Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

10 minutes

Tune In: Values and beliefs

20 minutes

Find Out: Values and beliefs shape identity

25 minutes

Take Action: Me and my identity

5 minutes

Reflection

Learning intentions and success criteria

Students will:

reflect on how the values and beliefs they hold form their identities through developing an identity profile.

Students can:

list a number of values and beliefs
explain how values and beliefs influence the development of identity
develop an identity profile based on their own beliefs and values.

Tune In: Values and beliefs

Step 1

Create an open-ended presentation in Mentimeter (or any other interactive presentation platform such as Polleverywhere, ClassDojo or Mural) with the sentence starter, ‘I wouldn’t be me if…’

Eg.

Step 2

Using their devices, invite students to join the interactive presentation and complete the sentence. Encourage students to think about an important part of their identity, that if it were missing, they would no longer feel like themself. Ask students to think beyond just their physical traits and reflect on their personalities, behaviours and interactions with others.

For example, ‘I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t support the Matildas’, ‘I wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t a kind person’, ‘I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t speak two languages’, ‘I wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t a good friend’.

Step 3

Once students have had a few minutes to complete the sentence starter, review the responses as a class.

Step 4

Write the definition of ‘values’ and the definition of ‘beliefs’ on the board and invite students to copy these down onto their worksheet.

Values: Ideas and beliefs specific to individuals and groups. Values often relate to our principles and influence our standards and behaviour.

Beliefs: Something that is accepted, considered to be true or held as an opinion. Beliefs are formed based on our culture, life experiences and spiritual learning and may inform our values.

Step 5

As a class, invite students to categorise the responses from the Mentimeter as either values or beliefs. As students work through the responses, you may want to highlight values in one colour and beliefs in another, either by using a marker on the board or within the presentation software itself.

For example:

‘I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t support the Matildas’ Belief
‘I wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t a kind person’ Value
‘I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t speak two languages’ Belief
‘I wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t a good friend’ Value

Step 6

Point out to students that there are many beliefs and values that work together to form a person's identity.

Find Out: Values and beliefs shape identity

Step 1

Now that students have an understanding of values and beliefs, they can begin to look at how they influence the development of a person's identity. To begin, invite students to look through the Australian Women’s National Football Team list and select a player that they are interested in researching further. Students can see the team lists here: https://www.matildas.com.au/teams

Step 2

Encourage students to look at their player's profile and view some of the associated videos that are linked to their player. Students may also wish to do further research and look for additional information about their selected player on news, social media or sports sites.

Step 3

As students find details about their chosen player, invite them to note down any values or beliefs that their player may have on the student worksheet. Students should use the information they find about their player to make inferences about their beliefs and values. To support their answers, encourage students to note down evidence (such as quotes or actions) of the values and beliefs held by their player.

Step 4

Lastly, invite students to write a statement about the person’s identity based on their values and beliefs.

Take Action: Me and my identity

Step 1

Using the student worksheet, invite students to complete the Project Zero thinking routine, ‘Who am I? Explore, Connect, Identify, Belong’ by answering each question:

Explore Who am I? How has my identity developed?
Connect Who am I connected to? (Think about relatives, teams, social groups, etc)
Identify If I wanted others to know who I am, what would identify me? Do we have more than one identity?
Belong Where do I think I belong? Do I have a sense of belonging to more than one group, more than one place?

Step 2

Next, ask students to use the student worksheet to rank the listed values and beliefs from 1 to 10.

Step 3

Moving through the student worksheet, invite students to complete the sentences:

In the future, I see myself…
The kind of person I want to be is…

Step 4

Once students have completed all the above prompts on their student worksheet, encourage them to creatively collate their answers on a poster about themselves. This will become each student's identity profile, which, with permission from students, could be displayed around the classroom once complete. You may wish for students to draw their posters on coloured paper, or alternatively, they could use their devices to create content in programs such as Canva or PowerPoint.

Reflection

Invite students to write 2-3 sentences to answer the question, ‘How have the values and beliefs of others shaped my identity?’

If you completed the scales of confidence worksheet with your class in the lesson preparation phase before watching the movie, ‘Trailblazers’ in Lesson 1, you may wish to return these to students and ask them to re-mark their scales of confidence, now that they have completed the Unit. You may wish to review these with students as an indicator of learning progress.

Exploring How Values and Beliefs Shape Identity

Go to

Summary

Lesson guides and printables

In this lesson