Hi Melissa,
What a great approach to take to make borain material exciting. Students tend to enjoy group work. I am sure you clear up points if students present something incorrectly.
Patricia
In teaching Pathology to massage therapy students it's easy to read from the book and lecture from power point presentations because the terminology is so technical. Instead of boring everyone with an hour of talking from a book I assign groups to come up with case studies regarding each illness. They then have to explain the illness to the class, discuss conventional treatment methods and come up with alternative ways of healing using massage and bodywork. Knowing which illnesses are contraindicated for massage is essential, so putting them in case study situations makes them feel more hands on.
Hi Carol,
It sounds like you have some wonderful ideas. Implement them. I am sure you will be surprise as to how exciting these ideas will be for your students. Students need to be involved in active learning as much as possible.
Patricia
We've been having several "water cooler" conversations about this topic. In my high school classes I've felt that like a stuck computer I need to hit "control-alt-delete" and reboot. My energy level is down and my lessons are stale. Novel studies have become a bore even for me. What I typically have done is vocab pre-teach, anticipation guide, reading guide, read chapter, after chapter, after chapter, after chapter. I've just got to find more zazz in this process. So I've been thinking about it. I've thought about drama...kids won't participate...usually. They like to read...but won't add anything to it so it's a very monotone reading....no meaning. We've used a CD for a chapter, then read a chapter, to try to get inflection, setting, and mood, for them. Still no luck. I'm just not sure where to go from here. I've wondered lately if I could do like a treasure hunt....things to find in the chapter that all came together as a summary. I may try something like that. I also thought that comparing characters...or dressing up like the characters. This process is incredibly time consuming at first. But once we start thinking like this I think our creative minds kick into action and begin to just think that way. I think we all get in a rut and do the same things for so long, our lives get so busy trying to have lives too, that we just keep going day after day. Which is the reason I began this course, in hopes of finding a spark of ideas.
