Week 8: Individual Conferences Regarding Unit 1

As I was preparing and creating my four lesson plans for our first required Unit for ETE 375, I was having issues creating lessons that went beyond what I like to call robot teaching. The teacher inputs data into the students (aka the robots) and they repeat the information word for word back to the teacher. I feel as if this type of "learning" occurs when students are not engaged in the topic of lesson and they are unable to find any meaning or relevance to their own lives. In my own lesson plans, I wanted to move beyond the PowerPoint presentation/lecture method with a random worksheet thrown in at the end of lesson. This is a cookie cutter type of method of instruction that students receive, at the high school level, about six times a day. It is a personal goal of mine to not add to a student's grief on a daily basis in such a manner.

I've noticed this type of traditional lesson plan in my novice teaching experience, but I do not necessarily blame my cooperating teacher for this phenomenon. In my opinion, my cooperating teacher is a brilliant teacher whom loves her job and gives 110% every single day to her students. The problem, I believe, is the lack of time rather than necessarily the actions of my teacher. She covers and tests on a  chapter every single week. Therefore, students have very little opportunity once they have been taught the basics about a topic to explore it further. I had this exact problem as I was teaching this week since I had to cover a chapter on a week that began on a Tuesday, since they had off Monday for Columbus Day, and there was a shortened period on Wednesday because of a teacher's in service. As a result, I was forced to fly through this information at record speeds and honestly, I have little idea as to whether or not my students grasped the concepts that I wanted them to grasp.

I want to defy this traditional way of teaching, but I am still undecided on how to accomplish this goal. I dabbled with the idea of simulation activities, which I did include in at least two of my lessons. The first lesson deals with voting registration and the process of voting, so I figured why not let the students actually register to vote and to literally go through the process of voting. That makes sense. However, what about those lesson plans that cannot be so obviously simulated or literally role-played in the classroom? How can a topic like the powers of Congress be simulated? How can you create a lesson plan that goes beyond listing the expressed, implied, and denied powers of Congress on a PowerPoint slide and reading them off to students? Even if a topic can be simulated how can the teacher find time to actually conduct the simulation? Time is too precious for a teacher.