Here is the lesson plan and student worksheet for my vocabulary mini-lesson, there is no learning plan attached to the lesson plan because the student worksheet is the lesson outline I used to conduct the lesson. For this lesson, I had wanted to extend beyond just learning terms through breaking down definitions and allowing students to understand the lesson vocab in a simulated real life application. So after familiarizing the students with the definitions of the lesson vocab on quizlet I had students use the vocab of the lesson in a stock market simulation. Using the corresponding worksheet, students responded to questions that applied the vocab in a manner that related to their own faux stock portfolio. The goal of this practice was to provide meaningful context to help students learn and understand the vocab presented to them.
Performance Criterion 3.1: Candidates design learning environments that support individual learning marked by active engagement.
This lesson relates to PC 3.1 as the tasks at hand in the lesson required the students to complete independent work to apply vocab in a meaningful way. The engagement factors stems from the tech integration through the student stock trader app. Through the use of this app the goal is that not only do students learn the vocab, but also to give students to use the vocab in a meaningful way that relates to their own personal experience and allows students to simulate how the vocab would be used in a real world setting.
From this process I learned to look at vocabulary in my content area in a whole new light. I realized that in history there are essentially two potential types of vocabulary. The first type is historical content vocab, these would be vocab words that relate to a specific period or event in history. Words such as sharecropping, the holocaust, and the nuremberg trial would fit into this category, these are all related to content as they tie to specific events or periods in history. The second type of vocab in my content area I would consider to be historical theme vocab, these are words that relate to recurring themes throughout history. Words such as revolution, independence, or freedom are all typical historical themes. What sets these terms apart from the prior group is that they can be applied across multiple periods of human history and often have definitions that are more open to interpretation. Considering I was able to to pull this realization out of one lesson building experience I look forward to discovering more ways to approach historical vocab in the future. Looking forward, I also want to begin to identify sets of common historical themes that can relate to vocab found in human history. I feel that through finding common themes in history, I as an educator will be able to both make content more relatable across different historical periods and to the present day experience.
Through this process I’ve also been able to identify that my biggest crutch seems to be my talking pace. Though not approaching hyperspeed I know that my oral communication in a classroom setting can accelerate faster than I can stream my own consciousness. This nervous reaction to speaking in an academic setting can often lead me to move too quickly between points to allow myself to consider what I am going to say next, often leading to accidental “ums” and “likes”. This was also a problem when I first started teaching snowboarding and addressing groups, but as time progressed and I began to gain comfort speaking in that setting those problems faded away. The same I expect will happen as I get to spend more time addressing a formal classroom. What’s great though is that I am now conscious of this problem and have been able to catch myself speaking too fast on a few occasions since teaching this unit. This makes me look forward to the future opportunities I will have to build and hone in this skill and to consider other aspects of oral communication I can improve upon to become a more engaging speaker.
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