I learned quite a bit from Education 504 this week. In the
morning, we were put into groups according to our majors and each group was
paired with a school librarian. The librarian paired with my group, Rachel, was
extremely knowledgeable and helpful. She introduced us to free online databases
of which I had never heard, but will definitely use in the future. The Opposing
Viewpoints page on the Michigan eLibrary will definitely come in handy down the
road (http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/ovic/?userGroupName=lom_accessmich).
We then, as a group, formulated a lesson plan regarding the
pop ban. Due to the fact that I have a psychology minor, I was placed in a
group with social studies interns. My previous blog was a lesson plan for a
biology class (my major), so I was excited to work with new people to gain a
new perspective on the issue. While my knowledge of government and policy
wasn’t up to the level of the rest of my peers, I feel I was able to contribute
to the discussion and combine my ideas for a psychology lesson with their ideas
for a government lesson. We did, however, have some trouble coming to a group
consensus on an overall goal for the lesson. We concluded the morning session
agreeing to disagree. The MAC interns are a passionate group and none of us
were willing to compromise our teaching goals. It is never a bad thing to
interact with people who challenge you, but it is equally important to make
sure that you are heard. All in all, it was a good experience and our basic
lesson plan can be followed to fit each member’s individual teaching goals.
The afternoon lesson was very exciting for me. I always
listen to podcasts, so learning how to make one was, as Kristin often said,
“wicked awesome.” I love the possibilities that podcasts and the use of Google
Voice offer for the classroom. Having students call in and record their
homework is brilliant! The only issue I could see arising with this is time. If
each of your 100 students records a 5 minute podcast, that is 500 minutes of
listening. You also have to factor in the time it would take to provide
feedback. This is an application that would have to be used for an assignment
in which the student can explain what they have learned very quickly.
Overall, I enjoyed our class time on Friday. I enjoyed
listening to everybody’s podcasts even more!
Hi Sarah! How are you? I too learned a great deal about free, online databases that I did not know about prior to this experience. I remember, when I was in high school we used an online database for research projects, but it was only accessible from the school computers. This caused a bit of an issue for me when I would go home and try to work on projects. I can see what a great resource these databases really are. What is this Opposing Viewpoints page that you talk about in your post? How did you guys incorporate that into the lesson plan you developed? I would also like to hear more about your experience working with people outside of your major. I was paired with students in my major, and I feel like we might have been somewhat limited by our overly-educated understandings of what math is and how one is supposed to do math. How did your different perspective impact the group and expand their thinking on a social studies lesson about the soda ban?
ReplyDeleteHi Katherine! Thank you for your comments! I just realized that the link I posted above didn't work so well. The Opposing Viewpoints database is available through the Michigan eLibrary (mel.org). You may have to enter your drivers license number to access the databases. Once there, click on the databases link and scroll down to "Opposing Viewpoints in Context." It provides opposing op eds on various issues. Current issues on the homepage right now are cyberbullying, the oil spill, and global warming, but you have the ability to search for many issues. A big focus of our lesson plan was to discuss the so-called "nanny laws" and discuss their pros and cons. We thought this would be a great website to send the students for information on whatever viewpoint they chose to represent.
ReplyDeleteI was a little intimidated to be working with students outside my major at first. They were mainly history majors and my history knowledge isn't very strong. I was happy when they were talking about the very basics of government and how they could incorporate the ban into a relatively uncomplicated government lesson. Basically, I was just happy at first that I was able to follow what was going on! I was also able to relate psychology to the lesson very well, which I wasn't sure I would be able to do. It definitely opened my eyes to a new way of looking at the ban since I spent so much time looking at it from strictly a biology standpoint. I didn't find a way to incorporate the biology, but I don't think it would have fit in to the lesson we planned.
Thanks again for your thoughtful questions!
Sarah, I'm glad you got to work in a social sciences group for your lesson plan. It must have been really interesting to see how a different content area would structure and plan a lesson than the one you may be most used to. I think everyone really enjoyed and benefited from the group planning session last Friday. As I told Mikolaj's social science group, I would have been very interested to see what you guys came up with and how it compares to ours. We managed to reach consensus, but I think it mostly came from the fact that we made a multi-day lesson to incorporate everyone's ideas!
ReplyDeleteYou're the first person I have heard who actually listens to podcasts, so it's nice to read your perspective on what we did in class. I found some of the applications Kristin described such as recording or calling in homework equally as awesome and hope to use it in my class!