Congress- Sept 13

Today I taught in Mrs. Steffey's class. I put together a prezi about the basic facts in Congress like the terms and qualifications, which is pretty dry material, but I was excited to make it work.
The Prezi went well and I also made a note guide that had the basic things in the presentation on it.
I noticed a lot of students not using the extra space and only writing down one or two words. I assumed that because they were seniors this would be a little bit better, but I'm finding more and more that if I don't tell them what to write down they will not write down anything and then they won't have the information.
The EOC that I made the review and this lesson based off of was surprisingly nice to use as a resource.
The questions are often high level, so I thought giving the students the background and story would be a great idea. However, when I would tell anecdotes or other specific things, they would often stop me and ask immediately what I should be writing down.
The presentation was only about 20 mins, but with a little more depth and inclusion of reapportionment and gerrymandering (the concepts that Michelle wanted to include in her next days lesson) this could easily be 25-30 minutes.
As per usual, I talked too fast. It was actually Michelle's only criticism. That coupled with the fact that I didn't have the background knowledge on black representatives made me feel a little bad.
High point! - Michelle asked me if she could use my note guide and prezi during her fourth period class as well, and I was able to show her how to use prezi so that made me feel good.

When we were working in groups online I noticed that the five or six black students in the back did not work with the research on the internet very well. I asked Mrs. Steffey if this was because they did not have much experience researching or if they did not have internet access at home very often. She said it was both. I focused my energy on helping these students with their research attempts. I feel like I'm getting better at leading students with questions instead of simply giving them answers to things.

I'm using the same review game I used in Geography in this class at the end of the week, but the questions are much harder and there are more of them. Hoping it goes well!