The postcard activity was pretty successful in my high school classroom, so I felt confident presenting it to our Methods class. Having examples of the finished product helped students visualize the project and imagine what their completed postcard might look like. Overall I think it’s a great way for students to explore primary texts, perform some analysis, while also giving them the freedom to express themselves.
It’s hit or miss getting students to cite their sources. I think providing a clear example of how and where to cite the source would be helpful. Perhaps doing the citation in class would give me the opportunity to monitor their progress. Giving students the ability to hand-draw their postcards was somewhat time consuming; perhaps doing a lesson on how to use adobe spark would be helpful in the future.
Overall, my goal was to get students to engage with a primary text, and see the importance of “individual perspective” in examining source material. Giving students the ability to express themselves seemed to make the lesson more engaging and personal. I was impressed by the variety of responses I received, not to mention the detail and care that went into the postcards themselves.
The virtual reality tour of Salem, Massachusetts I did for this mini-lesson seemed like a success and was a great experience to learn how I can better improve the use of this technology in my future virtual reality lessons. Fortunately, I had some experience using the headsets in a classroom before using them in the mini-lesson, but I learned how to feel more confident in teaching with the technology due to the improvised approach of not guiding participants through their tour from the central iPad (since I couldn’t get a stable connection). Of course the audience for my mini-lesson was a much more controlled and participatory group than almost any group of students I would eventually do this lesson with, but I was still impressed by the group’s ability to understand how material can be learned through relevant images in virtual reality.
One of the challenges in my mini-lesson, which has also been a challenge when using the VR in my classroom, is the timing and pacing required to get through everything important while accounting for technical difficulties that will detract from available instruction time. Although the mini-lesson did not go the full 25 minutes, I also left out nearly half the information planned for a full lesson and only got through ~2/3rds of the tour itself. Since the tour and accompanying information are planned for a 50-minute lesson, I would have expected to get through either much more of the tour in 25 minutes or at least go into a substantial amount more detail.
In general, I think I accomplished the goal I had with this mini-lesson, which was to get more experience teaching with the virtual reality and receive feedback on how I could improve my approach for when I do similar lessons in the future. Timing and pacing is what I learned to still be an area that needs attention, but perhaps this is a factor that will “work itself out” as I practice each tour over the course of time!
The lesson I’ve created is made to be an opener to a unit on geography. The activity is meant to be for the 9th graders that I’m working with at my school, however it could be a good opener to a geography lesson for middle schoolers and lower grades in high school.
The essential questions I’d like us to discuss during the class period are: What story do maps tell and How do maps reflect history, politics, and economics?
During this lesson, students will be attempting to draw the a map of the world from their memory in pairs at the beginning of class. Following this activity, the students will compare their maps to a contemporary map of the world. In a large group discussion (the entire classroom), the students will question why certain parts of their map are less accurate than others, and why certain parts are very accurate. They will relate these observations to the essential questions. To finish the lesson, students will compare a map created by Ming China in the 14th century, and attempt to get an understanding of what story this map tells about Ming China.
For the specifics of the lesson, I plan to use the first 3 minutes to introduce the students to the lesson of the day with a focus question written on the smart-board : “What stories to maps tell us?”. Students will work together and think-pair-share the question to with the entire classroom. Following the intro, I will use 2 minutes to explain the largest part of the lesson, the “Draw the World” activity, where students will individually draw the world to the best of their ability on a plain white sheet of paper. I will do this activity too. I will give the class 7-9 minutes for this portion, where I will ask if anyone needs additional time at the 7 minute mark. After this portion, I will project a map of the world using the smartboard, and students will look at what parts they had that were accurate, what parts they had that weren’t accurate, and attempt to explain why their maps were drawn the way they were. I will go first, to model what I’m looking for, and explain how the deficiencies and accuracies of my map reflect my own individual history and life story. With the remaining time in class, we will switch over to a map of Ming China, and attempt to discover what story that map tells about China during the period in which the map was created. Both discussions will revolve around the essential questions for the class period.
Timeline:
00:00-03:00 – Focus Question
03:00-05:00 – Directions for the “Draw the World Activity
05:00-13:00 – “Draw the World” Activity
13:00-19:00 – Discussion and debrief of “Draw the World Activity”
A Monthly check to you for the rest of your life, beginning when you are 65… (Source)
I did accomplish my goals in presenting the historical thinking skills Social Security lesson adopted from Historical Thinking Matters. We were able to explore two historical thinking skills: close reading and corroboration while exploring some of the history around the development and evolution of Social Security. Two positive outcomes were: (1) I was able to comfortably present the lesson in the allotted time, and (2) my peers were able to share with me, during closure, one or two things they learned from the lesson.
I received feedback that spending more time talking about the Social Security Board poster prior to asking students to sketch the poster would be helpful. In retrospect, I wish I had asked the students to come up to the front of the room to explore the poster as there was a lot of text that may not have been legible. I also received feedback regarding the flow and the variety of materials presented. I understood that the variety of materials (poster, video, congressional testimony excerpt) is appealing. I received a positive response regarding the flow of the lesson, as well.
I learned that there are a lot of very well-crafted materials available that can be adopted to one’s needs or to an allotted time frame and that it is okay to reshape materials in a way that works for you. I also learned that I was more capable than I thought in terms of presenting the lesson and that running ideas by peers is an excellent way to improve my future lessons.
