The following post was written on March 3rd in Education 400. The posting was about the individual lesson that we have made a Backwards Design Template for; I will be teaching part of this lesson either this week, or next.
1. Describe your current ideas about the individual lesson that you'll be teaching at your PDS.
Since I am at my PDS while my host teacher is in a history classroom I will be teaching a lesson about the War of 1812. It was hard for me to come up with something creative to have the students do while learning about the war because I had forgotten about ever learning about it myself. When I was reading online articles about the war I was easily distracted because it wasn't something I was interested in as an english student. I think that by having students complete a journal/diary entry from one of the soldiers or a letter to one of the soldiers from a loved one would be an interesting insight to see if the students really did grasp the concepts. In my backwards design I wrote that I would have the students complete a time line. This time line will be done in class so that the studets can self assess themselves in class. They will not be able to use notes for this and will complete the time line as best as they can. I think this is important because the students need to understand some of the main ideas in a war such as, when the British took over our trade, when the war started, when the Star Spangled Banner was written, when the peace treaty was singed, and when the war ended. Students also need to understand why the war happened in the first place. British citizens were in American for 30 years after the American Revolution.
2. What concepts have you considered in relation to a personal educational philosophy?
I have considered self educating. I think it is important for teachers to keep studying education and their specialty area. Students change and learn different ways and teachers need to find how they learn and make their lesson appeal to the student. Today, it is through technology. WV has a strong foundation and certain CSO's to cover this technological need. As a teacher I will familiarize myself with texts and technology they are dealing with at the time.
The wondering I had, and wrote about in my Exit ticket had to do with special education students in the mainstream classroom. I wondered how to test this students accurately and if placing them in an inclusive classroom helps their scores. Branching off my Education 400 post I wonder what is the best way to keep things "fresh" for students. Does a good and effective teacher attend conventions and try to keep up with young adult literature? And is it hard to keep up with the technology that students use when you are an older teacher?
Nicole
As a former English and social studies teacher, I really like your idea of teaching across the curriculum - journal and letter writing in a social studies class. And the assignment is asking your students to assimilate information that you've taught. The timeline idea is great, too, instead of having kids memorize a list of dates, that they'll probably soon forget. Great lesson!
ReplyDeleteAnd how great is it that we teachers often need to refresh our memories on certain subjects that may have forgotten about. Early in my teaching career, I was asked to teach Civics, which I was not very well prepared to do. I found myself just keeping about one or two days ahead of the kids. So don't feel too badly about having to refresh yourself on the War of 1812.
Though many teachers complain, it is probably beneficial to attend conferences and seminars to keep up-to-date. I think keeping current with technology all depends on one's interest or attitude or willingness to keep up. For example, when I took this position with the Benendum Collaborative, I had no idea about blogging. But I was willing to learn. Some of us "older teachers" do enjoy learning new things. Also, learning new concepts helps prevent "teacher burnout."
Nicole, great blog and great questions. Good luck with the integrated lesson.
I think that your idea for your lesson sounds really great! Writing a letter to or from a soldier would be a great way to get their imaginations going but also include some of the facts that they've learned. Also, the timeline sounds really good too. At my PDS, some of the students choose to do timelines for some of their projects and they get really creative with them. I think it's a really good way to get their creativity flowing as well as their minds thinking about the things that they've just learned in class.
ReplyDeleteI think that as I get older, it'll be important to attend conventions and workshops, but I also think it's important to just really get to know your students. If you spend time getting to know them, you'll find out what they're interested in and what the really popular things are for people their age. I think it'll be harder to do as we get older, but we'll probably have children or nephews and nieces that will also help to keep things up to date.
Nicole,
ReplyDeleteI really like your idea for your lesson! I'm sure it is hard to be creative with something you really are not interested in yourself.
Also, i think it is extremely important that teachers continue their education. We are going to be teaching for many years, and many things can change in society and it's people over those years. We definitely need to keep up with the times!