Class Notes

After last week, I feel better about creating class notes that are appropriate for public schools. I was concerned throughout the process because the only notes I have ever made were for a college class with over 250 students enrolled. This was very different. I actually found that I enjoyed making lessons that were highly interactive (thanks to my volunteers, by the way!). I try to do that even with the college lectures, but with such a large class size there is only so much I can do.

The only issue I had - and I guess this will come with time and experience - is that I wasn't convinced that I had put enough information in my powerpoint slides. I felt that the students would be more interested but less informed. I am not sure how to incorporate vocabulary and other terminology into a lesson if I cannot put that information in my class notes. Should I use homework assignments? Class worksheets? I feel like building the information is a great idea, but the students do need to know what things are called. On the SOLs it won't say "the purple thing", it will have a name. How do I find this balance? Any ideas?

An interesting article

I just came across an interesting article on ADHD and thought I'd share it with everyone. According to the article, recent reserach has shown that the best method of curbing ADHD is a combination of providing immediate incentives and 'low' doses of drugs such as Ritalin. Earlier it was purely medical (high doses of drugs).
However, the question posed at the end of the article interested me most.. How practical would this be in regular schools? What are your thoughts on this?

Here's a link to the article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8625741.stm

Lesson plan designing - a laborious, yet satisfying experience !

I designed my first ever lesson plan the other day, in accordance with the 5E model. When I first started off, I was enthusiastic and bubbling with ideas. Brainstorming questions, strategies and ideas, it was pretty exciting, must admit ! And then I got down to actually designing it. Initially it was fun, but as I started advancing through the E's .. it started getting a little frustrating... and after about 2 hours, realized that I had only finished about 30%. I thought to myself, 'Is it going to take me this long to design all my lesson plans?' However, I kept at it... it was a test of my patience. And it was worth it ! Soon it started taking shape, and my enthusiasm revived once again. It took me another 3 hours to complete the job, and another hour to edit, and finally I had my first lesson plan complete in front of me. It was a heartening feeling.

The most challenging segments were 'exploration' and 'elaboration'. As I found later, even though both are distinct categories, there exists a very thin line between them...

The other thing that took a lot of time was coming up with deep, yet simple questions, triggering higher order thinking. My difficulty here was coming up with a sort of 'simple' question. It's a tricky combination - testing a simple concept.

All in all, it was a nice experience. It was certainly a challenge designing the lesson - but a challenge very well worth it !! At one point, I was so discouraged that I didn't feel like going ahead, but I'm glad I stuck to my task, and ended up framing a decent first ever lesson plan.

I think this was the one time in life where I really felt that I reaped the fruits of my labor ! :)