My teacher only reserves 30 minutes for social studies, and this is not even every single day. So, when she told me that I would have from 3:00 to 3:30 to teach a lesson, I was nervous about designing a lesson for this class that would be interesting and interactive while only been a half hour lesson. The week before teaching my lesson, I observed her class for a few hours to fulfill an assignment for another class. During that time, I also observed a short social studies lesson. The lesson was focused on "the common good" and what we can do for our community. They were reading out of their text book, and a small part of the chapter on Habitat for Humanity seemed very insignificant. Then and there, I decided that I would use the thirty minutes I was given for my lesson to expand a little bit on Habitat for Humanity and get the students talking and thinking about this organization and other ways they can help their community.
I decided that if I went into the lesson, activated their prior knowledge by allowing them to discuss what they remembered about Habitat for Humanity from the textbook and had a discussion with the class about how they help their community, I would have a little bit of time left to have them examine some photographs of Habitat volunteers in action. I didn't feel as if I would have time to have the students engage in a writing activity, since there are several students in this class on different levels and I was teaching the whole class. However, I thought that the students would benefit from looking at several photographs of volunteers doing different jobs and collaborating to build houses. I would then have the students discuss what each picture was depicting and how those people were helping their community. I would wrap up the lesson by asking the students how they thought they could help in their communities.
On Monday, I taught my lesson, and overall it went VERY smoothly and the students were very cooperative. Everyone was engaged for the thirty minutes that I was teaching. One thing that I would change if I were to teach this lesson again would be to have several MORE photographs instead of just one per group. Although the students were talking for the entire five minutes that I gave them and they were on task, I feel like they would have benefited from seeing several more photographs. If I had more time to teach, I would have them write about how they could help in their communities in addition to having them discuss it.
When planning this lesson, I had intended to use a visual arts objective since I was having the students interpret photographs. When I was looking for a 3rd grade visual arts objective to fit this activity, I could not find one that sounded right to me. So, I decided to use a language arts objective for oral communication in order for my lesson to still be interdisciplinary. If I were to teach this again, I would try to integrate more objectives from the arts. Another thing I could have done would have been to integrate technology somehow and show students the interactive student website for Habitat for Humanity. This site offers several games and activities for students.
Considering the fact that I only had thirty minutes to teach, I think my lesson went well. It could have been improved in the different ways that I mentioned, but overall I felt comfortable teaching and did not have any issues.
Very cool that you were able to expand on a concept from their textbook. That time slot is very difficult for both teachers and students, so having the interactive photographs was beneficial. I like your idea of including more photos and the student website.
ReplyDelete