Keith Wilkinson (an illustrious NSU graduate) will be talking to you this week about leading a good lecture. Post here your comments on what you learned from today's class. What do you think is the most important advice Mr. Wilkinson had for you? How is lecturing at the high school level different from college lectures?Before the semester ends, please post here a lesson plan for a lecture you might give to a high school history class. Use one of the formats recommended in your general methods class.
Kirsten Saunders
ReplyDeleteI am currently away for the NSIC soccer tournament, so I was not able to participate in the methods class this evening. I will post a lesson plan soon. Thanks.
I jotted a couple of notes from what Mr Wilkinson told us and the ones that stick out to me were:
ReplyDelete1) You can't reach everybody.
2) Don't be afraid to fail.
I took these to mean that no one style of lecture will relate to everyone. But if you mix it up you will have a good chance of getting through to the majority of your students.
But allowing yourself the freedom to mix it up is important. Don't just play it safe and give the same kind of lecture all the time. Make sure to try different ways to reach your students. And don't beat yourself up too hard if some of them don't work.
I'd say one big difference between lecturing at the high school level compared to college, is the attention span of the students. We'll have to break up the structure of our class so that the students don't feel over loaded.
And I'm going to follow Kirsten's lead and post my lesson plan separately from this comment. Not only will it be easier to read, it will also allow me to come up with one :)
John pointed out a few excellent points Mr. Wilkinson said. He echoed the book and other teachers when he said to 'beg, borrow, and steal everything you can get your hands on.'
ReplyDeleteMr. W also gave an excellent form of bringing humor into the classroom by picking on the only one who you are sure won't take offense... yourself! Playing the 'human card' is an excellent way to keep students engaged, interested, and create that relationship with them.
This and the last post was from Amber Eich.
ReplyDeleteThe lesson plan below is shortened for comment requirements:
“The Recipe for Disaster or Cake”
Topic To Teach: Colonization in US
General Goal(s): The purpose of this lesson plans is to help students understand the problems and difficulties early Americans faced in the colonies. This lesson plan intends to help diffuse some of the difficulties.
Specific Objectives: As a result of this activity the students will:
1. Learn the importance of geographic location which can determine the survival and progress of a colony.
2. Examine the effects that cultural background and specific historical events have upon the development of a colony.
3. Review examples of documents that have established laws and regulations for historic colonies and to determine the specific regulations and laws to be established for their colony design.
Required Materials:
1. American History reference material on the early English colonies in North America. This is for the Chesapeake Bay, New England, and the Mid Atlantic colonies. This material includes pictures, maps, journals, ship lists, and the like. It should be clear where each colony resides and fundamentally why it resides in that specific area.
2. Recipe cards.
(Hook): “How do you make a cake?”
1.Have the students write down their favorite recipe. It can be as easy as peanut butter toast or as difficult as a strawberry soufflé. Encourage them to make it as detailed as possible. Make sure they put down the ingredients in one section and the directions on another section. Pick them up.
2.“I love to bake. That’s because I love to eat. My favorite thing to make is no bake cheesecake… Any form of cooking requires two sections: ingredients – what goes into the recipe- and directions- how to make it all work together. Let’s look at some of these recipes…”
3.Have the students begin listing important ‘ingredients’ a country needs. This includes, people, place, food, government, etc. Make the board into a huge recipe card and encourage the students to turn their notebooks sideways and do the same. Leave the ‘directions’ area free for the moment. As students find out what the colonists learned in order to succeed as a colony, fill it in.
Procedures: The result of using this sort of hook is to help students stay focused and become re-engaged as needed. It also gives them a ‘big picture’ to consider. They already know the outcome. They are now looking for the recipe to get there.
From this point you choose one of the colonies and look at it. Use the reference material to help them reach this outcome. It would be easier to focus on one colony at a time. (Example: Chesapeake Bay Colony. People: mostly young, single, get-rich-quick men. How do we know this? The ship list given points out the age group along with the gender of the people on board. So direction one should be… Food: absent and many people died or dug up people who died and ate them. How do we know this? The law which forbade the consumption of the dead was written at this time. So direction two should be…) Using primary references along with the textbook makes for a much more animated discussion. At the end of the lesson, a full recipe with ingredients and directions are now on the board that the students created themselves. Every chef knows that the best recipes are the ones you make yourself!
Independent Practice: Hand out a second recipe card. Have the students look at each step in the direction and write down possible problems that could happen during this step or if the step was not clearly followed.
Assessment: Have recipe cards handed in. This gives a written understanding of what the students learned. The objective was to decrease difficulty in understanding the early colonies.
From Mr. Wilkinson's lecture, I got a lot of different ideas about lecturing. Before this class, no professor or textbook had really mentioned "the hook" aspect to a lecture. I didn't realize how important this was to get your students attention. Mr. Wilkinson offered many different ideas about how we could get our students attention. I didn't realize how important it was to grab the student's focus immediately at the beginning of class. It is important to know that no matter what, you will not necessarily be able to reach all of your students, like John had mentioned. If you expect to do this, you are setting yourself up for failure. I think that is probably the main difference between high school and college lectures. You see a lot more professors lecturing in college, than high school teachers. In college, you are expected to pay attention to lectures, and if you don't it is your problem. In high school, as a teacher you are expected to try and earn the students attention. That is the main difference I see.
ReplyDeleteSome of what was covered I had learned from watching teachers I have had throughout the years. I could tell who were the poor ones and who really captured my attention. I think it was good that we pointed out the qualities of teachers who made an impact and also those in which we would like to avoid.
ReplyDeleteI think that the biggest difference between high school lecturers and college lectures is the audience. Like John remarked. It is a big difference in the students that you are marketing your material to.
I think that a high school class has to be more accommodating. A college teacher has more ability to schedule the lesson according to how he/she thinks it should go and has a lot more leeway about the content.
High school teachers seem to face a lot more adversity from the perspective of time restraints and prior knowledge. Where as a college teacher can take some of this material as assumed.
I think the most important advice Mr. Wilkinson gave us was that we need to focus on a good hook. Just like the beginning of our textbook suggests, find a way to get the students interested and involved in the lecture and your class.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest differences between high school and college is: you cannot just stand up front and lecture the whole time. If you stand up there for 50 or how many ever minutes, no matter how exciting you may be, you will lose the majority of your students. You have to get the students involved in the lecture and make sure the understand the importance to them, you don't have to do that in college.
Zach Anderson
The American Constitution
ReplyDeleteObjectives: TSWBT explain how the constitution was developed. TSWBT discuss what parts make up the constitution, and where those ideas come from.
Standards: Indicator 1: Analyze forms and purposes of government in relationship to the
needs of citizens and societies including the impact of historical events, ideals, and
documents.
9-12.C.1.2. Students are able to determine the influence of major historical documents and ideals on the formation of the
United States government.
9-12.C.1.1. Students are able to explain the characteristics of various forms of government.
Anticipatory Set: The U.S. Constitution is the most incredible document written by man. Its ability to foresee the future and guide one of the greatest civilizations ever known, is simply amazing, but it did not come out of no where.
Lecture: I begin by putting the constitution up on an overhead. We will look at the individual parts, and I will bring out a primary document that coincides with the parts. For example the Magna Carta, English Bill of Rights, etc. This should take up most of the forty minutes.
Closing: Tomorrow we will continue our lecture and have a discussion on the roots of the Constitution, and how it went about improving the Articles of Confederation.
Independent Practice: Students will be asked to look at one of the primary documents presented in class and compare it to the Constitution, and also contrast, how does the Constitution improve upon it.
Zach Anderson
The semester isn't over yet is it :)
ReplyDeleteThe Great Depression
Objective:
The student will be able to explain some causes of the Great Depression. They will also be able to describe living conditions during his time period. And finally they'll be able to compare and contrast this period from the roaring 20's.
Standards Addressed:
9-12.US.1.1. Students are able to explain the cause-effect relationships and legacy that distinguish significant historical periods from Reconstruction to the present.
9-12.US.1.2. Students are able to relate previously learned information of these time periods to the context of succeeding time periods.
Hook:
I'll start with photo slideshow showing various party images from the 20s(Flappers, Jazz clubs) While sowing the images, I'll ask what they represent. Then I'll end with a picture from the Depression era.
Lecture:
I'll breakdown some of the causes of the Depression and the US government's response. I'll then describe the living conditions, with an emphasis on the "Dustbowl" and the "Dirty 30's" (which SD went threw).
We'll break up the lecture with some theater games! I'll have the class act out a "run on a bank" (If there's time I'll show the bank scene from "It's a Wonderful Life")
I'll wrap up the class by assigning the homework and teasing the next part of the story, FDR and "The New Deal"
Independent Practice / Homework:
I'll assign a worksheet that has two pictures on it, one from the roaring 20's and one from the Depression. I'll ask them to summarize the difference between the photos/time periods, and have then give one Cause/Explanation for the difference.