This week’s blog assignment asked for us to reflect on the experience of creating and implementing a problem-based lesson and what I might do to improve the learning experience. When I first thought about what I would do for this lesson I began by logging on to Google and conducting a search for “problem solving lesson plans”. I learn best by looking at an example of what someone else has done and then developing my own from there.
As I searched, nothing stood out. I thought about how in my 15 years in a 4th grade classroom I had developed some lessons that I truly felt were solid in the problem solving/critical thinking department (not just one or two, but you get the picture).
Then I started to focus my thoughts on my National Board Certification experience. My mind settled on a social studies entry that I had to complete that showed evidence of a sense of “community” within my classroom, centered around a social studies topic. I chose to highlight opportunity cost.
Social science is usually difficult to teach in elementary school. Not the content so much, but of all subjects, it gets pushed to the back burner (social studies is not on the test- enough said). So…when I had to create a lesson that would help the students work together I tried to do something they would show an interest in. In my classroom my students were exposed to many different genres, many different read alouds. I found that if I tried to teach them using these materials they seemed less intimidated than if I used the basal reader.
For this lesson I used the read aloud Uncle Jed’s Barbershop by Margaree King Mitchell. Told from the point of view of a young girl named Sarah Jean, the main character makes several important decisions in the story that shape the way the plot develops. After reading the book aloud to the class the students were asked to brainstorm a list of decisions that Uncle Jed had made (students were taught prior about opportunity cost and judgments & decisions). The student responses were typed up and placed on strips of paper. The next task was to have students in small groups (of 4) rank order Uncle Jed’s decisions (with the most important 1st, and so on). The group needed to come to a consensus on the order. Next, students were asked to remove 1 decision Uncle Jed made and discuss the changes to the plot based on this.
As stated earlier, this lesson was videotaped. I was able to go back and reflect with the students on how they showed a sense of community by listening to the perspectives of the group members and working together to form one opinion. The lesson was not only successful in meeting the objective of teaching opportunity cost, but also in the sense that it provided the students with a solid example of how the decisions we make (or give up) affect those around us and our own character as well.
I felt that this was a successful lesson (as did the testers for National Boards). I don’t know that there is anything I would have changed, except possibly to have more students share additional personal antidotes. The lesson itself is solid enough that it could easily be taught to a class today, as opposed to the class I taught in 2005.
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Hey Nicole,
ReplyDeleteI just read your post and then got sucked into the prezi website and your other presentations. What a great tool! You were using it in 2005? You're so hip. I'm actually really excited that you posted this lesson because I can certainly use it in my classroom. I think the biggest challenge in creating student inquiry projects lies in how long it takes for the teacher to design them. I wish I could just transplant all of your experience into my head so that I could pick up and start using student inquiry projects all the time. I guess your lesson plans will have to suffice! I'm curious how you taught your students how to work together to come up with one idea they all agreed on. It seems a lot of students I spend my time with cannot agree as a group. There is a lot of petty fighting that goes on. Any suggestions there? Also, what did you use for the final student product? I'd be interested in the video if you have it! Maybe it's on Prezi but I just didn't see it?
Hey Mandy. That group that year was great. They worked together well (as well as most of the students in our buildings can). They were also good sports. Since I was going through National Board certification they were subject to all sorts of videotaping all the time.
ReplyDeleteThe working together well came after months of community building within the classroom. There were still plenty of petty fights like you are experiencing. But every time there were instances of that, as well as positive encounters between students, I made sure to point it out to them. Training them to see when they were being respectful to each other and when they weren't. Girl, it was a full time job. lol.
In terms of the lesson, there was no "end" product, per say. Since they were learning about opportunity cost I made sure to reinforce that (as well as judgments and decisions) in our wrap up. Not every project needs a product. I think its important for the kids to see that.
Pick my brain as much as you want!
I loved what you did for the last part of the lesson. I thought having them take a part of the story out and analyzing it that way makes them think differently. My thought is that thinking differently is what this is all about. Unfortunately, I don't think our kids are given enough opportunities to think differently. Most lessons are taught in a very linear fashion.
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