The article discussing UbD: Stages of "Backward" Design was very interesting as well. I think creating a lesson plan with the end goal in mind is a useful tactic. It helps you stay focused on what it is that you want the students to take away from the lesson. When you start creating a lesson plan all the while keeping in mind the end result, the goal, of the lesson, it is much easier to stay on task throughout the lesson, and make clearer plans.
For the creation of the tsunami lesson plan, I plan on starting by thinking of the end goal, what I want the students to take away from the lesson. And that is being able to come to a better understanding of what it would be like to have been a victim of the tsunami. I think it would be interesting to have the students write an essay from the perspective of someone their age over in Japan, writing through the eyes of someone who lived through the tsunami and has to deal with the aftermath. I would set up some prompting questions for them to answer as well as read a news article at the start of class, so as to give the students some information to use as a springboard for their story. I think it would be very useful if I could find a first person account written by someone who lived through the tsunami, and read that to the class, giving them an idea of what type of writing I'm looking for.
These are just some ideas as of now, but I look forward to developing those ideas during class.
I like your lesson plan ideas. They remind me of the video we watched of the teacher in NY teaching about refugees to her English class - very well designed and executed, with clear learning goals and outcomes.
ReplyDeleteI agree as a teacher, it is important to make lessons as relevant as possible for students. Students need to identity with the content and motivation for a lesson. When I look back at the hundreds of thousands of lessons I have participated in as a student, the ones that were the most meaningful were also relevant to me personally.
ReplyDeleteIt is clear from your second paragraph that you spent time thinking through the reading we were assigned with UbD. You have a gift in assessing lessons from the stand point of the student. Your passion in sharing your knowledge shows through.
ReplyDeleteFYI, we talked about making face book profiles in our book as characters for the assignment. It might be a bit morbid for your assignment, but you could have your students make a profile of the Japanese student they wrote about.
Also, I wanted to give you positive feedback that I noticed your change in format to separate paragraphs after classmateB made the suggestion. It has been helpful in reading your blogs!