Expected, Inspected, & Respected.
"We do not learn from experience … we learn from reflecting on experience."
-John Dewey |
"We do not learn from experience … we learn from reflecting on experience."
-John Dewey |
Today's fur trade lesson was a bit of a flop. I was so excited about its potential but it never really got off the ground. I used a game developed by the McCord Museum in Montreal that simulates a fur trade rendezvous. There was nothing wrong with the game, I just didn't do a great job of being the game master. My fatal flaw was overconfidence. I love games and have often been the person who has to explain rules to new players or young kids, so I thought this would be a fairly straightforward lesson. My materials were all ready to go and I had read the rules multiple times until I felt comfortable with them. I think I had the opposite problem Andre the Giant had when fighting Westley in The Princess Bride. Fezzik: Well, I haven't fought one person for so long. I've been specialised in groups, battling gangs for local charities, that kind of thing. I'm used to leading games for groups of 4 to 6 players, not 16-18 and you definitely use "different moves" when you're teaching a game to a large group of people than when you only have to be worried about a few. In a game with only a handful of players, you don't have to explain all the rules at the beginning, you can often explain as you play the first few rounds. When there is a question about rules in a small scale game, it's easy to get everyone's attention and clarify any misunderstandings. It's much more difficult to gather the attention of a room full of riled up 11 year olds on the afternoon before a long weekend.
If I were to play this game again, I would write some simplified rules on the SMART board so that there would be visual reminders of how to play, along with my verbal explanations. I would also spend more time reflecting with the class at the end of the game to discuss what the students learned in the process of playing.
0 Comments
No, I don't think I could have been a voyageur, but today's lesson made me think I might make a quality teacher someday. It was a nice bonus that I was being evaluated today too. If you want to take a look at my lesson plan, it's here. The real ceinture flechee and pieces of beaver fur were great activators, and the reading recorded by my friend Reid Noton in his best quebecois accent brought the article to life. The audio also served as a scaffold for the striving readers so that they could better absorb the information. Everything went smoothly, the kids seemed to enjoy the treasure hunt aspect of the task, and this time, the timing worked perfectly. Even though it was the last period of the day and we were interrupted by the patrols leaving, the students were on task and interested for the whole time. I think the main reason it went so well was because I was well prepared. My wife always says, And she's right. I made sure I could play the audio from my iPhone on the speakers in the classroom when I got to school, I had the handouts and bits of fur ready on the desks when the kids came in from recess, and even had a video from the next day's lesson ready to go just in case the kids finished the task faster than expected. I'll put this one in the wins column.
This was my lesson plan from Monday: The whiteboard paddle quiz was a good way to refresh their memories about the fur trade after spring break and they were really into it. However, it took a little longer than I thought it would and so I skipped some parts of the writing task in order to speed things up. Instead of practicing the I do, we do, you do approach to writing, I skipped it and went straight to the task and had them start writing in order to maximize the time they had left. They were quiet and respectful but I could see that most of them were stuck, pencils hovering over an empty page. I tried to provide some scaffolding for those who were struggling to put themselves in the shoes of the story's protagonist by writing my own letter at the front of the room to give them some ideas. What I should have done is what Kimi Werner suggests in this TED Talk - slow down to speed up. She says that often, "The very things we tell ourselves we're supposed to do are actually the opposite of what we should do." If I had executed my plan like I originally envisioned and not rushed to the end, they may have had less time to write, but the writing time would have been more productive and valuable. It would have been fine to have them continue their writing at the start of the next social studies class. #LessonLearned.
|
David Wiebe
|