This last minute brag goes out to Susan Johnston after just wrapping up a planning meeting with her THIS morning! Susan will be beginning a rhetoric unit with her English classes, and wanted to innovate with her instructional design. In reflecting, she noted that her classes are running fine, but she wants there to be more engagement in learning, not just engagement in class because her students like her. So here is her thinking:
Susan is planning for a six-week unit broken down into three two-week cycles. During the first two weeks, students will be learning the requisite content-specific knowledge of rhetoric (i.e. pathos, ethos, logos, figurative language, etc.). In the next two weeks, students will continue to reinforce their knowledge of rhetoric, but also start to learn more about a particular social justice issue of their choice. In the final two weeks, students will be writing and delivering speeches on their issue, employing rhetorical techniques. In the first four weeks of learning and practicing, students will be in a station rotation, interacting with media demonstrating examples of rhetoric produced with Edpuzzle in one station and reinforcing their new learning in a teacher-led small group in a second station. I can't wait to see this in action!
Cool Tools
Flippedmath.com is a site that provides engaging and well-produced videos and lessons for teaching Algebra, Geometry, Algebra II, and Pre-calculus. The lessons in each subject are set up in a curricular sequence that would make a great supplement to classroom instruction. Thanks, Wendy Jackwin for the great suggestion!
Coming Soon: Amazon will be entering the OpenEd marketplace with their site Amazon Inspire. Rumors are that they will be using their marketplace software to allow users to post, rate, manage and discover OER. If this has anywhere near the impact Amazon had on the consumer industry, look out for big things in May! Read more about Amazon Inspire here.
Professional Learning
When we send our students home with assignments that involve technology, we often leave parents out of the loop. Find out how to remedy this in Flip This House: Tips for Bridging the Tech Gap Between School and Home.
In Educating an Original Thinker, the idea of teaching "rebels with a cause" is discussed in the context of student-centered learning.
Do You Know Me? The Voice of a Disgruntled Student in a Boring Class lets you into the heads of so many of our students who feel disconnected from school, but certainly aren't disconnected from learning.
While I appreciate the accolades from Paul, he is overlooking his own role in this process. Last week when I was visiting this blog, I saw an option to select a meeting time with Paul. It was the easiest possible way to arrange a meeting without having the back and forth emails about availability. I always feel especially energized after any meeting with Paul, because he makes everything seem easier than I imagine it to be. He is full of great ideas and resources for finding more ideas.
ReplyDeleteI was excited about this new unit, but was not sure how to put together the elements to make it more interactive for the students. Paul's support and ideas are invaluable and the enthusiasm I gained from the meeting carried throughout the day and into the evening as I went home and started putting some of the ideas into action.
I strongly encourage others to take advantage of Paul's invitation to meet and discuss ideas and strategies. I think we can all agree that we don't have enough time in our normal school schedule to exchange ideas with peers, but now, thanks to Paul, we do.