Just thinking out loud here — just because summer break is about to begin doesn’t mean we teachers should get lazy. (I’m thinking here of a book I read as a youngster.)
One thing I learned throughout my schooling and my teaching is that kids learn better through games. Don’t teachers do well through a little competition as well?
So, I’m setting up a little side-blog, just for the summer, for teachers to think, pair, and share lesson plans. The twist: It’s framed around competition.
I’ll give out the first topic and guidelines.
After one week, readers and entrants (if there are any) will vote for the best lesson plan.
The winner (according to votes) will create the guidelines for the next week-long competition
- The inaugural topic: Inquiry-themed lessons.
- State the Curricular Field (Language Arts, History, Mathematics, Art, etc.)
- Create and state an inquiry-based question you’d like to teach.
- Which text(s) would you use to best lead students through your question?
- Give us a basic outline of your lesson and how you’ll lead students toward…
- The Culminating Project. What will students produce to show knowledge and understanding?
Chek out the current topic and competition at Think, Pair, Share!
Give it a shot!
Filed under: Lesson Plans, Questions, Teaching, links
You offer this idea (great initial logo/banner, by the way) as a temporary initiative, just for the summer, when teachers are busy sunning their toes and learning to once again sleep in.
I think you’re onto something more powerful here. Sincerely. If you approached this like a ‘business plan’, gave it 6-12 months to build, and sought out intentional audiences, I think you’ll find it far more successful than you might imagine today.
Another example is to connect with a few schools of education. Offer it up as a ’service’ where you’ll pair students with experienced teachers to co-create lesson plans. Or, put up partial lesson plans…and challenge your audience to fill in the gaps with various ideas, projects, etc. You could even put up your own lessons…and challenge people to offer you suggestions.
When all is said and done, you might find you have a wonderful and very real success on your hands. The key will be either tapping into experienced teachers who are least likely to use a blog and to ‘compete’ in this manner, figuring they already have it figured out or are sometimes ‘calling it in’ rather than re-thinking the original projects/assignments. Or…and this is where I think you’ll have the most success…tap into developing teacher networks and 1st year teachers in particular. It’s your bread-n-butter. Seriously.
Good luck!
That’s a great idea Christian! I don’t know how to seek out intentional audiences, though. Maybe I’ll submit it to the next education carnival.
Like you I think something like this could be beneficial to first-year teachers, and that’s why I made the site — to help other build up a database of activities for the classroom.