Week 13 Assignment

1.       When I was in sixth grade, my teacher introduced the unit of the five ancient civilizations in social studies by making it into a project for us. There were five groups (one for each civilization) and each group have time to work in school and at home teach the class about their civilization. Each group had to present a tri-board which included the civilizations dress, history, culture, and language. Each group also had to put on some kind of skit of game to teach the information to the class and then create a song with some information and share that with the class as well. I still remember some of the songs until today!

2.       Based on this lesson and other well designed lessons I have come across, I have noticed some things that are built into these lessons which make them such great lessons. First, it is interactive; it involves a lot more than the teacher lecturing and the students taking notes. What makes these lessons engaging to students is when there are multiple activities going on in the lesson like visual, auditory, and hands on activities. Last, the lesson has to be somewhat challenging but not too difficult for the students because a lesson that is too easy the students will get bored and a lesson that is too difficult is frustrating for students and they tend to give up.

3.       The school which I taught in has a yearly social studies or science fair. I think that this is a great opportunity for teachers to implement lessons with the characteristics of the best design. In is very educational and the students feel good about themselves and motivated for such projects because they have something to present to others which they know is a product of their hard work and effort.

4.       Some characteristics of a well-designed lesson are:

·         interactive

·         multiple classroom activities

·         use of ICTs

·          lesson is challenging yet not too difficult