What went well: I think that my execution of my lesson as a UbD lesson was great. I started with my essential question and linked it to an enduring understanding. My essential question was, "What is history, and what does an historian do?" My main objective and enduring understanding was that history is an argument, and it can be argued from many different perspectives, one being the perspective of "women's history."
After explaining what my classmates could expect to learn from the lesson, I provided some pre-reading ideas as I passed out excerpts from primary sources from the French Revolution and the Enlightenment. My pre-reading ideas were to remember the genders' of the authors of each source (3 men and one woman), and my "during-reading" instructions were to try to think of ways that Enlightenment thinking supported women's rights, and ways that Enlightenment thinking supported women's inferiority. I also had an "after reading" activity, where after each excerpt, students had to write one-2 sentences describing what the excerpt was saying.
An underlying objective of this lesson was to have students use primary sources to argue whether the Enlightenment supported women's rights or did not support women's rights, and the evidence of this objective being met was through a facilitated class discussion after the students read through the excerpts.
I think that the class discussion went extremely well. There was good participation from everyone, and everyone was using the primary sources to defend their arguments. Some students were more willing to argue than others, so I prompted students less apt to talk with different points to argue by saying this like "Do you think....?" This was a good way to get everyone talking because soon everyone was engaging in a good historical argument. The class discussion showed me that the students were able to understand the primary source material, and it also showed me that the students were able to support their arguments with the sources ("Well, Voltaire said this, which supports what Rousseau said here." "But what about Condorcet?") I believe that the lesson was engaging based solely on the discussion.
After I was satisfied with the depth of the discussion about the Enlightenment thinking and women's equality, I turned again to my Essential Question and Enduring Understanding when I asked students to tell me whether or not they agreed or disagreed with the concept of women's history as a means to look at the past. My classmates felt that by approaching the Enlightenment from the perspective of women's history, they did have to talk about men, politics, and social issues, while when they approached history from a traditional perspective they did not have to talk about women. Two classmates expressed that they were initially skeptical about the idea of women's history, but now they saw that it could work in most situations. When discussing the role of women's history, most of my classmates used the word "important" to describe the male-centered traditional study of history. I used this to relate back to the essential questions of "what is history and what does an historian do?" I explained how historians decide what is important, and most historians have traditionally felt that men in history were more important. History is a point of view, and history is an argument. I feel like this lesson was a good example of indirect instruction as well as UbD.
Time was manages appropriately, and I believe I handled my distracting mannerisms in this lesson more than I did in my first microteaching lesson. I tried to follow the 4 second wait time consciously, and I feel like that was a strength to classroom management until I noticed some of my peers speaking more than others, when I then intervened by directing questions to specific people. This experience influenced my professional identity by reinforcing what kind of history teacher I want to be. I don't want to teach history as a list of irrefutable facts, but rather, I want to teach history as an argument fueled by many different perspectives that all draw evidence from primary sources. The class discussion showed how different people can read the same documents and have different arguments about them, and use the same sources to argue different things. Overall, I think the lesson went really well.
Hey Calla! I definitely really enjoyed the material you chose to cover; the French Revolution sent philosophical and political shock waves throughout the world and acted as a precursor to many of the events that would take place in the following century, and I find that it is inadequately covered. I appreciated someone taking the time to discuss it at length, and the connection you made between the material and a higher-level idea (the idea that history is imperfectly recorded and taught, just like the historians who do the recording and teaching). Having said that, I would have liked a wider range of primary sources and more time to look at each one, but that was mostly an issue of time constraint- there's only so much you can do in 25 minutes. I enjoyed how structured your discussion was, and overall your lesson was a treat. Two thumbs way up!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this lesson because it caused to me look at something from a perspective I had not been exposed to before. I thought the passages you chose were interesting because they covered a range of perspectives on the topic. I especially liked how you had us summarize them in our own words. I like that you are approachable in an almost casual way, which made me, as a student, feel more comfortable during discussion; but as a word of caution, it could work against you if you are trying to get control of a room full of teenagers. Also I appreciate that you were able to remain objective, even though I know you have strong opinions about it! :)
ReplyDeleteCalla, I thought your second microteaching lesson was even better than the first! Yet again the whole lesson was engaging and everyone was interested and participating. You have a great way of coaxing quieter students to speak up and share their opinion. I have always been more of a listener during discussions, but I really appreciated the way you included everyone and had us all participating. This will be very helpful to your quieter students in the future. The only criticism I have for the lesson was that I wish we had more time to read through the primary sources and summarize them in our own words. However, this was due to the time constraints and is clearly not your fault. Using UbD to plan this indirect instruction lesson was a success. You were organized, well prepared, and very confident up there teaching. Your future students will be lucky to have you as a history teacher!
ReplyDeleteHi Calla. I love philosophy and I loved how you used philosophers in the lesson. The selection of philosophical readings were also great. I would have liked a little more time to look at the readings though. I also loved how you had us write what they said in our words. It is a great built-in assessment tool. It also forced us to really think about what they were actually saying. Great Lesson!
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