Application of Content
“The teacher understands how to connect concepts and use differing perspectives to engage learners in critical thinking, creativity, and collaborative problem solving related to authentic local and global issues.”
Ironically, the first thing I was given when I started my internship was the textbook. I am not even sure if I can find it right now. I never used it, and instead strove to create authentic learning experience in which students were invested. This can be seen even early on, in my Prezi presentation of the Congressional Structure FRAME.
I attempted to show students pictures, names, and campaign ads of their representatives. By making it relevant I was attempting to draw students in. I attempted to do this especially with political parties. This is best seen in the lesson that I used the concept mastery maps to contrast liberalism and conservatism. Students were naturally up in arms about every little thing. Oddly enough my classes were very split, ordinarily, I would say that schools are relatively homogeneous based on what population goes there. But my classes were all split about 50 - 50 Republicans-Democrats.
A great example of using divergent questions was during my West Wing discussion. We had just finished our unit on lawmaking, but I had described it very cleanly. The next unit was about the influences on the process. I was able to bridge these by showing a West Wing episode and discussing it the next day. The question frame can be seen on the last page of the lesson plan.
The last activity that I will talk about is a project that I did with the students. In my time in graduate school I had done a few videos that had improved my skills with a camera and with moviemaker. Two of these assignments can be seen below.
With these new skills I decided to pass them onto my new students. I had them create a campaign ad in which they used a Flip Camera and moviemaker. The students could be as serious or creative as they wanted as you can see below.
They were awesome.