was a 60 inch touch screen TV with a wireless keyboard and mouse along with an Ipad. Our fearless leader was Rachel Goldberg, a librarian East Middle School in Plymouth, MI. Our topic was the recent Tsunami in Japan.We began to utilize www.newseum.org/ which is a website that shows the front pages of newspapers around the world and also has archives! This is extremely useful for primary sources, accessibility to kids. Multimedia, visual, archives. Our goal was to view the same event from different perspectives and to teach them how to evaluate sources (ie. who is writing the newspaper). We wanted students to be able to differentiate between the assumptions based on the community that the newspaper was from. Thus we were able to discuss the ramifications of the Tsunami in terms of the country of Japan itself, then have a look at Detroit's car manufacturing woes, and then even to Ohio's revising of a lemon law.
Also, I must provide a description of the room we were working in:
60 inch touch screen TV with a wireless keyboard and mouse along with an Ipad!! It was an amazing environment conducive for learning and planning.Our prompt was to discuss the intellectual and experimental opportunities presented with this topic and to create a mock lesson plan. We experimented with beginning with a learning objective and working backwards. Our learning objective was: For students to be able to explain the Political, Social, and Economic ramifications of a natural disaster. This is an interesting topic also because natural disasters are apolitical. This was followed by a transformation of our lesson plan into a unit plan with a class on each of the following topics: Political, Economic, Geographical, Social, and Advocacy.
Advocacy was the part that I was most excited about. It is so exciting that as teachers with a partial job of teaching students how to be citizens, we can teach them about their self-efficacy. Teachers can empower students to understand the power they have to change things on a national level, in terms of relief efforts for disasters, and on the world stage. This stems from the quote that I heard from an episode of The West Wing that I watched last night, "decisions are made by the people who show up" with regards to a "rock the vote" rally.
Overall it was extremely fun and satisfying because it gave us a small picture of what it would look like to formulate a lesson plan. We did this all on Wikispaces and our draft can be seen here.
There was one important learning moment though. Technology is fun, and in playing around with it, one can get lost on how it may or may not be useful as a teaching tool. We learned this as we were trying to utilize the 60 inch touch screen TV, yet it was much more difficult to navigate than we had thought. This is a definite point that I will bring into my teaching process. I desperately want to bridge the fear that teachers have in incorporating technology into the education process without getting lost in technology itself.
The Brandon Center is awesome. It reminds me of a restaurant mixed with a Starbucks mixed with a classroom. I do think that a lot of great collaboration will take place in those seats this year, and I am excited that funds were provided to create an environment like that for us.
ReplyDeleteI had never heard of newseum, and that seems like a wonderful tool to get students involved. I never liked doing newspaper stuff in high school, but I spend so much time reading online news. I still pick up the sunday freepress for my wife because she likes the ads and coupons, but I hardly ever read it. I usually just get on the computer to read, which I admit I am ashamed about. The resources are so endless online, but I do think we need to support actual newspapers, just like we need to support actual books. Tangible items are never a bad thing.
David, I can hardly think of a more important opportunity to seize upon than the one you highlight in your post:
ReplyDelete"Our goal was to view the same event from different perspectives and to teach them how to evaluate sources (ie. who is writing the newspaper). We wanted students to be able to differentiate between the assumptions based on the community that the newspaper was from." If you can help your students to form the kinds of questions that underpin what you’re talking about here, I think that you are doing vital work in the area of helping them to be citizens. I also love the pictures of the BC (and I know that the Brandons would love to hear your assessment, Curtis, that the center combines conducive workspace with a little of the feel of Starbucks)
Nice Brandon Center pics! I have a feeling we will all be spending a lot of our time in there! It was nice working with you on this project and I thought your advocacy idea was a great one to include in our lesson plan! It's all about that the real life connection and I think as Social Studies teachers we are in such a great position to have this positive influence!
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your break!