Tuesday 1/21/03
The political science/economics (social science classes) which were periods
1, 2, and 6 had a speaker today. Robert Eatman came in to talk about career
readiness and also to recruit for Lincoln Tech. He was a very dynamic speaker
who spoke about personal relevant real-life issues that would affect these graduating
seniors. Students for the most part were very attentive, curious and engaged.
Wednesday 1/22/03
-Cues are very important.
Students are told to get their textbooks and complete a warm up activity to
start the class.
-Main Activity-After
the students are finished with the warm-up activity ranking a list of constitutional
rights. Jack goes over the list of rights in detail: defining, clarifying, and
giving examples of each. Jack is a very dynamic storyteller who is able to engage
his students with his relevant examples. There is a natural give and take dialogue
between Jack and his students. Oftentimes, he will ask a simple rhetorical question
and someone or several students in the class will call out an answer which he
will use to further his point and move onto the next question. Sometimes, he
would give interesting examples that were provocative or controversial which
required students to respond and discuss at a higher thinking level.
Period 1: can the government stop any religions? What kinds of prisoners today do not have rights, due process? Is the death penalty humane? Why do we have guns?
Period 2: Can you wear a cross or Islamic garb as a teacher? A student?
Is my religion inhibiting my teaching? (in addition to previous class ?s)
Period 6:
What does it mean? Are there any other ifs, ands, buts…?
( in addition to previous class ?s)
Much of the discussion
was teacher-student rather than student-student. I noticed though that the same
students would participate and answer his questions, while the other students
either were quiet or not participating at all. Some students carried on side
conversations, ate food, or did homework for another class. At one point, in
the period one class, one student got up out of his seat, went to the printer,
and started printing something out. Clearly Jack has a very relaxed policy in
his classroom which could both be good sometimes and other times quite inappropriate
and distracting. The period 2 class also was quite distracted with several students
eating food, having side conversations, sleeping (head down on the desk), applying
makeup, and reading magazines. The period 6 class mostly had students with their
heads down, clearly affected by the fact it was near the end of the school day.
-Closing Activity
Jack gives an assignment for homework in which student would write a paragraph
about their highest ranked (best) constitutional right. On the board, he outlines
the criteria for the assignment: 1)give your opinion (about which right is the
most important) 2) defense-give reasons to support (why?) 3)review-summarizing
your opinion. Students would also write a similar paragraph for their lowest
ranked (least important) constitutional right. This assignment clearly demonstrated
the expectations Jack wanted for his students. They needed to be given structure
but they were also expected to think beyond the comprehension level towards
analysis, evaluation.
****
Social Studies for 12th graders is split into two semesters. One semester is political science which Jack is finishing up and one semester is devoted to economics. In the last couple of his political science classes, Jack finished up the lesson on the constitutions, the amendments, and the court system. To effectively close the semester, Jack gave the students a final political science project which involved studying the Supreme Court Cases. Students would be assigned to groups, to specific court cases, and to specific sides of the issue (plaintiffs and defendants). Over the course of about two weeks, students wrote briefs about their issue, found evidence to support their issues, and prepared mock presentations. Each of the groups would present for their specific case and a hypothetical Supreme Court would actually deliberate and make a decision based upon their presentations. Students would also learn about what really happened in each case. This interactive activity-based lesson plan really gave me insight into how effective organization and planning such activities could be in making the content matter come alive in the classroom. Students really were engaged in the activity and learned much about the content through the process (which is one of Jack's main educational objectives). In the other lessons which were more teacher-centered and lecture-based, students were not as engaged, either participating in side conversations, falling asleep, or doing homework for other classes. As I observed how student behavior and attention was dependent upon both the teaching style and practice, I planned to make sure that my lesson plans would have to be activity-based and student-centered in order to effectively challenge and excite the students to participate and to become active learners.
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