Yesterday we had another 2 hour long class that I thought went pretty well. Normally I would not be giving notes for as long as I did in that class, but I did not really see students looking around or losing interest because a lot of it was actually broken up. I know its true that the more excited I am the better they will listen so my interest in this might have helped that a little. The OPEC game went okay, I'm not sure it would easily be able to translate to a larger classroom, but if we study this in World History I might be able to find out. Since we had 10-15 mins at the end of that class I quickly went over the basic tenants of the Israel Palestine conflict so they would ready for the debate the next day. I'm actually really glad it worked out this way, because I did not have to spend any time with note taking or instruction today and we could focus on group dynamics.
Mike's main criticism the day before was the I do not have consistent bell ringers and I need to get better about that. Today I had a bell ringer up when they came in, and this did actually seem to work very well. I may toy with the idea of simply giving the students these questions instead of making them write them out along with the answers because it actually take up a lot more time than I thought it would.
The debates actually went really well. I had to constantly remind the students that everyone needed to have input and that they needed to speak. They did accomplish this task, but my biggest mistake was not telling them how I was going to grade it. I will probably give everyone 25 points for participation, because everyone did do the things that I had asked them to do. Putting on the board the schedule of how the debate will be run would have been better, but I did not think they would need that. Having the timer helped them which tells me that the constant reminders are good for them. Therefore, putting the instructions and the schedule of discussing/speaking would be great for them.
Next time I do this I will put Madison and Danielle in separate groups, because they are the most vocal people in the classroom. While Dylan is a little bit more intellectual at times, he does not like working with others as much as he likes working alone.
Mike asking the kids "how did it feel to do honors AP type things" seemed to really boost their confidence for the activity. I like pushing the kids to work on higher level, I just have to make sure every minute of the day is planned out in order for that to work. In the future I will also add a space where they can take notes on the other side's arguments because this was the most difficult part for them: refuting the arguments of the other side.
TODs were really awesome today. Turns out 2 or 3 of the kids got really fired up about this issue, and almost all of the answers to "Tell me a solution to this problem" were some semblance of the two state solution, which I will probably address at the beginning of class on Monday because I think its a really good thing that they are coming to this conclusion after being presented with both sides of the story and having to defend their arguments. I'm really proud of my students today and I will do this again with better instructions and possibly more difficult topics.
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