Reflective question: “Are great teachers born or made?”
Monday June 13 in-class activities
As an ice breaker, I’ll give students an activity to design a great teacher – a variation of “Tool 13: Brainstorm, Group, Label” from my Literacy Strategies Tool Kit (free PDF) Here’s the work flow:
- Ask them to brainstorm all the words or phrases they can associate with “a great teacher.”
- Give them Post-Its and asked them to write one associated word or phrase on each sheet.
- Put them in groups and ask them to share their Post-its and thinking. Then design an illustration that captured their collective thinking. And be prepared to share that with the class.
- Working in fours synthesize their individual brainstorming into a collective vision on large paper, then take turns sharing and responding to questions.
Then I’m giving my students a copy of my 1971 student teaching evaluation (2 page pdf) Quite a relic – Why did I save it?
We’ll examine it as an historic document with a critical eye for exploring what my supervising teacher valued back in 1971.
Here’s a few of the slides from my presentation Intro slides
Next, we’ll use Kahoot!, a free online quiz game builder, to demonstrate the challenge of constructing meaning without background knowledge. The source photos for this quiz came from “The Disciples” – photography by James Mollison. The historic painting is available from the instructor by request (copyright issues here).
Finally, we’ll wrap up with a deconstruction of the day’s lesson.
