I was definitely jealous that I was filming your lesson instead of participating. I thought that you did the best job out of anyone of only giving the students just enough information at a time to allow them to explore and come up with their ideas. I also think that you paced your lesson well, allowing enough time for each section of the sheet you were having people fill out. I think everyone enjoyed the lesson and got the point: it's very hard to have a perfect government! I think it's also important for me to point out that it was obvious that you were enjoying yourself too- kids pick up on that and will want to match your mood and energy level.
Here's my constructive criticism: I think that the way you tied the lesson at the end to The Giver was super smart and made a lot of sense; I would have just mentioned The Giver in some capacity at the beginning to make the lesson have more of a full circle effect, as opposed to the big reveal at the end. Then again, maybe you did bring it up and I don't remember?
I would have also divvied up the money into smaller denominations, so that each group had a lot more bills. They would have felt richer when they first received it, felt more jipped when it was taken away, and you could have been more "accurate" when deciding which governmental programs cost what. No big deal, but just an idea.
Finally, and this is kind of a hard thing to do, I would have slowed down the rate with which you kept coming around to each group. I know that you only had 3 groups to work with, that in a class of 25 you would have had like 5 or 6 and therefore would have longer gaps between each group visit, but it's just something to think about. I don't think that you interrupted any group's process but you must have been dizzy by the end. Then again, I can understand if you did not want to be filmed just watching from a far for this lesson to give each group more unsupervised time. I will probably face this problem today when I teach my lesson.
Overall I think you did a great job and got the students to think outside the box, nice work!
Hey Brandon,
ReplyDeleteI was definitely jealous that I was filming your lesson instead of participating. I thought that you did the best job out of anyone of only giving the students just enough information at a time to allow them to explore and come up with their ideas. I also think that you paced your lesson well, allowing enough time for each section of the sheet you were having people fill out. I think everyone enjoyed the lesson and got the point: it's very hard to have a perfect government! I think it's also important for me to point out that it was obvious that you were enjoying yourself too- kids pick up on that and will want to match your mood and energy level.
Here's my constructive criticism:
I think that the way you tied the lesson at the end to The Giver was super smart and made a lot of sense; I would have just mentioned The Giver in some capacity at the beginning to make the lesson have more of a full circle effect, as opposed to the big reveal at the end. Then again, maybe you did bring it up and I don't remember?
I would have also divvied up the money into smaller denominations, so that each group had a lot more bills. They would have felt richer when they first received it, felt more jipped when it was taken away, and you could have been more "accurate" when deciding which governmental programs cost what. No big deal, but just an idea.
Finally, and this is kind of a hard thing to do, I would have slowed down the rate with which you kept coming around to each group. I know that you only had 3 groups to work with, that in a class of 25 you would have had like 5 or 6 and therefore would have longer gaps between each group visit, but it's just something to think about. I don't think that you interrupted any group's process but you must have been dizzy by the end. Then again, I can understand if you did not want to be filmed just watching from a far for this lesson to give each group more unsupervised time. I will probably face this problem today when I teach my lesson.
Overall I think you did a great job and got the students to think outside the box, nice work!