Month: March 2019

Biographies and autobiographies are my favorite text to read!  I was excited when I saw we would be discussing it in class, and although we didn’t really get the chance to, I am excited to be able to write a lesson plan based on it.  So much can be learned by every person’s life story!

The children’s literature books we looked at were very surprising.  I have seen some of them before in Reading 1 and Diverse Learners, but never ones based on historical figures written in such poor taste.  How do these books get published?  Is this a form of freedom of press?  Why are there not limitations on what can be published?  Is there no screening process?

I took the most from the sticky note predictor last night.  This is a great strategy to use to activate prior knowledge and stir up interest in a subject.  I personally learned so much from the 4 pictures I looked at. As a teacher I know I could build off of that, even creating a lesson from each picture, since there is a story behind each one.

I wonder what it would look like to ask students to write a short story just based on what they see and notice from a primary source? Then after they learn the historical facts have them go back and make factual changes without changing too much of their story.  I wonder if this would confuse them or would it help them grasp the material better?

Having the 2 teachers come and discuss rubrics along with their project based learning showed me just how important the rubrics are.  I was previously thinking they were much more work than they are worth, but I now see it is a way to be fair to everyone, along with keeping the grading consistent.

Their first-hand experience with both the PBL and rubrics were very eye-opening.  It is extremely helpful to see the strategies we are learning  put to use in a real-life classroom.

I definitely plan to use PBL in my classroom, and will be sure to use a rubric in order to keep it fair for all students.  I wonder what the difference is when you do not use a rubric? What are the guidelines for grading?  Is the teacher just being subjective?  I don’t remember ever having rubrics presented to me while growing up.  I wonder how my teachers measured what grade I earned?