Pedagogy and Praxis Day 6

So I talked to my friend Bob who was setting up the whole Pam Africa talk and unfortunately she couldn't come into my Wednesday Meta class... My coteacher Amanda and I are totally bummed cause that class would do well to hear her talk. However, she is coming into my 1st period class tomorrow along with Ramona Africa. Another teacher Gina is coming into my class to hear Pam, and Ramona Africa is going to Tracey's class and Lauren is hopping in on that talk too.

So in all my classes today I gave out the vocabulary which was activism, grassroots, Establishment, commercialize, and satyagraha. This time I had students write the words on a index cards with the word on one side and the meaning on the other. I will take 5 minutes each day to have the students drill each other on the words and meanings. I'm thinking then I'll pull a stick and ask a student what the word means and see if they learned it. This will put them on the spot in front of everyone, and no one wants to look bad in front of everyone right?

In my Asian-American studies class I forgot to have them do SSR and we went right into teaching them how to blog. I showed them my blog and my friend Kira's blog. I showed them all the links that I was interested in and stuff like that. I told them that they could write anything on their blog that they wanted (Swearing, poetry, journals, etc). However, when I ask them to post an assignment then they have to follow the rules and etiquette associated with an academic writing. I told them that after I check their blogs then I would write a comment and that comment would be the sign that I checked their work. The students seemed to be interested in blogging and having links and networks of blogging friends. I think it will be good for them to be interested in computers and excited to write in their blog.

My good friends Jeremy and Brian are coming to school to check out the computer system and possibly help set up the computer lab and fix any computer/printer/server problems. These guys know their stuff so I'm stoked. After they get everything all hooked up then I will put Hello and Picasa on the computers so that the students will be able to put pictures and stuff on the computer.

In my US history class I went over the SQ3R reading strategy with them and we did the survey part of it together with the US history textbook. I showed them the things to read and then we talked about questions and how to make questions for the text. Then I had them write out questions for each of the headings in the textbook. Tomorrow we will do the reading and they will try to answer the questions that they made up. I constantly stress to them to work smarter not harder and most actually seem to pay attention to me.

In my multicultural class, I did vocab and then SSR. After that I showed them how to sign up for blogs. This class seemed to be really excited about blogging and I was happy. Finally something that seemed to perk their interest.

After school today I had a few kids come in and actually sign up for their blogs. I don't usually have a lot of kids coming into my class afterschool and was surprised to see the kids that I did see. I'm really excited about blogging and excited that the kids are excited about it. Now I will have less paperwork and be able to access student work online.