What works in my classes is movies. I'm lucky enough to teach social studies and so there are a lot of good movies out there for my content. The students love them, it is an easy lesson plan and they are usually pretty informative.
The thing I am always working on is making sure that it is not just about watching the movie, but rather linking the movie to the content that we are studying.
Students like movies a lot and so I think that I can manipulate movies to help encourage students to learn more material and read material for extra information. It is a work in progress.
One of the most difficult issues my students seem to have with math is putting it all together. Everything builds on top of itself and frequently a more advanced problem will eventually dwindle down to a basic problem solved earlier in the year or even a previous math class. After reading chapter six, I've been emphasizing the importance of trying to connect the current problem with something we've done in the past. This lets students see something they are comfortable with and know they can solve and can focus on that one extra step.
This is very challenging however since their memories seem hazy at best of their prior mathematical knowledge. I am trying to discover how I can present material so they retain it for longer than just one test.
There are advantages and disadvantages of being a teacher in the United States of America. Some might even say that cons outweigh the pros – astronomically increasing expectations of political correctness, NCLB, very small variety of disciplinary actions (often found anti constitutional), etc. But I disagree. I think the fact that America IS a world power, and the fact that it is on the front lines of… well – everything – I find it easy to help my students make connections to their every day life.
Topics like Presidential Elections, economic recession, war – they all have a familiar ring to the majority of my students. I am teaching Persepolis, a graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi – an Iranian expatriate. The novel deals with an enlightnening amount of topics my students encounter every single day – whether it is in school or in popular media.
Concepts like revolution, avant-garde, terrorism, military torture and genocide were not so hard to get across as I had thought earlier.
We just completed our Illinois government unit in Civics. Often it is very hard for students to remember all of the new information that is slightly similar but different from the US government.
I made tons of connections in this unit with comparing and contrasting it with the previous knowledge the students had from prior units. It's the easier way to help them remember the new info. We made venn diagrams as a class to compare and contrast the new information.
Also, with Illinois government a lot of them had heard about some of the officials or had some experience with the legal system that I could draw on for comparison. For example, I had a very ready example of what types of things a governor needs to do to get impeached. And the students all enjoyed having that connection already.
MEET this Thursday from 3-4 at the ROE library (bring your items to turn in) Read chps. 1 & 2 then post comments from 3/2-3/6 Read Chp. 3 and try one item from the "What Works" section (p.33-34) ----put comments from3/12-14 Chp.4 and try "What Works"---put comments from 3/19-22 Chp.5 and "What Works"...put comments from 3/28-30 Chp. 6 and "What Works"--put comments from 4/4-7 Chapters 7, 8, and 9----comments from 4/21-25
Quick Video Available
Check out the video worth watching on Teacher tube with a teacher modeling a Think Aloud. Just go to http://www.teachertube.com/ and go to the second tab marked "Videos" and use the search function to type "Introduction to Think Aloud" and you'll find one!
What works in my classes is movies. I'm lucky enough to teach social studies and so there are a lot of good movies out there for my content. The students love them, it is an easy lesson plan and they are usually pretty informative.
ReplyDeleteThe thing I am always working on is making sure that it is not just about watching the movie, but rather linking the movie to the content that we are studying.
Students like movies a lot and so I think that I can manipulate movies to help encourage students to learn more material and read material for extra information. It is a work in progress.
One of the most difficult issues my students seem to have with math is putting it all together. Everything builds on top of itself and frequently a more advanced problem will eventually dwindle down to a basic problem solved earlier in the year or even a previous math class. After reading chapter six, I've been emphasizing the importance of trying to connect the current problem with something we've done in the past. This lets students see something they are comfortable with and know they can solve and can focus on that one extra step.
ReplyDeleteThis is very challenging however since their memories seem hazy at best of their prior mathematical knowledge. I am trying to discover how I can present material so they retain it for longer than just one test.
There are advantages and disadvantages of being a teacher in the United States of America. Some might even say that cons outweigh the pros – astronomically increasing expectations of political correctness, NCLB, very small variety of disciplinary actions (often found anti constitutional), etc. But I disagree. I think the fact that America IS a world power, and the fact that it is on the front lines of… well – everything – I find it easy to help my students make connections to their every day life.
ReplyDeleteTopics like Presidential Elections, economic recession, war – they all have a familiar ring to the majority of my students. I am teaching Persepolis, a graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi – an Iranian expatriate. The novel deals with an enlightnening amount of topics my students encounter every single day – whether it is in school or in popular media.
Concepts like revolution, avant-garde, terrorism, military torture and genocide were not so hard to get across as I had thought earlier.
We just completed our Illinois government unit in Civics. Often it is very hard for students to remember all of the new information that is slightly similar but different from the US government.
ReplyDeleteI made tons of connections in this unit with comparing and contrasting it with the previous knowledge the students had from prior units. It's the easier way to help them remember the new info. We made venn diagrams as a class to compare and contrast the new information.
Also, with Illinois government a lot of them had heard about some of the officials or had some experience with the legal system that I could draw on for comparison. For example, I had a very ready example of what types of things a governor needs to do to get impeached. And the students all enjoyed having that connection already.