Conners-Emmerson Middle School

In the Bill of Rights unit, I did a diagnostic assessment and found that in one class there were multiple students who were actively engaged in student protests and were familiar with the Ten Amendments. Due to this, I wanted to make sure these students were also being challenged to think critically about the content. I went to the web to find an informational video about the Second Amendment that even taught me something too. I spent hours looking for just the right one. I looked at Khan Academy, Crash Courses, Ted Talks (which are all my main resources for online learning), and found nothing. Finally, I stumbled across a video on youtube, provided by NPR, that explained the processes in which an amendment was made and how it could be ratified. This was perfect because ratifying an amendment had been a topic of discussion in the media and also in the classroom I was in. I brought this video into the class and the students loved it. It spurred good conversation about the pros and cons of the amendment and what the possibility was that one could or would be ratified in my lifetime or theirs.

What I learned:

In school we relied heavily on technology because we would get grants for Apple products and our teachers seemed to really enjoy Crash Courses, the Colbert Report, and documentaries. I enjoyed this and took those same resources into my everyday life. However, I would like to keep my technology use to a minimum. As a teacher who wants to work with low-income students, I feel strongly that any homework assignment that is technology focused disadvantages these students. There were many days where I was that same student and it feels absolutely terrible and shameful to be graded on your economic situation (or at least that's how I felt). Therefore, I will use technology to show videos such as the one I included here, but I will minimize any online homework. I will also choose to follow my student teaching placement’s practice where when an online assignment is needed, they provide in-class time to work on the projects. I think this is a great idea not just to give the students wifi time to work on their projects which could reduce economic barriers, but it also provided time for me to have one on one meetings with the individual students to check in with them about what we are learning in class.

01/19 - 01/23

Technology was an important part of my teaching. One class had a weekly agenda I would upload online. I experimented with Google classroom and provided a range of online activities and videos. I ended up using the Google Classroom to upload my slides or work after a class for students to access in their own time. 

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As a visual/audio learner myself, I find videos and movies to be extremely helpful to learning. I would pick a movie or video series for each of the classes and during that week we would either start with a part of the video that was interesting, related to the content, and showed the human side of the content. 

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For Halloween, I wanted to do something different. Halloween is my favorite holiday and my mentor encouraged Halloween-themed lessons. I created a unit about the Salem Witch Trials for one class, but I was stumped as to what to do for my freshman geography class. They don't do in-class work efficiently, never turn in homework, and are overall hard to engage with a topic they are clearly not interested in. In conversation with the Humanities teacher I found the solution. In her middle-school class she is teaching them about Anansi the spider. Anansi is an African mythological creature who is known for his clever but mysterious ways. This sparked an idea! 

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For this class I set up two parts of a lesson. The first part consisted of watching two videos about Anansi. The students were tasked with writing down what life lesson(s) Anansi was trying to teach us through his myth. This was a great conversation about how myths and stories teach us about the values of a society. Some of those values are even seen in their own lives, which was also an important thing to note. 

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The second part of class centered around masks. For Halloween, we all wear masks, however, when we take that mask off there is still the societal mask that remains. We had an exit question about this and we discussed and learned about African masks associated with holidays/rituals. 

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This lesson was a success! The students enjoyed the mask making and noted the "deepness" of our discussion, but what made this lesson truly a success for me was the participation from two of my most reluctant students. To get anything from these students, even to get them to class, was a success let alone full participation. These students loved the video and also really enjoyed the aspect of the lesson that talked about their life and real-world lessons. I was so proud of these students and made sure they got a note to know I was proud. 

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What I Learned:

Geography is my weak point in my content knowledge so I was often hesitant to try these non-lecture style activities, but I am so glad I did. I learned that I need to trust myself a little bit more in my teaching. After finding that videos were engaging for these hard to reach students I incorporated more of them into my lessons. If I had not gone out of my comfort zone for this holiday-themed lesson I might not have come to this realization when I did. ​

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Another thing that I learned was that students really do learn best when the content relates to them. Being able to give them advice to prepare them for the non-academic "real world" that they enter into after school felt rewarding and I am happy that these two students were there that day and had the chance to engage with the lesson. 

College of the Atlantic

In the future, I want to try different types of lessons in order to gauge how my students learn best. I will be sure to use small tests where students can self advocate for what they need. 

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Technology and videos have been and hopefully will always be an important part of my teaching. I want to make sure all learners are given the chance to access the material in whatever medium is best for them. Far too often we get caught up in worksheets and lecture, we forget that videos are an option. They are simply a different method of teaching and allow for students to learn from experts who would never be able to make it to the class. 

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Recently I took my teaching strategy of using a variety of mediums in my lesson plans with my Politics and the Supreme Court class. I taught a lesson in this class about how the Supreme Court uses precent established by previous cases. We used Planned Parenthood v. Casey as a case study to examine how precedents can be upheld, changed, and overturned. Before I took the lead for the day the class had consisted of nothing but lectures, reading, and essays so I wanted to mix things up. Yes I still gave a bit of a lecture, but with audience participation. I also added in a video which explained the Roe v. Wade precedent to the Planned Parenthood case we were looking at. The was the first time anyone had included a video in the class. I didn't think it made a large impact until after the class. 

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Once the class was over, I had multiple students approach me to thank me for providing an engaging lesson. They mentioned how the video was a nice mix-up to what we have had already. One even mentioned being a visual/audio learner as well and specifically enjoyed the video. This to me shows that by making sure to use various forms of teaching, including technology, I am helping my students learn on levels even I am unaware of. It was truly meaningful to me to know that my students learned a lot and genuinely enjoyed my lesson.