Week 9: Presentations of Unit 1

I thoroughly enjoyed being able to hear and see my classmates' lesson plans. Everyone did a fantastic job at creating lessons that were well structured and creative for their respective topic areas. It was clear that everyone spent a large amount of time creating and perfecting their lesson plans. I was also impressed by the wealth of primary sources that each person used within their lesson plans. Though the amount of time to research and find such sources might be exhausting, I think that it is obvious that such lessons will wow students and improve their learning and comprehension in the long run. Overall, I gained several valuable and practical ideas to use in my future classroom from my classmates presentations and I am excited to be able to implement them when the time comes.

I was really impressed by Chloe's use of choices within her lessons. In almost every one of her lesson plans she gave her students options on the activities that they could complete. Therefore, each lesson incorporates all learning styles and intelligences of the students. This is an area in which I struggle for I tend to create lesson plans that correspond with the way in which I learn, not the various ways my students learn. In the future, I need to think more deeply to create lesson plans that all students can learn from.

I was also excited by Kevin's hands-on activities in his lesson plans. Instead of just talking about Hammurabi's Code or cuneiform, he is having his students understand both concepts by creating their own laws and forms of writing. Every student, no matter what age, would prefer hands-on experience rather than being talked at for a whole class hour. Any time that a lesson can include a hands-on activity, I plan on using it in my own lesson plans.

I thought Katie did a really good job at integrating primary sources into her lesson plans. Since there is such a wealth of primary sources out there on the American Civil War, I cannot see how a teacher could avoid using primary sources in his or her lessons. I especially liked her lesson in which she was having her students write letters back home as if they were from the Civil War time period. She did not just verbally explain what life would be like back then, she included primary sources to actually show students what life might have been like. I thought that was an incredibly smart idea and I plan on using it in my own classroom as well!

The only issue that I had when reviewing these lesson plans was the time aspect that each unit would require. Excluding those lesson plans on wars, the majority of the topics for the units I feel would not normally be so thoroughly covered in a classroom. My current cooperating teacher, covers an entire chapter in a week. Such a schedule would not be able to incorporate my four days strictly on voting. The same applies to other topics like the West or Mesopotamia. I remembering covering those topics each in a day when I was in high school. So I am wondering if some of these unit plans are truly practical for an actual classroom? Or can only one or two of the lessons of the unit be incorporated into the curriculum?