Putting it All Together: Effective Lesson Planning

December 3—PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER:  EFFECTIVE LESSON PLANNING

Choose a social science/history topic suitable for a high school lecture, and prepare a “rough draft” lesson plan for that lecture.  Make sure your plan indicates the general purpose of your lecture, the logical structure of your lecture, and some ideas for keeping students’ minds engaged.  Include also any ideas you might have for visual aids, an introductory “hook,” or any of the other elements TSSFFAP says are important to a good lecture.  

If you like, you can send me a modified version of a lesson plan you have done for another education class or a lesson plan you've actually used during your junior field experience. 

Please send me the lesson plan as an e-mail attachment (marmorsa@northern.edu).  Due date for this assignment: Tuesday, December 10. 

   

New Trends in Education

Note that one of your potential final exam questions asks you to comment on "new trends" in education. TSSFFAP is over 15 years old now, and some of its "new" trends aren't new anymore--and a lot of recent trends aren't even mentioned. In particular, there's nothing in TSSFFAP about the Common Core.

After reading the TSSFFAP "Madness to their Methods" chapter, take a look at Diane Ravitch's blog and read through some of her posts on the Common Core. You might also find amusing the "Students Last" Ravitch mentions on her blog.

What connection do you see between the Common Core and some of the trends TSSFFAP talks about?  Does it seem to you that the Common Core is a truly new trend, or does it simply take farther earlier trends like those mentioned in TSSFFAP?

Days to Remember: Constitution Day/History Day

Glance through the material on the Constitution Day and National History Day sites (www.constitutionday.com, www.nationalhistoryday.org) and think about how events like Constitution Day and National History Day might enrich the curriculum and stimulate increased student interest in history and government. What kind of activities would you be most likely to use for a Constitution Day celebration?  What would be the advantages/disadvantages of having your students prepare History Day projects?

 

Are you smarter than a Harvard senior?

As our social science for teachers major is being phased out, it looks like we won't need an assessment exam in the social sciences.  Still, I'd like to get a sense of where your students stand in disciplines other than history.

In 2008, More than 14,000 college students took a "Civil Literacy" test sponsored by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. According to ISI, students didn't do so well. The average college freshman got about 50% of the questions right. Seniors did only a bit better, averaging 54% on the quiz. Harvard seniors were the nation's best, averaging 69% on the survey. Can you do better? Take the quiz at the link below and find out! Did you do better than the average freshman? Better than the average senior? Better than the average Harvard student? Better than Harry the talking hand? (Harry got 58/60 right, as did Professor Jon Schaff). What do you think of the quiz? Is this stuff students should really know, or does it seem like trivial pursuit?  You can post your score here along with your comments on the exam or you can e-mail me you score separately.

http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx

Horrible Histories (extra credit)

I just discovered "Horrible Histories," a show that ran on British television from 2009-2013.  The series is based on a series of books directed at (it seems) middle school age kids.  Looks like the show developed out of the kind of things we did in the theater games section of the class.  Anyway, I'm interested in your reactions.  What do you think of "Horrible Histories"?  Would you use it in the classroom?  Here are some segments and complete shows:

English Kings and Queens Song
George I doesn't understand English 
Season One, Episode One

Leading good discussions

Please read TSSFFAP Chapter 8 (How to Get from Chicago to New York without Going through San Francisco: Leading Good Discussions) and do the on-line quiz.

Attend any discussion at NSU and analyze it in terms of the TSSFFAP “good discussion” suggestions. To what extent did the discussion reflect the TSSFFAP “Keys to a Good Discusssion” standards? What kind of things did the teacher do to make sure that students paid attention, enjoyed the discussion, and learned something from it? What did you think went particularly well? What would you have done differently?

Effective Lectures

Please read TSSFFAP Chapter 7 (Herodotus Had it Right: From Lecturer to Story Teller) and do online quiz.

Attend any lecture at NSU and analyze it in terms of the TSSFFAP “good lecture” suggestions. To what extent did the lecture reflect the TSSFFAP “Keys to a Good Lecture” standards? What kind of things did the teacher do to make sure that students paid attention, enjoyed the lecture, and learned something from it? What did you think went particularly well? What would you have done differently? Post your comments here.  

Games and Activities

Please read TSSFFAP Chapter 5 (Gluing Students to Their Seats and Other Fun Social Science Games and Activities) and do the on-line quiz. Also, look through the games on the “Gluing Students to Their Seats” blog:

http://socialstudiesgames.blogspot.com/

Prepare a learning game/activity and play the game with any group of students you choose. If you are doing your junior field experience, it would be great if you could try your game with the students in one of your classes.  If you are having trouble finding a group to play your game, let me know.  I can arrange for my IDL students (or perhaps my History 424 students) to play the game. 

After you have presented your "learning game," post it here and add a description of how the game went.

As if by Magic....

One of the most important keys to good teaching is the ability to create a classroom environment conducive to learning. Consider the learning-environment factors discussed in the Chapter IV of TSSFFAP (Schtick and Tricks: The Easy Road to Teaching Stardom).

Which of these positive-environment-building factors mentioned in TSSFFAP do you think you are/will be particularly good at? Which do you think will be more of a struggle for you?

What about the "schtick and tricks" angle?  Can you think of examples of schtick and tricks that you've seen work well in a high school or college classroom and that you might use in your own teaching?  Do you see any dangers to the schtick and tricks approach?

Planning and Organizing

Few things are more important to classroom success than good planning. Please read TSSFFAP Chapter 3 (Once Around the Race Course:  Developing Effective Social Sciences Curriculum) and do on-line quiz.  Then look at the South Dakota State Social Studies Standards and the National Council of Social Studies Teachers standards in any one social studies area of your choice:

 http://doe.sd.gov/contentstandards/documents/SocialStudies_9-12.pdf

http://www.socialstudies.org/standards

Do you find the material here helpful in clarifying what/how you should teach?  In what ways do the materials here go along with the suggestions for good curriculum planning suggested in TSSFFAP?  What problems do you see with these standards? 

Classroom Full of Stars (to be done after the Tuesday, September 24 class session)

Based on the Tuesday class session and the clips from Chris Pirlet's class at Aberdeen Central, does it seem to you that theater games would work well as a social science teaching technique? What do you see as positives and negatives about theater games? Do you think you will use theater games yourself when you teach? Why, or why not?

Politics of Education Reform

I thought that Dr. Meier raised many points worth further discussion in his Politics of Education Reform talk Tuesday night.  Of the things Meier said, what did you particularly agree with?  What didn't you agree with?

One of your final exam study questions asks you to comment on new trends in education, noting what trends you find positive and what trends you think dangerous.  What (if anything) did Dr. Meier say that might be worth talking about in connection with this theme?

Bonus: where do you think Dr. Meier and I would most disagree when it comes to American education?  Where would we most likely agree?

The return of--the Blog

For more than 10 years, SEED 415 students put together homepages. A homepage might still be useful, but there are lots of other tools that might suit your classroom purposes better, e.g., the blogs that you started creating last week.  Please add a comment here giving the URL of your blog.  Look at the other student blogs and add your comment to at least one post on each blog.

After you have finished creating your "dummy" blog, check out some of the resources Laura talked about in class today.  Which of these resources are you most likely to use in the classroom?

Molder of Dreams

I've heard it said that good teachers, like good actors, are thieves--constantly taking good ideas from other teachers. But, like Robin Hood, good teachers pass on what they "steal" to others. What ideas in the Molder of Dreams video might a teacher find particularly worth "stealing" and passing on? What do you like about Guy Doud's approach to education? If you were someday chosen "national teacher of the year" which of your past teachers do you think you would mention as having passed on to you something you think should be passed on to others?

Welcome!

Welcome to the official 2013 class blog of SEED 415, Social Science Special Methods. This blog is the place to record your reflections on the class and to exchange ideas on making social studies classes what they should be--the most interesting, most exciting, most important classes your students will take.

To get us off to a good start, please share here one of things you remember best/enjoyed most in any of your high school or college history classes. Anything that particularly helped lead you to choosing history/social studies as a major?

By the way, it would be a good idea for you to become a "follower" of this blog so that you are alerted to new posts as soon as they appear.