How to Teach a Textbook Chapter

I decided that I'm going to start blogging about some of the lessons I create and teach. I'm doing this for several reasons. The first (and biggest) reason is that when I went searching for how to do the lesson plan I am going to blog about I couldn't find ANYTHING! There wasn't even tips on what to teach. Of course, this was a college textbook, so it's a little bit different. I want to other people to be able to use the resources. The second reason is I want to be able to reference back to what I've done, and just note whether it was successful or not. The third reason is I want feedback! Good or bad, from education majors to doctors. I don't care! I'd love feedback because I learn differently than you, and sometimes I don't understand how some people just don't grasp certain concepts that I find easy and vice versa.

In my diversity class we were put into groups to do a project. Each group was to present a chapter out of the book. However, my entire group dropped the class. I was on my own, but it actually worked out for the best because I'm more of an independent person.

What do you want the audience to learn? My chapter was on geography, and when I read it I was SO overwhelmed with the amount of information. I knew I didn't want to just lecture on the entire chapter because that's boring and that is what the rest of the class was doing. Since the class is full of prospective teachers I decided to focus the lesson around the question, "How can this chapter prepare teachers?" This meant I needed to stay away from boring facts.

Next, the problem was how was I going to present this chapter. I didn't want to lecture because that is boring, and I'm really bad at it. Plus, I wanted the information to stick. The first part of the chapter split the United States up into 6 regions. I thought this was the perfect opportunity to use the jigsaw. I split the class up into 6 groups. Then I assigned each group a region. Then I passed out the following worksheet, I made, to each student.

1. I had each student fill out the first 5 sections on their own using their textbook. Then when they were done they talked about what they got with their group. Together as a group they completed the "Discuss" section about how teachers can best reach their students.

2. When they were done I split the class into three groups so that every region was represented. Each student spoke briefly about their region and what teachers should know and do to help the students in each unique region. This way they taught each other and it was more meaningful than just lecturing.

I created this Prezi as a my lecture. Of course I had to lecture a little bit, but not as much as I could have. Feel free to click around.

Organizing My Life (Kind Of)

So, if you didn't know I love organization and cleanliness. I absolutely love a clean and organized home, which is weird because my parents' house is nothing of the sort. At least my room, for the most part, as a safe haven of organization.

Over the past few years I saved all my history papers and all my education material (from lesson plans to professional articles). Last summer I put everything into binders and it was kind of organized but it still wasn't what I wanted it to be. I gave up though because organizing gives me a head ache after a while. It involves way too much thinking.

Several days ago I decided to give the organizing another go. I downsized to two binders and really got rid of old readings I knew I would never read again (I could barely read them the first time). The first binder has all my history papers. The second binder as professional articles related to teaching and social studies.

Now comes my big project. I finally organized all my lesson plans and lesson materials into history topics. Below are two pictures of the mess to begin with. These pictures don't do it justice!

Sorting into piles

Topics

The next day I went to Target and picked up this really cute file box and extra hanging folders. Since the folders that came with the box were white and the extra ones were green I decided to use that to my organizing advantage. The white folders are for more lesson planning and administrative teaching materials. The green folders are for social studies specific topics that are covered in a high school history classroom.

I then wrote the topics onto the pieces of paper and started putting away my materials. I really wish I had prettier print. I should have just written it in cursive.

Then when I was done I tucked it away on my shelf! I am so much happier with an organized life!

Since I didn't have internet while I was doing this I watched Monk while I was working on the organization project. I love that show.

Now all I need is a job to put my organization to good use! :)

This Post Will Blow Your Mind

We'll get to mind blowing in a little bit. The majority of this post is going to come from my methods course instead of student teaching, but we actually learned some interesting stuff today. Well, more than usual. I forgot to mention something yesterday which was the words of advice my MT gave me. He said, "If you take away anything from this experience let it be that you should ALWAYS drink coffee on field trip days." I cannot tell you how true that is. I didn't drink any caffeine yesterday and I crashed. Plus, field trips make the day seem so much longer, so that extra caffeine is so necessary. He also told me that I need to get coffee from where ever I like to get it on the go because I don't want to be carrying a cup around all day. Good advice. Some advice I would give is DON'T wear a book bag. It KILLS your back. I was in so much pain and I barely had anything in it! Haha

Today, for intercession, the students were split up into groups and went to different stations related to college. My MT decided that instead of him taking a group he would just run one of the stations so that the teachers on our team could get a planning bell. In our station they watched a film from ESPN about two Cleveland teens. Yes, Cleveland Ohio! Represent! The video is below. It's actually pretty good and a tear jerker. I won't give it away because I want you to watch it, but one of the guys has a degenerative eye disorder which makes him legally blind. I forget what it's called, but one of my students actually has the same disorder. It was so cute because when it was mentioned on the video the student goes, "Hey! I have that!" He was so proud, and this student plays basketball. It was encouraging for me to see that in this video the one boy didn't let his disability label him just like my student.


I also saw this yesterday and it made me chuckle. Kind of true, and by kind of I mean really true.

Now onto today's methods class. Usually this class is super boring and I feel like it's a waste of my time (and money) but today the second half of class was really fun. First, our professor asked us to draw a map of the world. Yeah, my drawing was awful. I didn't even leave enough room for Asia! HAHAHA! After he put up a picture and asked us to compare our maps and why when people said there's wasn't "accurate."

This is the map he showed us. It's called a "Mercator map," and it is the map most readily depicted in the northern hemisphere.

Then he showed us this map and asked us to compare our maps. It is known as a Peter's Projection Map, and this map is actually more accurate to the earth's land than the Mercator map. Yes, it blew our minds in my social studies class. Note, Africa is almost as big, if not as big, as Asia. Mexico is actually bigger than Alaska. Look how small Greenland really is. I was so shocked.

The discussion of the two maps above eventually led us to talk about the map below. It's social studies, and social studies has a lot to do with perspective!

Our professor then showed us this video to tie it all together. It's from West Wing and is pretty good!


In talking about perspectives he gave us another assignment that he modeled with a historical fiction piece. He assigned us a character on a small piece of paper with the instructions: "Take notes based on what 'you' see and experience. Before class meets next week, make your notes into a typed 'diary' account of the events. Your account is very unlikely to be longer than 1 page. Your role - Walter Donovan (male German civilian)."

Then he showed us Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade starting at 1 hour 41 minutes. He doesn't believe in showing a whole movie so it's cool to see what you can do with a movie and not have it be similar to a lecture. While we watched that clip we took notes as if we were the character in that scene. I'm definitely using a lesson similar to this in my classes. My philosophy on history is that it's not about learning content, it's about perspectives and ideas. Which means this lesson definitely fits into my philosophy. I love being creative, whether it's in writing or art, so I cannot wait to write this diary entry!

Resources to Check Out

So, I'm going to keep this short and simple because not much happened today. We just watched a movie in class and I copied a lot of stuff. I'm pretty much the copy queen now. I'm putting that on my resume.

Anyway there are three links I would like to share with all my teacher friends, or just anyone in general, really. Since the school I'm at is a STEM school I learn about all kinds of technologies and websites since they are an integral part of the curriculum. I'm sure more sites and resources will be added, but for now this is what I have:

• Wikispaces -- My U.S. history classes will be making a wiki on World War II in the upcoming weeks. I think this site would be really cool for larger projects or even just as a resource for students if your school doesn't have blackboard. You can actually find a sample wiki here and see how it was used for the WWII project. And no, this was not made in my MT's class.
• Gaggle -- I don't actually know what this site is, but I plan on checking it out more when I get time. One of the teachers on our team uses it and seems to love it and he's a big tech guy, so it has got to be good.
• Prezi -- Puts microsoft powerpoints to shame. I should have used it for my Interwar Period lecture, but alas, I used to old standard version.

Oh, I forgot. So, tomorrow is the open house and our team is putting together a brochure for the parents who show up. It has a small description and contact information for all the teachers + me! I guess I technically am their teacher also. One of the teachers came around to took a picture of us in action. Since we were watching a movie today this is me in action. I look scared to death! But it was awkward because he was taking a picture of me in a dark room. This also saves me from having to put another picture up of my outfit. I bought that sweater at a thrift store. Surprise, surprise.

P.S. If you look in the upper left hand corner of the picture you can see the bottom of my "Binder Order" sign!