Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Create a Newspaper Project

For the past few days I have had the students engaged in small group projects to create a humanitarian newspaper. The time period had to take place between the years 1800-1860 in the U.S. Each group was responsible for creating a front page of a newspaper that included 3 articles written in the voice of three of the following humanitarians: Lyman Beecher, Horace Mann, Dorthea Dix, Thomas Gallaudet, Samuel Gridley Howe, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau. Within the articles, students must use 6 of the 11 terms in the corresponding section in the textbook.

In addition to the articles, students had to create an appropriate name for the newspaper, create a political cartoon, and 2 advertisements for inventions created during the time period. This lesson was adapted from a textbook lesson plan I had come across and from another project that was demonstrated in a methods class. I felt that the section of our class textbook did not tell much about the humanitarians mentioned and their contributions are very significant to U.S. history.

This lesson achieved the learning goals I was striving for and I know projects such as these help students to retain what they have learned. This was a good project and I would recommend it to other teachers. -Jason

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Note Taking Method

In my first placement and my current placement, I found that my students had very little experience taking notes. First of all, I taught the students split-page note taking. I taught the students how to set the margins, group the ideas, and develop potential test or quiz questions from the notes. To start, I read out of the book and allowed students to use the book as a crutch if they fell behind. I felt that the textbook was a better place to start rather than a lecture since the textbook could offer some support.

You probably are familiar with guided reading worksheets that the publisher sends with their textbook....easy fill in the blank that is word for word with the text. Normally, students would be given these worksheets and allowed to use the book to complete them. However, I have used these worksheets to assess the students note taking abilities. This method is an effective first step in developing note taking skills.

Initial Set-up

This blog was created as a requirement for a class in Eastern Oregon University's MTE program. I think that the point of this is to offer a way of reflecting on lessons and sharing assessment ideas with others in the teaching profession.