Search+Strategies

The purpose of this pathfinder is to provide classroom teachers with resources and information to support their students who have divorced parents. The Pathfinder includes broad, general information about divorce and the emotional toll it takes on families so that teachers will be able to empathize with these families. The pathfinder then narrows to providing classroom teachers with strategies, lesson plans, and activities designed to help students engage in discussion and explore blended families. This information was collected for my personal use as well as any other classroom teacher or library media specialist who is interested in acquiring resources about this topic. This pathfinder is designed to reach educators. Divorce Divorce OR parental separation Child custody “Children and divorce” “Implications of divorce” Children AND “blended families” AND education “Classroom strategies” AND divorce “Classroom teacher” AND divorced parents NOT legal Google – www.google.com Ask Kids – www.askkids.com Kid Rex - http://www.kidrex.org
 * Pathfinder: ** Helping Students Cope with Divorce
 * Introduction: **
 * Search Terms: **
 * Search Strategies: **

This is a blog written by a teacher who had experienced divorce as a child and experienced first-hand how it affecter her school performance. The blog contains statistics, strategies, resources, and research to help teachers understand and serve the needs of students with divorced family members. This website was created by the Justice Education Society in British Columbia. It divides its resources by audience: children, teens, parents and professionals, and parents who want to take an online course on single parenting. The children section has an interactive and answers basic questions about divorce. The teen section is set up in a Q&A format, and the parent/teacher guide includes specific ways to communicate with children about divorce and answers legal questions. This website was designed for upper elementary through teenage students. It gives a scenario of a student who experienced her parents’ divorce so that students can explore the aspects of a divorce outside of a personal experience. The website has a quiz, a Q&A section, videos, and a parent/teacher page. The Parent/Teacher page includes book and web resources and a guide for starting a discussion about divorce with children. This article outlines how divorce specifically affects academic performance. It gives a number of specific ideas and strategies for teachers to use including how to meet with students and their divorced parents and how to create a safe learning environment. It also includes a resource list of books to have in the classroom for students and books for teachers to read outlining more communication strategies. This article establishes a clear guide for how teachers can make a positive impact in their students’ lives. It breaks the teacher’s role into four categories: Approach, Attitude, Atmosphere, and Action and suggests very specific ways that educators can give students extra adult support through this difficult time. This is mainly an overview of the difficulties and emotional duress associated with divorce. The website provides additional information about other issues that may affect a child’s well-being. Scholastic created a scenario involving a fifth-grader who has added responsibility, including becoming one parent’s confidant, after her parents’ divorce. Advice is then given as to how the teacher can best respond to this particular child’s needs and difficulties as well as children in similar situations. This is a lesson plan for grades 4-8 that has students explore how divorce affects families. Students have discussions; watch video clips focused on specific issues in divorced families; and then reflect on how families could have handled these situations better. Students also conduct research and survey participants to get a better understanding of how parents help their children cope with a divorce. ([]) Julia Thompson, the author of several books relating to first-year teachers, wrote this advice column. She answers how to best schedule conferences with divorced parenets. New2Teaching is a website designed with the first-year teacher in mind. It refers to divorce statistics in the UK, but the advice is relevant to teachers in the United States as well. The article discusses the emotional and behavior problems that might arise in children with newly divorced parents and what teachers can do to provide stability. It also lists several web resources for students and their parents to explore.
 * Using a combination of parenthesis with AND narrows down search results to resources for teachers.
 * Including NOT before law, legal, etc. will eliminate the divorce attorney websites.
 * Try using OR to include related results to the topic of divorce.
 * Using student-friendly search engines (Ask Kids and Kid Rex) produces more interactive websites and websites designed for students but also have teacher and parent pages with tips and resources to help support their students.
 * Resources: **
 * Google Site – Divorce and Education** ([])
 * Families Change** ([])
 * PBS – It’s My Life: Divorce** ([])
 * NEA Standing Committee on Instruction and Professional Development: Children and Divorce** ([])
 * Missouri Extension Guide for teachers who are helping students through a divorce** ([])
 * American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry: Facts for Families of children and divorce** ([])
 * Scholastic: Children of Divorce Resource List** ([])
 * Nick Jr: Divorce Happens (**[])
 * Teacher Community advice column at Monster.com: How Teachers can Work with Divorced Parents**
 * ATL: Dealing with Divorce advice** ([])

I had heard of Pathfinders from being a student teacher in a Stillwater elementary school. The Library Media Specialist in my school had them displayed in the resource section of the library. I never used one, but I have heard from other librarians and classroom teachers that they rely on Pathfinders for guiding students in research endeavors. I wanted to create a Pathfinder that would benefit first-year teachers. In my opinion teacher/parent relationships can be tough to establish and the most intimidating part of teaching. When families have some twists and turns, it can be even more complicated to establish a relationship with everyone who cares for the student. Researching the effects divorce has on students and their parents will help teachers, and especially first-year teachers, better understand the emotional and physical issues surrounding divorced family members. I wasn’t sure about the resources available, but after using the search techniques in this module I had more success finding relevant articles and information about the topic of divorce in students’ lives. I had a good time figuring out what search terms worked and how I could alter my search terms to find the exact results I wanted. I had to spend some time reading the module information and learning what a Pathfinder should include. I discovered that recording all of the search terms used is a good practice when creating a Pathfinder so I can lead students to terms that I know worked and those that did not lead to my specific topic. I really like the idea of having a collection of Pathfinders for my professional use as well as Pathfinders in my classroom (or library) that students made for other students. I think that this is a great way to organize information and keep track of wonderful teacher resources. Categorizing by topic and annotating the websites makes Pathfinders easy to use. I might create files with broader topic categories like “Communication” to house my Pathfinders.
 * Reflection **
 * Awareness**
 * Exploration**
 * Learning**
 * Application**