May 11th, Mother's Day

carolinagirlunc — Mon, 12 May 2008 02:42:00 GMT

As a teacher, mother, grad student, girlfriend, friend, and an obvious multi-tasker, I enjoy a challenge! One of my current professors gave us an opportunity to write a blog as an alternate assignment. Since I do enjoy lots of blog reading myself, I said to myself, "Self, why not?"

So here I am!

Our challenge this week was related to standards in learning, standardized testing, and standards of teachers. The students in my class have discussed many issues this week in regards to plagiarism, expectations in test results, teaching the test, and students who fall through the cracks of the proverbial standards set.

I've discovered that teachers are truly giving and loving creatures. We were probably all good students, the pleasers in the class, and we struggle with the issues in standards because not only do they give us a bar to be set, but they also provide for us a vision into the future for some of these children who will not be able to "meet" the standards in any shape or form.

Do you remember if you were a red bird, a blue bird, or a yellow bird in your reading group? How long did it take you to realize which group was which? Were you a bad reader? a good reader? or just an average reader? Standards focus in a very similar way; They allow us to differentiate between what is learned, what is not learned, and who learns what at a particular pace.

I chose a "Power Standard" (which is another word for "Vague large set of requirements for your classroom") of the analysis of Greek Mythology for my tenth grade students. My students are basically required to learn in some fashion the basic themes and plots of a small set of myths.

As I was "Power Surfing" the channels the other day, I came across the old movie, The Clash of the Titans and had a brillant idea: I would design a unit on mythology using the movie as my primary resource.

I asked my 8th grade children if they would be my guinea pigs so that I could try it out. Wow! What a huge success!

I am particulary proud of it for several reasons:

1. It is truly a creative, hands on, working movie viewing . I designed a complete question and answer study sheet to read along and answer along as they watched the movie. We even stopped the movie three times during the class hour for students to get caught up and to compare notes with fellow classmates. Again, this allows the yellow birds to seek out help from the blue birds. As a result, the blue birds knowledge is reinforce by "teaching" and the yellow bird received peer tutoring which is an incredibly effective form of learning.

2. Once the movie is viewed and the study guide is completed, the students must read and compare the original myths to the movie version. Comparing and contrasting reinforces the knowledge of both sets of plots.

3. Once the compare and contrast is completed, students then complete a series of short answer creative mini projects using art, history, math, science, etc... to mesh the vast reaching impact of mythology throughout the mediums.

I'll post the packet of information tomorrow so that you can see how it works! I love it. It's fun and innovative and it was a blast for me to design! As a professor on a dvd we watched in graduate school put it, "students learn when teachers are into it!" And I can assure you, I am definitely into this project!

Writin and Teachin from Ga

May 11th, Mother's Day