SO far our lesson plan is pretty good.As it stands right now it is still a work in progress. Our activity, which makes use of the online Library of Congress, gives students the opportunity to research newspapers from the early Twentieth Century, and then asks them to rewrite their story in a "day in the life" diary format. I believe some of the lessons strong points is the concept itself, the degree of freedom it gives students to make choices throughout the process, its differential instruction, and the high degree of individual learning and sharing opportunities. So far, one of the weak points is its organization and student work flow. It seems like we have all of the major concepts down, but it needs to segue way from one idea to another a little easier.
The amount of work that goes into this process is pretty intense. Although in the future I doubt I will spend this much time on a single lesson, I do enjoy the challenge and the process involved. I guess that's what teaching school is all about. Just like anything else you want to be good at, you need train hard and push yourself above and beyond the circumstances you will face in the field itself. So far, the hardest part of the project has proven to be coordinating ideas. Realizing this, our group has chosen to have a different person take the lead on each lesson. I was talking to my girlfriend about this and she mentioned something pretty interesting. She said that for group assignments in her nursing program the instructor asked groups to pick one leader. Once the leader had been picked the instructor then picked someone else anyway. I thought this was an interesting way to challenge people who are less prone to put themselves "out there" and take the lead. Anyway, overall the experience has been a learning one, and most importantly I actually feel like I'm getting better at navigating a computer-which I've historically sucked at!
I agree that working in groups often leads to a pile of ideas and noone wants to give in easily, which allows for a lack of focus form the begining. It is important that there be a leader in the group that should be responsible for the final decision, as long as it is within the scope of the groups general direction. No flying solo.
ReplyDeletei definitely agree that one of the hardest parts with this project is the organizational aspect of it. I feel like its pretty hard for everyone to collaborate ideas and put them into the final product. I liked your idea about having one person lead each lesson. I feel like that helps a little with the organizational aspect.
ReplyDeleteLike you said Tom, the process of making these lesson plans is what is important. I feel the same about student work flow for our first lesson plan too, will it work well with the students I have? Having an outside perspective will definitely help in determining the effectiveness of our lesson planning.
ReplyDeleteI'll be interested in reading the progress of all the groups as they get to lesson 3. You would be surprised how long it can actually take to plan out a unit. As teachers we tend to go it solo because it is so much easier and generally less time consuming for the teacher but disjointed for the student. They just don't see all the connections that they could if all the subject areas were integrated. Too bad we don't have enough different content areas to throw math and science into your group!
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