I tend to usually just use this blog to reflect upon my experiences in the classroom and share any ideas with anyone that actually reads this. Today I'm going to go in a bit of a different direction for the first part.
I've been inspired of late to try and have more speaking and debating/discussion in my classroom. I found some great ideas through some of the twitter chats that I partake in, this one coming from our Thursday night #sstlap discussions. There were a lot of great ideas thrown out there, but I really liked the something that @MSHistoryTeache said he's used debate styles similar to those on Pardon the Interruption. PTI was one of my favorite sports shows for years, and to be honest, I couldn't believe I hadn't ever thought about using something from the show in my class. My mind has been spinning with ideas since then, having weekly debates, do heads on sticks, good cop/bad cop, the list goes on. In the past I've used 4 corners to get the class up, but it's usually dominated by those that want to talk/argue while the rest can hide and ride their coattails in the discussion. This way, it adds more accountability. I knew I needed to learn a bit more on ways to really get the kids talking, and more importantly preparing to put their words and arguments down to be successful, especially those that don't like to speak or don't really think before they speak (these are middle school students after all). So after doing some research, I found this website. It had some great techniques, rules and different debate themes. As I mentioned, I have used 4 corners and want to use more role play. I really liked the outer/inner circle style as well. It allows for good discussion and gets the rest of the class to actively listen while they take notes on the topic of discussion. I'm introducing the PTI style next week with a Good Cop/Bad Cop on child labor. Will choose debate partners, and the students will have a short amount of time to research and I've found a random name generator classtools.net to help pick who will debate each time so everyone will eventually get a turn. We'll see how it goes, but I know that I'm excited about this. I want my students to be able to learn how to positively express themselves and their opinions. Hopefully this will help.
Secondly, I'm attempting to start a genius hour in my class. We have 15 minutes each day with my homeroom that we've used to read, but we haven't had the kind of choice I'd like with this time, and I want to offer my students a choice in what we do as well. I've tried to gently introduce this and it hasn't really gone over how I'd hoped. I asked them first what they'd like to do with the time if they had a choice and they wrote their answers down on a notecard and I collected them up. My only stipulations were that we weren't going to extend lunch, no naps, and no we couldn't go outside and just hang out, it had to be educational in some way or form. Most answered the question as if this would be something everyone would be doing together. So a lot of responses were either "do my homework" or "play Social Studies jeopardy." While I am excited that so many want to play jeopardy and perhaps they'll learn a little bit along the way, I think many of these answers were focusing on what I maybe wanted to hear rather than what the students actually wanted to do. So I rephrased the question and a only slightly more success. I had one that wants to read more, a couple that want to learn a new language, a couple want to cook. Most still either have no clue or want to do homework. I think on Monday when we have time again I'll show them some posts about genius hour from Joy Kirr's blog. Hopefully this and maybe a quick library trip can spark some more ideas and creativity. We'll see, so far we're off to a rocky start, but we haven't given up yet.
I think I'll wrap it up there, next time I'll talk more about our google form quizzes and the awesomeness of flubaroo (assuming it works in action, rather than just my test run). Please let me know what you think, feel free to leave a comment or find me on twitter @amcrowe5 Thanks for reading
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