Week 15 and 16

The past two weeks have been focused on finishing the Civil War. Due to the fact that this is one of the biggest units I teach during the war, I am tied to my teaching partner. Therefore, I did not try any new techniques or strategies. It was a typical day to day progression of lecture, notes, and video. Nothing to exciting. I have spent the last three weeks teaching as I have always done and not enjoyed it. The students excitement for class has dropped and the number of disruptions,i.e. student conversations, has increased. The fun of teaching and learning just was not there. Knowing this, I decided I needed to stop trying to be like my teaching partner, and get back to my new ideas and try to be as innovative with my lesson design as I could. I made this decision with only the test left. One review day and then the test day before winter vacation. What I decided to do was reward them for taking all those notes the pas three weeks. I told them I would let them use them on the test. Immediately things in class picked up. Their engagement went way up. They asked a bunch of questions and we had great discussions. I explained my reasons for letting them use their notes. I told them that the test was not of their memorization skills, but of their ability to understand the main concepts and key events of the Civil War. Also, I told them they deserved to be rewarded for their work in taking notes over the unit. This reinforced my desire to change. I need to do my own ting, and if my teaching partner wants to stick to the same old routine, that is just the way it will have to be. I felt stifled the past few weeks. I was not excited about class, and it became somewhat of a forced march through the war. As soon as I finished grading the tests, I began to look at ways to teach reconstruction. I am excited again, and hope that I can come up with some new lessons that will keep student interest and enjoyment up. Have a wonderful holiday break, and remember, Happy Teaching!!

Week 14

The past week was quite uneventful. I did not have anything new planned. The students are in the middle of presenting their Civil War photographic analysis presentations. This is an activity I have done for the past three years. The students are assigned a photo of from the war, they research the photo in order to find out the story behind the photo and present their findings to class. The change I instituted this year was that instead of having all the students present over a 2 to 3 day period, I am having them present in chronological order. They are presenting in coordination with our study of the war. I am hoping to make better connections between their presentations and the content. We are 2 days into the presentations and the connections are being made. The disappointing piece is that the presentations are far below the quality of the past years. I have been trying to figure this out and feel that a couple of the changes my teaching partner made to the project have not been good. He wanted to make it more rigorous, and I am all for that, but I believe it is to complex for seventh graders. The project has engaged the students, but it is frustrating watching sub par presentations. The data I collected this past week was from student exit cards about the project. I kept it simple, on a scale of 1 to 5, what is you enjoyment of the project. The rehire have been at a 4. I anticipated this, knowing how well students in the past enjoyed it. I plan to continue to do the analysis in the future, but wil go back to a more basic analysis. What do you see in the photo? What can you learn from the photo without conducting any research? What have you learned about the photo through your research? We will see how the rest of the presentations go this week. Until next time, Happy Teaching!!

Weeks 12 and 13

With last week being a two day week for the students, I decided to revert back to my old ways and use PowerPoint along with lecture. I wanted to see how the students would react to this. On Monday, they were not that enthused about having to sit and take notes, but for the most part the day went off without any issues. A few students did make comments that class was boring and it wasn't the highlight it normally is. Our topic for these two days was focused on the causes of the Civil War. Tuesday was much more difficult. It was the last day of the week for them, they were excited about that and the fact that it was almost Thanksgiving. After I did my usual routine of starting class by quizzing them on past events that occurred on this day in history, I told them to take out their notebooks. While I turned off the lights and turned on the Smartboard, they balked mightily at what we were going to do. This happened in all my classes. The day did not go smoothly. There were many interruptions in each period. Students were not focused and uninterested in the information. The results of the day were pretty much what I thought they would be. The students commented on how much they missed being busy in class. They learn better working with the information instead of being told it. This approach just doesn't work for them. The response validated my action research.
This week, I wanted them to be active. In order to assess their understanding of the causes, I let them work in groups to write a song or rap that demonstrated the relationship between the different events we discussed, thus assessing their knowledge of the content. The students were excited to work together, but apprehensive about getting up in front of class and performing their song. To help with this, I decided to play a game with the class to help the fear subside. We played a game called radio. The students said it was kind of like telephone. It was loud, but they had a blast. They were laughing, having fun, and two days later, I realized it had worked. For a class period and a half, they worked to come up with a song/rap. The lyrics they were creating were ingenious. Some groups created songs from scratch, while others took familiar tunes like We will rock you and Row, Row, Row your boat, and inserted their own lyrics. They really got into the activity. Those two days of work flew by and all students were engaged. Students were challenged, yet they said they enjoyed the work. They expressed that by having to work with the content, they better understood it and were seeing the relationship between the events. Performance day did not disappoint. What I had seen during the work days was good, but the final products were amazing. First off, all students went up in front of class and sang their songs. I think my ice breaker worked. The songs were well written, tunes/beats were present, and the rhymes they came up with were really good. The activity was a huge success, and they said they want to do it again later in the year.
What I learned the past two weeks is that I need to create as many opportunities to get the students busy and active. Sitting and taking notes does not engage the students of today. Also, the more hands on they are with the material, the more they understand and retain the content. Until net time, Happy Teaching!!