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3.1 What is Resilience?

Instructor Preparation and Summary

Resilience is a popular word used in the world today since the COVID-19 pandemic began. This ability to “bounce back” from adversity is something that many unique learners have demonstrated consistently in their lives while coping with their everyday challenges. In this unit, there is a short and simple self-assessment of resilience (Brief Resilience Scale) and an engaging video series with follow-up questions, and students can receive a “digital badge” when they complete the questions correctly. There is also a Resilience Tool Presentation assignment that involves students presenting their own resilience tools to the class. A diagram of a “Resilience Plant” is useful for the visual learners and engages more creative students to list their support systems, positive thoughts and health and wellness habits that contribute to their resilience.

The principles of Universal Design for Learning are incorporated into the variety of activities in this unit.

This unit will help some students to:

  • Define resilience.
  • Identify  the importance  of resilience in our lives
  • Assess informally their own level of resilience
  • List the different categories of resilience tools and provide examples of each.
  • Present a resilience tool that they use in their life to the class.
  • Identify common traits in resilient people.

Classroom Activities

  1. Brief Resilience Scale (PDF Link) from The Ohio Sate University
  2. Resilient Plant Labelling Activity is available in MS Word and Adobe PDF formats
  3. Resilience: Plans for Success and Bounces Back from Failure resource from New World of Work *
    • Instructions: On the webpage above, the participant will explore one of the “Top 10” 21st Century Skills. The participant can watch all 5 videos and answer the multiple-choice questions. If the participant gets a passing score, they’ll be able to earn a Learner Digital Badge for the skill. An email will be sent to the participant from Badgr, and they can claim their badge to share and post online for all the world (and potential employers) to see!

*Source: All of New World of Work’s 21st Century Skills curriculum, video, and assessment content are (CC BY-NC-SA).

Applied Learning Assessments

Text Description
Level 1 Assessment

Fill out the picture of the resilience plant (PDF), labelling the different roots with the different tools you use to bounce back in your life. You need to have at least 2 tools for each root area. Below are some examples. 

  • Support Systems: What kind of social supports do you have? (Mom, Dad, siblings, friends, grandparents, etc.) Do you have supports that help you at work, school, and home? (Teacher, friends, EA, parent)
  • Health and Well Being: What kind of things do you do to take care of your health? (exercise, play sports, eat fruits, eat vegetables, sleep 8 hours a night, limit screen time, be outside in nature, etc.)
  • Positive Thinking: What types of positive thoughts do you have or can you have about yourself and your life? (I will do my best when I try something new. I am a caring person who respects others’ feelings. Failures and mistakes are good opportunities for learning so that I do it differently next time,etc.
Level 2 Assessment

Fill out the picture of the resilience plant (PDF), labelling the different roots with the different tools you use to bounce back in your life. You need to have at least 3 tools for each root area. Below are some examples. 

  • Support Systems: Who do you talk to when you want to talk about a problem ? Who do you talk to when you are frightened or nervous? Who do you talk to when you are excited? (Mom, Dad, siblings, friends, grandparents, etc.) Do you have people who support and help you at work, school, and home? (Teacher, friends, EA, parent)
  • Health and Well Being: What kind of things do you do to take care of your health? (exercise, play sports, eat fruits, eat vegetables, sleep 8 hours a night, limit screen time, be outside in nature, etc.)
  • Positive Thinking: What types of positive thoughts do you have or can you have about yourself and your life? (I will do my best when I try something new. I am a caring person who respects others’ feelings. Failures and mistakes are good opportunities for learning so that I can do it differently next time., etc)
Level 3 Assessment

Fill out the picture of the resilience plant (PDF) plant labelling the different roots with the different tools you use to bounce back in your life. You need to have at least 5 tools for each root area. Below are some questions to help you get started.

  • Support Systems: What kind of social supports do you have?  help you at work, school, or home?
  • Health and Well Being: What kind of things do you do to take care of your health?
  • Positive Thinking: What types of positive thoughts do you have or can you have about yourself and your life?

Interactive Plant Labelling Activity

As an alternative to the paper-based labelling activity option above,  you can also use this interactive H5P,  which will allow users to export a copy of their responses to a text-based document (such as MS Word).

Text Description

This H5P Documentation Tool activity allows the user to provide documentation for a project according to the given task description: Resilient Plant Labelling Activity. Number of Pages: 2

Documentation Pages:

Page 1: Resilient Plant Labelling Activity

Fill out the picture of the resilience plant labelling the different roots with the different tools you use to bounce back in your life. You need to have at least 2 to 3 tools for each of the 8 root areas (or as directed by your intructor if this is part of a classroom assignment). Here are some examples of each category for guideance:

  • Support Systems: What kind of social supports do you have?  Help at work, school, home?
  • Health and Well Being: What kind of things do you do to take care of your health?
  • Positive Thinking: What types of positive thoughts do you have or can you have about yourself and your life?

You’ll be able to review and download a copy of your resposnes on the next page.

Resilient Plant Image: Illustration of a green plant with multiple leaves labeled “Resilience” growing from brown roots labeled “Health & Well Being,” “Positive Thinking,” and “Support Networks,” symbolizing how resilience is nourished by wellness, mindset, and social support.

Text Input Field: You need to have at least 2 to 3 tools for each root area.

Page 2: Document Export Page

This page allows the user to export the created document.

Instructor Resources

Slide Deck

Worksheets and Web Resources

References

New World of Work. (n.d.). Resilience: Plans for Success and Bounces Back from Failure. 21st Century Skills: Resilience. Retrieved March 3, 2022, from https://www.oercommons.org/courses/21st-century-skills-resilience.  This work has been licensed under a Public Domain Mark 1.0

License

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Empowering Unique Learners for College Success Copyright © 2022 by Robin Frkovic, MEd., BSc is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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