Current Events!
Throughout this month our class has focused a
lot on current events. A current event is not something that is from the
past... meaning history but something current. Current events are in the
news, online, and all over. We used the website called Newsela.com to discover
different current events happening in the world today. Newsela is a great
website because it has several categories to find particular information and
have many articles to read that apply to events within the last couple years.
Teaching students about current events can be
beneficial in many ways. First of all current event sometimes apply to a wide
range of subject in school and can connect to the curriculum. Current events
articles can also be beneficial to help students with building language and
vocabulary skills. Students may even benefit from a better reading
comprehension and will often be more engage because it contains subjects that
may directly connect to their own life and the world they live in. Studying
current events also help students understand concepts that they may apply in
real life and it helps students to understand the importance of people, events
and issues that are being discussed in the news. It may also motivate students
to watch the new more and become increasingly interested in politics or event
happening. School learning should not be entirely based on the past. There were
so many years that my teachers told me that we would get to learning about the
present in my history classes but we never did. This semester for the first
time we go to the present time in US history and it was unbelievable how much
more interested I was in learning! I think this can apply to many people,
especially students.
Part 1 – Planning
Our class, this semester was responsible for creating a
mini-lesson plan/activity for the class. This activity had to be inclusive
of some type of current events article. Our group decided to do an activity
based on Free School Lunches and the main components of a school budget. We
felt that this topic can be included at various grade levels. It was very hard
to find a topic that related directly with our unit plan. The article could be
changed based on the grade level that it was taught for. However, since this
was taught to our class we focused on an issue of school budgets. We thought
that this would be a great topic but what lesson should go along with it? We
thought a cooperative lesson would be the best choice for this activity. Next,
we had to think about the main activity for the cooperative mini-lesson that
would be able to fit into ten minutes. We decided that the think-pair-share
method we learned in class would be a great idea. It permits the students to
discuss the information and complete a mini activity and then share their
findings. With so little time, we decided that we would have to use the method
known as a “flipped classroom”. We planned to have the students read the
article at home before coming to class so they would know the information
readily and then be able to use it for the discussion. The think-pair-share
model is a great method and fairly simple to use. We created a padlet for our
lesson and on it, there were three questions for the students to answer in
their groups. We also wanted to incorporate some type of a hand-on activity as
well because we knew that all the groups strictly used technology. We were
thinking of good hands-on activities for our independent practice for students
to explain their thoughts and opinions. Finally I came up with the “clothes
line” idea. I thought of hanging a clothes line (ribbon) and having the students
write down what they feel is the most important parts of a school budget. The
students could then hang up their answers for the class to see with a
clothespin! We also had to keep in mind the state and national standards when
implementing the lesson. Below are the standards we used directly in our lesson
plan:
National Content
Standard
Theme 3. People, Places and environment
Today’s social, cultural, economic and civic
issues demand that students apply knowledge, skills, and understandings as they
address questions
Theme 6. Power, Authority and Governance
The development of civic competence requires
an understanding of the foundations of political thought, and the historical
development of various structures of power, authority, and governance. It also
requires knowledge of the evolving functions of these structures in
contemporary U.S. society, as well as in other parts of the world.
New York State
Learning Standard(s) + CCSS
NYS Standard 2.4b Communities have leaders who
are responsible for making laws and enforcing laws.
Students will identify who makes and enforces
the rules and laws in their community. They will also explore how leaders make
and enforce these rules and laws.
Comprehension and
Collaboration
1. Prepare for and participate effectively in
a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on
others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
2.Integrate
and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including
visually, quantitatively, and orally.
These standards were used because they were related to both our
lesson plans and also to the activity. The student need to work on building on
each other’s ideas and expressing their own opinions which the students would
do in the lesson. In addition they would have to integrate information and
present it orally. The students integrated the information from the article
into their responses and they presented their answers to the class.
The class was responsible for reading the article we provided on
Newsela prior to coming to class. When they came to class we asked the students
what they remember about the think-pair-share method using question and answer.
Then we went over the method using our google slides presentation as a visual
aid. We provided two videos for the students to view further if they would
like. There was no time to watch the videos, but if there was they would have
been plaid. Next, we asked two questions that had to do with school budgets. We
had the class split into groups based on their answers to our questions in our
powerpoint. We used the method called "think-pair-share" to discuss
the thoughts and opinions of the article. The student after being divided into
groups logged onto padlet and answered the three questions that we made. The
groups wrote their answers to each of the questions directly on there. We gave
them several minutes to talk within their groups. Finally, everyone shared
their thoughts and answers to the questions. As our exit ticket we had each
person write three of the most important parts of a school budget in their
opinion. This was done to show the class that politics are not black and white
and although you may agree on one point you most likely will not agree on
everything but everyone's opinions are important. To show the importance of
each thought, we hung a ribbon for everyone to clip their thoughts on! The
class definitely enjoyed it and it was exciting to come up to the front of the
room to hang up. This would definitely be good in a class because each student
would be excited to get up and be part of this huge list of school budget
ideas! The class was closed out by asking the students what questions or comments
they had.
Part 3 - Reflection
Overall, learning how to incorporate current events into the
classroom was very helpful. Current events are a great way to engage students
because it incorporates events that may pertain to real-life experiences. I
personally learn more from reading about current events because I sometimes feel
that history can get boring. In addition, I was finally able to implement the
think-pair-share model. I look forward to using current events in my classroom
one day!
No comments:
Post a Comment