I taught my lesson the day before Thanksgiving Break and it was pretty interesting. With some advice from my field instructor and mentor I made my lesson really interactive and tried to reduce the amount of factual information presented. This was because I learned that trying to teach a lot on the day before break can be a challenge. I certainly don't blame the students - we were all ready for a break. But, since we all still had to be there and I couldn't really justify putting in a video and calling it teaching to myself, I knew I had to adapt.
BUT, I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to implement some technology into this classroom, which is almost exclusively paper-based. So, I broke out the PowerPoint and did a lesson about using art as a primary source to find out about a civilization (in this case it was the Maya and Aztec Empires). Because I know this can be difficult for students, I decided to start first with a handful of famous American photographs, which some of them might actually be familiar with. If you didn't already know, Google just recently bought the rights to Life Magazine's photography archive and you can browse their entire collection of photos online - over 90% of which have never been published!
So, I took advantage of this great resource and used a few famous photos (the beach at D-Day, 'the kiss' in Times Square on V-E Day, the raising of the Russian Flag over Berlin, etc) to get the kids talking. I hi-lighted issues about the subject of the photos, the emotion and the significance of them. The students had a really great discussion about the photos and I think this gave them a good base to talk about the Aztec and Mayan art - something they were definitely less familiar with. I think because they could draw on the characteristics of the American photos, the Aztec and Maya discussion went pretty well. The students seemed enthusiastic about what they were doing and also about the artwork. This made it both incredibly exciting and gratifying to teach, as well.
Having the projector in the classroom and the access to these great photos was key in this lesson. Although this was using technology in a pretty traditional manner, it was still embraced by the students. I like to think it's because I was really trying to respond to their needs as students-with-one-foot-out-the-door, but that may be a little arrogant. Regardless, the students responded well to this use of technology in the classroom and I had a blast talking about art before Thanksgiving Break!
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3 comments:
Stephanie
Thanks for sharing your lesson experience. I don't think you should ever worry that you are using technology in a "traditional" way or that you are teaching in a "traditional" manner. Sometimes traditional is the best option. I think what is important, is that you developed a very innovative way to connect modern students with ancient civilization---not easy!
Hi Steph,
Sounds like you had a great experience. Thanks for posting the info about the pictures online.
Brenda
I agree with Liz, Stephanie. The issue isn't traditional vs. "not," but what are you doing to "enhance the learning experience of your students, and how are you using skills and experiences they bring to the classroom to help them approach new ideas and new content?
I would also add that you ought to make it an ongoing bit of homework for yourself to think about how your teaching (including the lesson you describe here) "enhances the learning experience of your students, and utilizes the skills and experiences your students bring to the classroom to help them approach new ideas and new content." You're a creative thinker, Stephanie, and if I were you I would do a little journaling as you plan, and after the lesson, capturing your thoughts on questions like mine. This will be good material to have ready for interviews...and even RWTs, I suppose ;-)
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