Assignment 3 Unit Plan Anthea Pakos 2108262

Unit Plan
(5 Lesson Sequence)
This expandable document can be downloaded from the EDUC3642 FLO site if desired

Class Context (learner diversity/ school resources/classroom resources):

This unit is designed for a stage 1 Psychology class of 24 students. Most students work well
independently and show an interest in learning psychology. Most students are interested in the use of
technology and work well when presented with information visually. Two students struggle with public
speaking as English is their second language and prefer to work with others, all students benefit from
group work and class discussion.

Unit Topic: Social Psychology Year Level:11

Unit Aims
Within this 5 lesson sequence students will learn about the behaviour of individuals and group influences
with a focus on conformity, obedience, compliance, group processes and aggression. Students will work
through a variety of tasks to build knowledge and understanding about why people either participate or
do not participate in tasks with links to these group influences.

Learning Requirements
(SACE, 2017)
1. Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the factors that cause psychological
differences and similarities between people and give examples of how these factors affect the
behaviour of themselves, others, and groups

2. Make informed decisions about issues, events, and situations in society by applying relevant
psychological principles and ethics

3. Undertake a variety of roles while working as a member of a team to achieve individual and
shared goals.

Unit Learning objectives

As a result of the planned learning experiences from this unit students will:
Understand that (big idea/concept)
- Students will understand that individual behaviours, group dynamics and social forces
shape our attitudes
- Students will understand that out thoughts, feelings and behaviours are shared by others

Know (facts, topic terminology, definitions)

- Students will know the factors that effect conformity, obedience, compliance, group
processes and aggression.

- Students will know how peoples thoughts, feelings and behaviours are influences by
others.
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Be able to (show content knowledge, thinking skills, participation skills, study skills)
- Students will be able to seek information from their environment about how they should
behave.
- Students will be able to apply psychological principles about social behaviour to social
issues.

Unit Essential Questions

- Do others influence our behaviour?

- Do we interact differently in certain situations?

Addressing General Capabilities

Literacy
Numeracy
ICT competence
Communication
Citizenship
Personal development
Work
Learning

Context Unit Overview

This whole unit spans over a 4 week period of 4 x 50 minute lessons and 1 x 100
minute lesson per week. Students learn about social behaviour by working
through 5 main topics; the impact of the presence or absence of other people
on performance, conformity and obedience, group influence, and aggression.
Within this unit students become aware of human interaction and how that fits
in to being human, they are able to understand why people may or may not
participate in certain behaviours depending on the context they are presented
with. Students are able to make connections within their own lives use this
information to create advertisements and campaigns which can impact
behaviour.

This 5 lesson sequence comes after the initial introduction lesson to the topic,
students will now focus on the 5 main aspects within social behaviour

Assessment tasks within this unit include:

- Skills and application task Design a Campaign
- Exit cards
- Test / quizzes
Note: Lesson plans may take longer then one lesson to complete resulting In
tasks being completed over more then 5 lessons BUT sequence of tasks remains
Assignment 3 Unit Plan Anthea Pakos 2108262

the same.
5 lessons taught within Use of 5 Es Constructivist model of learning
Unit
Conformity and Obedience
Lesson 1 Obedience to Authority

Engage:
1. Would you skip class if your friend told you to? Your mum? Your principle? A
stranger? Why/why not?
2. Who have you complied with when given instruction?

Explore: Milgram experiment

Watch Milgram experiment and discuss with class
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr5cjyokVUs&t=8s

Explain: Factors of Obiedience

- Legitimacy of authority
- Social isolation
- Buffers
- Gradual commitment

Elaborate: Extend students understanding through exploring the behaviour od

cults. Invite students to find examples of obedience within a cult of their choice
with a partner.

Evaluate: Criticisms is there anything wrong with the Milgram study (for
example, does it raise any ethical issues, are there problems with its validity?)

Continuation - Conformity and Obedience

Lesson 2 How do cult leaders achieve conformity?

Explore: Conduct experiment on students, asking them to conform to requests

by the teacher.
Ask 5 students to move seats, then ask then to move back. Ask
students to raise hands and place on head. And then place one hand on
their nose.
Discuss how students are willing to obey commands from their teacher with
minimal or no question. Ask students how long they would obey these strange
requests.

Conduct discussion on behaviours shown by students. Who was obeying? Who

was considering it? Who was not?

Engage:
Prudential- Everybodys doing it
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgRoiTWkBHU
Social conformity- Brain Games
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8BkzvP19v4

Explain: Factors of conformity

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- Group size
- Unanimity
- Cohesion
- Age

Elaborate:
Where do you experience conformity within your lives? Have you experienced it
today? Use the factors to describe an example of conformity you have
experienced and why.

Evaluate: Use exit cards that have examples of obedience and conformity.
(Appendix A)

Compliance
Lesson 3
Engage: present students with their assessment task ( Appendix B)
Design your own persuasion campaign

Give students a few minutes to read the assessment task and then conduct
discussion with whole group.
How do you think you could persuade someone to participate in your
campaign?

Explore: Look at campaigns presented on the internet

Explain & Elaborate: Explain and discuss reasons for compliance

- Normative social influence

- Informational Social Influence
- Cultural Effects
- Ambiguity of the situation
- Individual Differences

Evaluate: Give students time to work on assessment task. Students will use their
knowledge from this lesson and the two previous lessons on obedience and
conformity to apply skills and knowledge they have learnt to the task. ( Work on
assignment for homework)

Lesson 4 Group Processes and influence

Social behaviour in everyday experience and events
Engage: Show video of Kitty Genovese case
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdpdUbW8vbw

Explore: Common Group Processes in Jigsaw activity (Appendix C)

Students work with a partner to complete jigsaw activity to share with whole
class.
- Social Facilitation
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- Social Inhibition
- Social loafing
- The Bystander effect
- De-individualisation
- Majority and Minority

Explain & Elaborate: Common Group Processes in Kitty Genovese Case.

Specifically the bystander effect.
What process did people show? What are some examples of this?- Group
discussion

Evaluate: Exit card on examples of common group processes (Appendix D)

Aggression and Alturism

Lesson 5 Do we Learn aggressive behaviour?

Engage: Snippets of News articles (Appendix E)

What do you think about these news articles? Do you believe this is happening?

Explore: see what other articles students can find on aggression. Students can
look at Time Health or News.com or other news sites.

Students will share information found with class.

Explain: Explanations of Aggression

- General aggression model
- Biomedical explanations
- Learning explanations
- Environmental conditions
- Media Influences

Elaborate & Evaluate: Students think of ways to control aggression. The

amount of understanding students express through coming up with strategies
to control aggression will determine their understanding of that lesson. Eg. Less
violent video games or a less aggressive environment.

Have you seen any advertisements about preventing violence in the media? (eg.
Violence against women, bullying)

Unit Continues: Students learn about altruism and Interpersonal attraction in

later lessons.
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Appendix A

Exit Card
Obedience and Conformity

For each example, mark an O for obedience or C for conformity depending on which
is presented.

_____ You have just found a car park at university after looking for 40 minutes. You
step out of your car about to walk to class when the parking inspector tells you, you
cannot park there because you do not have the correct permit. You get back in your
car and go and look for another car park.

_____ You are a medical student and have gone out for a night of drinking with
friends, it is getting late and you have had quite a few drinks. You are
contemplating driving home because you havent had a drink for an hour and
dont feel too drunk. After some contemplation, you decide to catch a taxi home.

_____ You have just started your new job and are very excited. It is your first day
and you put in a lot of thought into what you would wear. You have decided to wear
a bright coloured top and a flowery skirt. When you arrive at work you notice
everyone is wearing black, grey and white. When you arrive for your next day at
work, you wear a white top, and black pants.
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Appendix B
Design Your Own Persuasion Campaign

(Adapted from the American Psychological Association, Unit Plan by Laura Brandt)

Due Date: Week 3 lesson 1

Draft: Thursday week 2

You have been asked to develop a campaign to achieve one of the goals presented below.
Work in groups of 2 or 3. Please choose own goal to focus your campaign.

- Encourage students to walk or ride their bike to school

- Encourage people to donate blood
- Encourage students to participate in the worlds greatest shave
- Encourage students to do at least 30mins exercise a day
- Or come up with your own! (Ask the teacher for permission)

1. Using the conformity, compliance, and obedience principles, how would you go about
structuring such a persuasion campaign?

2. Whom would you choose to be your spokesperson? And why? (Think about the Milgrams
experiment, will it be an authority figure?)

3. What messages will you incorporate to gain compliance from other students? Think about
the reasons for compliance and which could work within your campaign.
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Appendix C
Jigsaw Activity
Group Processes
Group Process: Group Process: Group Process:
When does it occur? When does it occur? When does it occur?

Example: Example: Example:

Group Process: Group Process: Group Process:

When does it occur? When does it occur? When does it occur?

Example: Example: Example:

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Appendix C

Group Process Information for Jigsaw activity

(Information used from American Psychological Association, Unit Plan by Laura Brandt)

Use this information to guide your research on group processes, come up with your own
examples with assistance from the ones provided
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Appendix D
Exit card
COMMON GROUP PROCESSES

Give an example for each process:

Social facilitation:

Social inhibition:

Social loafing:

The bystander effect:

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Appendix E

Time Health
Little By Little, Violent Video Games Make Us More Aggressive
Alice Park
March 25, 2014

A pproximately 90% of children in the U.S. play

video games, and more than 90% of those games
involve mature content that often includes violence.
The connection between violent media and
aggression has also spawned a body of research that
has gone back and forth on the issue.

A closer look at kids who played more hours of

violent video games per week revealed increases in
aggressive behavior and violent tendencies, compared
to those who played fewer hours a week. When asked
if it was okay for a boy to strike a peer if that peer said
something negative about him, for example, these
kids were more likely to say yes. They also scored
higher on measures of hostility, answering that they
would to respond with aggressive action when
provoked, even accidentally. The more long-term
gamers were also more likely to fantasize about
hitting someone they didnt like.

What this study does is show that its media violence

exposure that is teaching children and adolescents to
see the world in a more aggressive kind of way, says
Anderson. It shows very strongly that repeated
exposure to violent video games can increase
aggression by increasing aggressive thinking.
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Commentary
This unit plan is focused on the Social Behaviour Stage 1 psychology within SACE.
Within the unit I have specified 5 sequential lesson, each lesson has been created
using the 5 Es constructivist approach to learning which supports inquiry based
learning (Enhancing Education, 2002) encouraging students to make new
discoveries and learn new skills in their own way with minimal teacher lecturing.
Each lesson has been created to engage students in the study of psychology while
they create new knowledge and build on previous knowledge. The teacher serves as
a coach guiding them through each learning experience, providing more or less
support for each individual student where possible.

Each of the 5 Es facilitates a different way of learning. Each task set to engage
students draws out their curiosity on the topic while introducing it, for example, I have
used multiple videos and mini experiments to gain students interest within the first
part of the lesson. The explore task is designed to allow students to look closer at
the concept being presented, here students can practice thinking about their new
knowledge. I have used experiments for students to attempt to practice their new
knowledge, here students can learn through their successes and mistakes and find
answers to any questions they may start to have. The next part requires teacher to
explain information about particular factors students may need to know to make
meaningful connections and learning experiences. Students are able to ask
questions they may have at this point. The next task requires students to elaborate
on their learning of the topic, for example students are given questions to answer
which encourages them to apply their knowledge to their everyday lives and make
connections with the real world. Lastly, students evaluate their learning from that
lesson, this can be done with the use of an exit card which assesses whether
students understand the main points from that lesson or a group discussion to see if
a particular aspect may need to be looked at further.

Teaching with the 5 Es model gives the teacher the opportunity to be a facilitator
rather then a lecturer full of information. Being a facilitator requires the teacher to
provide appropriate resources and experience that aid, guide and help build students
learning. If students are provided with an arrangement of resources it should be
possible for students to teach themselves through experience and trial and error, the
Assignment 3 Unit Plan Anthea Pakos 2108262

teacher can then answer any questions the students may have and provide core
information.

A variety of learning techniques have been used within these lessons to cater for
differentiation within the classroom. Group work and collaboration is encouraged as
students work well when paired together as they are able to share ideas and help
each other when needed, this group work specially helps students who find it hard to
work alone make connections within their everyday lives as they are able to discuss
and make connections together. The skill and knowledge they develop can be used
outside of school and students can make decisions and think critically about how
they want to act within group situations (Jarvis, 2016).

Students develop a variety of general capabilities within this unit. Communication is

developed through addressing community issues such as the campaign for their
school while working ethically within a group. Personal development is developed
through understanding the behaviour of themselves and others and thinking
reflectively about each topic throughout social behaviour. Students develop their
work capability by working independently and collaboratively through all discussions
and group tasks. Learning is developed when students understand the factors that
influence emotions and behaviour and when students apply and analyse information
which they can use to develop skills used within their everyday lives ( SACE, 2017).

Each lesson is developed for students to develop their prior knowledge and reach a
new aim. Lesson 1 focuses on obedience to authority, here students are able to
explore their own lives and understand why they make certain decisions in particular
situations, this lesson specifically focuses on learning requirement 2. Lesson 2 and 3
students focus on compliance and conformity, here students expand their knowledge
by participating in a mini experiment and creating their own task using the
information they have gathered from previous lessons. These lessons focus on all
three learning requirements. Lesson 4 focuses on group processes, students
participate in a jigsaw activity to research a particular group process in more depth
they can then apply this knowledge to the interesting case of Kitty Genovese, this
lesson covers learning requirements 1 and 2 as they make informed decisions about
Assignment 3 Unit Plan Anthea Pakos 2108262

the behaviour shown by people in the case. The final lesson outlines has a focus n
aggression, this is important as they can use this information to make informed
decisions about aggression within their everyday lives. Students are able to explore
news articles provided and on the internet for stories concerning aggression around
the world. This lesson covers learning requirements 1 and 2. A variety of methods
have been used to convey information such as youtube clips, jigsaw activities, exit
cards and newspaper clips to cater for all strengths in learning. Some activities have
been adapted from Laura Brants (2007) Social Psychology Unit, which provides an
arrangement of learning activities to be used within a psychology classroom.

Throughout this unit tasks have been designed to encourage interest and successful
learning opportunities through inquiry based learning. Students work towards
developing each learning objective which enables them to perform at a high standard
and develop a good understanding of the psychological processes within social
behaviour.
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Resources

Brandt, L. (2007). A unit lesson plan for Psychology Teachers. Social Psychology.
Retrieved from - http://www.gcisd-
k12.org/cms/lib/TX01000829/Centricity/Domain/758/socialpsychology.p

Enhancing Education. (2002.). The 5 Es. Retrieved from:

http://enhancinged.wgbh.org/research/eeeee.html

Jarvis, J. (2016). Module 2: High Quality Curriculum. Flinders University. Retrieved

from https://vimeo.com/175982404.

Park, A. (2014). Little By Little, Violent Video Games Make Us More Aggressive. Times
Health. Retrieved from http://time.com/34075/how-violent-video-games-change-kids-
attitudes-about-aggression/

SACE. (2017), Psychology subject outline 2017. Psychology. Retrieved from

https://www.sace.sa.edu.au/web/psychology/
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