Active Learning

In my EHS 401 class, my professor divided us into groups and told us to begin searching for lesson plans that exhibit our favorite qualities.  For example, if you're a teacher and you like lesson plans that incorporate technology, then those are the type of lesson plans you would be looking for.  For me, my favorite type of lessons are those that incorporate active learning.  By active learning, I mean that students are actively engaged in the learning process.  They're doing something - not just sitting in their desk while the teacher stands at the front of the room, disseminating information.  Having said all this, I present to you four lesson plans that (in my opinion) do an excellent job of exhibiting active learning:

1)  http://rockhall.com/education/resources/lesson-plans/sti-lesson-48/

This first lesson plan is actually from the rock and roll hall of fame (of all places!)  It's designed for classes that are reading S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders.  It requires students to research and discuss musical artists and songs that are mentioned in the text.  The students must consider why Hinton thought it important to mention these songs in her text and how the themes in the songs comply with the themes in the novel.  Afterward, students are required to find three modern-day songs that also comply with the themes in the text.  This is a perfect example of a lesson plan that gets students actively involved in the learning process.  They get to use the computer (which all students love) and it incorporates the arts (what kid doesn't get excited about music?!).  Overall, I love this lesson plan.

2) http://alex.state.al.us/lesson_view.php?id=29864

This lesson plan is from the Alabama Course of Study.  It's designed for 11th graders (who are required to study Propaganda).  In this lesson, students are given the seven techniques of propaganda and are then shown a Coca-Cola commercial that uses one of the seven techniques (the commercial uses the Bandwagon technique).  Students are then placed in collaborative groups and get to create their own two-minute commercial in which they must incorporate various techniques of Propaganda.  take a look!

3)  http://alex.state.al.us/lesson_view.php?id=11443

This is another cool lesson plan from the Alabama Course of Study.  It's designed for classes that are reading Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird.  In addition to requiring students to write an essay on the novel, students also get to watch the film.  After watching the film, students are given the option to either 1) build a model, 2) paint a picture, or 3) draw a sketch of their favorite scene from the novel.

4) http://www.mcrel.org/compendium/activityDetail.asp?activityID=34

This final lesson plan is from an educational website named McRel.  The lesson plan is designed for 6-8th graders who are learning how to decipher between fact and opinion in non-fiction texts (such as diaries, autobiographies, and memoirs).  The students are assigned a text and, after reading it, are broken into collaborative groups where they discuss and write down specific examples of fact and opinion in the text.  Afterward, the teacher leads the class in a discussion and conducts a debate between students over why certain scenes from the text are/are not fact or opinion.