Emily!! I loved your lesson, honestly, it was incredibly informative. To begin, I loved the song at the beginning, it is a great way to engage the students, if possible have the lyrics on the desks as kids walk in and begin playing the song right away, I think it's a way to get kids engaged strightaway (just an idea). The documents themselves were very informative, and just the right amount of challenging, to work within the respective child's zone of proximal development. You were incredibly friendly and engaging throughout the discussion, you made the lesson fun, even though some students will find the primary documents themselves to not be all that interesting, your presentation as friendly and engaging makes up for all of that. I loved the comparison of when the Brits came here vs. the arrival of the Spaniards to America, the Brits had imagined that they would find a society like those of the Maya, with gold and a full-functioning city, but that isn't quite as it worked it. You found on a way to tie in material previously learned! You could tell that you knew a lot on the topic.
I don't think there's too much to critique aside from the song at the beginning, I can't really think of too much else, it was engaging and fun. You were encouraging! Maybe provide an extra, optional, document at the end, just for those fast readers. :) Aside from that this lesson isn't all the different from one's that I have had in high school, great job!
Emily, when you teach I can tell that you are excited and that you have made yourself very well versed in the topic. Those are very important things for any teacher to be. I also really liked the song that you used to begin the lesson with because it is from a movie that I really like, but somehow I never noticed that song before. I also appreciated the song because it was fairly easy to pull the desired information from compared to the other article that we had to read. I believe that the rest of the articles felt like less of a challenge because we started with the easier piece. While I wasn’t very interested in reading the articles, there were some very notable things in the articles, for example, the man that killed and ate his wife. That really illustrates how terrible the conditions were that they were living in. The discussion that you led afterwards was informative and fun and it let all the people, not matter if they are slow or fast, they were able feel like they were able to contribute to the conversation. Overall, nice job, there were no dropping water bottles this time ;)
Nice lesson Emily. The Disney song was a nice touch. I have two critiques.
The first could be a failure of mine for not paying attention, but I could have used some more direction for what I should have been looking for in the documents.
The second was that there was maybe a little bit too much to read. I didn't get to read the last one and it seemed like it was one of the more important ones for discussion. I think it is asking a lot for kids to sit and read in a class for 20 minutes straight, especially the harder-to-read older documents. It would be nice if you could cut a couple of those selections and replaced them with a map or something visual to look at (Jamestown is a bit rough for non-written things),
Hey Emily, I said this at the end of your lesson, but again, I loved it! The narratives you provided made the historical figures and events come alive compared to the textbook version of what happened. They were written casually enough for students to enjoy, easy to follow, with lots of detail. The connection you created with Pocahontas in the beginning was a real attention grabber, especially for students who may not know that she (and John Smith) were real people.. (And that the movie was not very accurate.) Very cool and well done. My only suggestion for your lesson is - provide better copies and/or organization of the narratives. There was just enough information but the presentation can overwhelm students. We know if the font is too small it may feel like it is too much to read. Or poorly copied sheets can make reading harder.
Ms. Fisher! If I were a student of your class, I would have had a lot of fun digesting your lesson. I would have probably have come back from Thanksgiving Break all happy and tired, most probably having watched a few Disney movies with my family, and lo' and behold you present me with a lesson on Colonist and Disney!
What I loved:
You knew where you wanted us to go. You literally threw us our documents and said "have at it!" Although this was intimating at first, you made sure we listened to your instructions before truly jumping into the material. At the same time, the moment of your lesson happened to coincide perfectly with the Holiday season. This, in my opinion, brings a good sense of management and professionalism to the classroom. Following that train of thought, you had a good handle on where your knowledge extended and ended. Where we could have found the answer ourselves, you stayed silent and let us ponder. Where we knew that you knew that we knew we were stuck, you jumped right in and corrected our misinformation or lack-thereof. And you also picked a fair and specific type of resources to backup our exploration upon. As a History Teacher, it only makes sense to pull from specific history books on Jamestown, as well as encyclopedia. Very well thought out.
But only critique: I wish you had gone further into depth with what you wanted *us to find out from the documents. From the first article, we all summed up that you wanted us to discover the truths and fallacies of the past. But it was quite a ways to work with. Otherwise, awesome job!
Emily!! I loved your lesson, honestly, it was incredibly informative. To begin, I loved the song at the beginning, it is a great way to engage the students, if possible have the lyrics on the desks as kids walk in and begin playing the song right away, I think it's a way to get kids engaged strightaway (just an idea). The documents themselves were very informative, and just the right amount of challenging, to work within the respective child's zone of proximal development. You were incredibly friendly and engaging throughout the discussion, you made the lesson fun, even though some students will find the primary documents themselves to not be all that interesting, your presentation as friendly and engaging makes up for all of that. I loved the comparison of when the Brits came here vs. the arrival of the Spaniards to America, the Brits had imagined that they would find a society like those of the Maya, with gold and a full-functioning city, but that isn't quite as it worked it. You found on a way to tie in material previously learned! You could tell that you knew a lot on the topic.
ReplyDeleteI don't think there's too much to critique aside from the song at the beginning, I can't really think of too much else, it was engaging and fun. You were encouraging! Maybe provide an extra, optional, document at the end, just for those fast readers. :) Aside from that this lesson isn't all the different from one's that I have had in high school, great job!
Emily, when you teach I can tell that you are excited and that you have made yourself very well versed in the topic. Those are very important things for any teacher to be. I also really liked the song that you used to begin the lesson with because it is from a movie that I really like, but somehow I never noticed that song before. I also appreciated the song because it was fairly easy to pull the desired information from compared to the other article that we had to read. I believe that the rest of the articles felt like less of a challenge because we started with the easier piece.
ReplyDeleteWhile I wasn’t very interested in reading the articles, there were some very notable things in the articles, for example, the man that killed and ate his wife. That really illustrates how terrible the conditions were that they were living in. The discussion that you led afterwards was informative and fun and it let all the people, not matter if they are slow or fast, they were able feel like they were able to contribute to the conversation. Overall, nice job, there were no dropping water bottles this time ;)
Nice lesson Emily. The Disney song was a nice touch. I have two critiques.
ReplyDeleteThe first could be a failure of mine for not paying attention, but I could have used some more direction for what I should have been looking for in the documents.
The second was that there was maybe a little bit too much to read. I didn't get to read the last one and it seemed like it was one of the more important ones for discussion. I think it is asking a lot for kids to sit and read in a class for 20 minutes straight, especially the harder-to-read older documents. It would be nice if you could cut a couple of those selections and replaced them with a map or something visual to look at (Jamestown is a bit rough for non-written things),
Hey Emily, I said this at the end of your lesson, but again, I loved it! The narratives you provided made the historical figures and events come alive compared to the textbook version of what happened. They were written casually enough for students to enjoy, easy to follow, with lots of detail. The connection you created with Pocahontas in the beginning was a real attention grabber, especially for students who may not know that she (and John Smith) were real people.. (And that the movie was not very accurate.) Very cool and well done. My only suggestion for your lesson is - provide better copies and/or organization of the narratives. There was just enough information but the presentation can overwhelm students. We know if the font is too small it may feel like it is too much to read. Or poorly copied sheets can make reading harder.
ReplyDeleteMs. Fisher! If I were a student of your class, I would have had a lot of fun digesting your lesson. I would have probably have come back from Thanksgiving Break all happy and tired, most probably having watched a few Disney movies with my family, and lo' and behold you present me with a lesson on Colonist and Disney!
ReplyDeleteWhat I loved:
You knew where you wanted us to go. You literally threw us our documents and said "have at it!" Although this was intimating at first, you made sure we listened to your instructions before truly jumping into the material. At the same time, the moment of your lesson happened to coincide perfectly with the Holiday season. This, in my opinion, brings a good sense of management and professionalism to the classroom.
Following that train of thought, you had a good handle on where your knowledge extended and ended. Where we could have found the answer ourselves, you stayed silent and let us ponder. Where we knew that you knew that we knew we were stuck, you jumped right in and corrected our misinformation or lack-thereof.
And you also picked a fair and specific type of resources to backup our exploration upon. As a History Teacher, it only makes sense to pull from specific history books on Jamestown, as well as encyclopedia. Very well thought out.
But only critique: I wish you had gone further into depth with what you wanted *us to find out from the documents. From the first article, we all summed up that you wanted us to discover the truths and fallacies of the past. But it was quite a ways to work with. Otherwise, awesome job!