state, a normative need is identified by comparing the target audience against a national standard...the normative need exists when the target populations performance is below established norms (p. 33). In our case, the normative need exists because the target population is performing negatively above the current established norms in wake of serious incidences of violence perpetrated by students against students. Moreover, we also looked at what Morrison, et al., (2011) call felt needs in deciding whether or not a need exist (p. 35).

According to Morrison et al., (2011), felt needs are best identified through interviews and questionnaires that indicate whether the target audience is willing to express their needs on paper, which has previously been conducted and completed by the Chicago Board of Education beforehand and is available for our perusal. The information we gathered comes from most recent police, news, and school data reports that confirms a definite need via normative needs assessment for intervention services. In other words, reports demonstrate that the need exists and that development of the training program for our target audience, teachers and students is needed and is expected to help CPS attain their goal of safe and orderly school environments. We expect the target contact audience will take back what they learn to their respective schools for delivery amongst the targeted group of students.

**//__Needs analysis __//**

**//What is the problem we are asked to solve? //** Golden Training Solutions (GTS) has been tasked with designing a course for school personnel onsite school administrators and teachers focused on empathetic listening skills for conflict resolution to help curb incidences of violence in and around school grounds and at home. CPS principals, assistant principals, and teachers will provide development of empathetic listening and conflict resolution skills to promote, nurture, and deliver the same within their respective school environments.

**//Will instruction solve the problem? //** Yes. Instruction will solve the problem through effective presentation adult employees are provided definitions, resources, examples via multimedia representations of what emphatic listening for conflict resolutions skills are, and through role-play and reenactments of situations, they will have trained beforehand before problems start. Finally, they will in turn, apply what they have learned to students at targeted neighborhood high schools.

**//What is the purpose of the planned instruction? //** With our professionally constructed Emphatic Listening for Conflict Resolution Training Program, we will provide training that will curb incidences of peer-to-peer violence through staff development of faculty at targeted high schools. Design of the training program will focus on some of the following features: Training in of de-escalation, resolution, and avoidance of conflict Materials that supplement staff development activities that demonstrate effects that empathetic listening skills can help promote safe and orderly school environments, Teach instructors how to listen and resolve conflicts within the school workplace and beyond <span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Empowering employee learners by offering alternative ways to deal with verbal and physical violence�for example, bullying <span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Building an environment of trust and respect between staff, student, families, and the community as a whole.

**//<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12.5pt;">Is an instructional intervention the best solution? //** <span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Most definitely instructional intervention is the best solution to peer-to-peer violence.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">References <span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Focus in Chicago: Students at Risk of Violence. (October 6, 2009). Retrieved January 18 2011, from []

<span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Trust and Trust Building. (December 2003). Retrieved January 18, 2011, from []

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Morrison, G. R., Ross, S. M., Kalman, H. K., & Kemp, J. E. (2011). //Designing effective instruction// (6th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (pp. 33-35).

Saulny, S. (2009, October 6). Focus in Chicago: Students at Risk of Violence. The New York Times, p. 1:2. Retrieved January, 2011 from, [] A - Historical Background & Project Description