For all you teachers out there, I'm going to put this blog in the "What", "So What", "Now What" strategy in order to better facilitate mine and hopefully other's learning.
What: President Obama's Speech to students became a 2 day collaborative lesson. The idea of this lesson sprang to my mind while driving to work a time where some of a teacher's best and worst lessons may emerge into existence. I was listening to the news and hearing all the controversy that was surrounding this address to students. It had me confused, so I called up my Social Studies teacher and asked her about the controversy concerning this speech. She was really put out that there was a controversy and wanted to address it. I asked what she thought about doing a team teach (she teaches seniors, Civics and I teach sophomores, English). She thought that was a good idea. Here is a copy of the plan:
SWBT evaluate Obama's speech for purpose and partisanship: What kind of partisanship is presented in Obama's speech? What is his purpose in this speech? What tools were used to get his purpose across?
WhenSep 8 – 9 2009
Standards "R.9.10.1 Examine author’s purpose by connecting own background knowledge" R.9.10.9 Analyze techniques used to convey point of view or impressions, including language, organization, tone, and context" SS: identify role of government
Description1. American Dream Headliner activity 2. Look at Partisan, nonpartisan, bipartisan 3. Read Obama's speech for American Dream and Partisanship 4. Give an example of AM. Dr. and Partisanship from speech. Day 2 1. Review Partisan, Bipartisan, Nonpartisan 2. Watch President Obama's speech3. Discuss the purpose of the speech 4. Create a slogan for Obama's purpose 5. Present for class.
So What: We taught both our classes this lesson for two days. At the end of the days I had my students complete a survey to see how well they understood the information as well as liked working with two teachers and a different grade. Out of 144 students about 74% of the students retained the difference between partisan - one political parties ideas, bipartisan - two parties working together, and nonpartisan - no political stance. 57% of the students enjoyed working with a group from a different grade -- this was an interesting question because I included a spot for the students to write a statement under "other" and 17% chose to write in that and several of the students wrote a different positive comment. 52% said that they enjoyed working with two teachers. The team teaching and working with other students were a little lower than I imagined them to be, but this does not deter me from trying again.
I really felt that it was a good thing to expose students to two different content areas at once. Also, I think it was very interesting for the students to work together as a larger group comprised of different people. I'm sure it was a little uncomfortable for them to be with older/younger students, and we made sure that the groups all comprised of at least one senior and 1 sophomore.
We moved our classes to the library for this lesson, and I think it was a good thing to displace the students a bit. One student mentioned that she really enjoyed working in a different place because it made it seem new and more fun.
Several parts of this lesson could have been improved upon, one of the most blatantly obvious improvement could have been the reading. We had the students read President Obama's speech which ended up being four pages. Whoa. Let me just mention that four pages in a 46 minute class hour has some serious drawbacks; namely THE STUDENTS WON'T READ!! Also, Obama's speech although long was meant for k-12 students so the language was not really on the par of our students' vocabularies. We should have had an excerpt of the speech and then included something of a higher grade level. The other part of the lesson that could have worked on would be that the teachers had a more division of teaching. I noticed that one or the other would almost teach the whole hour with the other adding simple additions when necessary. We should have lined up our parts through our lesson in order to both maximize the teaching arena.
Now What: I am really excited about the team teaching. I have always heard the research about it, and that we should be doing it. Unfortunately time restraints and the pioneer school house institution continually keeps me from trying it. I did it once last year during a remediation hour with a fellow English teacher and absolutely loved it! I felt it made us better instructors paired as we were. Overall I think team teaching could create an atmosphere of learning where the students learn to get along with different groups. They see teachers working together in a professional climate, and the instructors can make sure that the material is gone through thoroughly.
My Challenge: I want to try to team teach with all the content areas this year. Ideally, I would love it to be a two day lesson that we could have in the library. Wahoo! I didn't even realize I was creating a challenge before writing this post, so already I am reaping the benefits of blogging. Already I am thinking of a Math/ English connection that could be made. If anybody has any ideas, I would love to hear them.
Alright, I have one my ideas down for last week. I hope I can do another next week. I'm going for shorter, and am considering discussing the benefits of job embedded PLC (Professional Learning Communities) meetings, or the new tech P. D. I created a professional development presentation over the basics of Google Applications. Maybe I will upload them at a later date.
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