Mr. Zamarrón was pleased because he noticed Todd had demonstrated this with two different peers in two different settings. Thus, it appeared the skill had already generalized across settings. However, Mr. Zamarrón knew it was important for Todd to recognize other emotions and show empathy appropriately. 

Mr. Zamarrón created a lesson to help Todd practice the skills of recognizing another’s feelings (Critical Thinking & Problem Solving Skill 15) and showing empathy (affection) appropriately (Critical Thinking & Problem Solving Skill 14).

Though Mr. Zamarrón was proud of Todd for responding appropriately to the feeling of sadness in his peers, he also wanted Todd to recognize and respond to peers when they felt scared, mad, or stressed. Thus, Mr. Zamarrón needed to focus on response generalization. He operationally defined an objective to determine generalization lessons had been effective:

• When a peer is mad, scared, or stressed, Todd will affirm the emotion (e.g., “I understand why you feel [emotion]”) and offer to help (e.g., “Can I do anything to help you out?”) on 9/10 opportunities.

With his objective operationally defined, Mr. Zamarrón needed to determine an instructional setting and method. He considered using direct instruction and the use of visuals (images of individuals displaying emotions). However, he thought it was important to provide context for each emotion and dynamic models of different emotional responses. Thus, he decided to use role play and one additional student for small group instruction. Role play would allow Mr. Zamarrón to emulate the real-world situations in which the target skill was likely to occur.

 

• Instructional Setting: Small Group
• Instructional Method: Role Play

Mr. Zamarrón’s Lesson on “Recognizing Another’s Feelings and Showing Empathy (Affection) Appropriately”

 

Creating a Visual Support and Preparing Scripts

Mr. Zamarrón prepared for the lesson by making a small visual support with definitions of each emotion and photographs of facial expressions consistent with each emotion. He also printed out large images of each emotion. He taped these images to the board and wrote the definitions of each emotion underneath the photo. Finally, he prepared 15 brief scripts for the peer in order to teach Todd multiple examples of recognizing emotions and appropriately showing empathy. Each script had a specific context and lines consistent with one of the targeted emotions.

Implementing the Role Play

Mr. Zamarrón began the small group lesson by reviewing the definitions of each emotion and the steps for responding to an emotion (i.e., affirming the emotion and asking to help). He told Todd that for the role play the peer was going to read a few lines and act out an emotion to help teach multiple examples of scenarios in which Todd would need to be emotionally sensitive. Todd would have to identify the emotion and affirm it before offering to help the peer. Mr. Zamarrón showed Todd the small visual he created and told him he could keep it inside his backpack for help when situations like this came up at school. He told Todd that he could reference the large visuals on the board during the lesson. 

For each script, Mr. Zamarrón read the context of the situation (e.g., “You’re in math class, and the teacher is collecting homework”) before the peer began reading their lines. The peer would pause after reading their line (e.g., “Shoot! I left my homework at home. If I miss another assignment, I might fail the class!”). Then, Todd would identify and affirm the emotion (e.g., “That’s stressful. I hate it when I forget my homework”), and ask if he could help. As needed, Mr. Zamarrón would point to the corresponding image on the board to prompt Todd. He provided immediate reinforcing and corrective feedback throughout the lesson. He also asked Todd to explain how he knew what emotion the peer displayed after the conclusion of each script. Following the lesson, Mr. Zamarrón guided a brief discussion with Todd and the peer. He asked them to think of other situations in which a person might feel sad, mad, or scared and to think of appropriate ways to respond in each case.