Feedback: Efferent Listening I found this group had a very creative lesson plan. This presentation focused on efferent listening and comprehension. The objective of the lesson was to visualize a story while being read. For the first part of the lesson, the students would go outside on a windy day and be asked questions such as “Can you see the wind? Can you hear the wind? Can you taste the wind?” etc. This would be a great activity for almost any grade level. It encourages students to use their imaginations and think for themselves. The second part of the lesson included a discussion and a journal activity, where the students would draw an image of the story. I think the use of wind music was great. It made me think that you can use any sort of soundscape in a lesson to get children motivated. I think this group was very original and catered to the different learning styles of students.
I like that the group focused on efferent listening, as there is often a lack of focus on this topic, and they brought the children outside of the classroom. I think that whenever children are taken outside the context of the four walls of the classroom engagement immediately increases. Visualizations were also very evident in this activity and I appreciate the time that teachers take to include this into their lessons as it really helps build imagination and visualizations. In addition, covering the front of the book and allowing children to use their imaginations to draw what they think the cover should look like offers a great opportunity for students to be creative without any previous notions. I do have one question and this may have been addressed already but how would teachers manage students that have a hard time staying focused with their eyes closed throughout the entire story?
Rachel wrote: GROUP 2 (July 12) I agree with Delicia’s comment: I think this group was definitely creative in how they laid out their lesson. Using the content we learned and discussed in the past lectures, they were able to move beyond their knowledge and apply it into practice. I liked the idea of wrapping up the book cover with a piece of paper so that students can focus on the story that’s being read out to them and then create their own image after listening to the story. I was a little curious about what we as teachers could do if some students would refuse to draw the image according to their imagination because they don’t feel confident about what they have understood from the story. I thought the idea of simply showing an example for those students before this activity would be helpful. Overall, I really liked how this group incorporated art into language arts and allowed freedom to create students’ own form of imaginations. Great job!! :)
I thought you provided a very engaging lesson plan that allowed children to express comprehension in a creative manner. Providing children with the opportunity to demonstrate comprehension through drawing is a valuable component of your lesson because it lets students who have difficulties with other forms of expression (i.e. writing/discussion) convey their understanding through art. At the same time, there will likely be students in the classroom that have difficulty with communicating through art. In response, it may be effective for the teacher to conference with students or have students present their drawings to the class. This will allow the teacher to gain a more comprehensive assessment of student understanding. Furthermore, pairing this lesson with activities in which students have the opportunity to demonstrate their comprehension through other forms of communication (i.e. writing, acting, discussion) will provide teachers with a more thorough appreciation of student comprehension. Another component of your lesson that I loved was your decision to have students go outside and “experience” the literature. I found that this idea was important for engaging students and allowing them to connect with the atmosphere of the story.
The visualization aspect of this lesson is a brilliant engagement strategy. I only learned through a Pro D workshop that some students really need to practice this skill as it does not come naturally while they read. On that point, I wonder whether this lesson was meant to be part of a series of activities to develop this visualizing capacity or a single opportunity. As mentioned already, visualizing throughout the whole book may be tough for some especially if they have not practiced it much. Aside from this concern, I definitely appreciated the fact that the activity was accessible to a wide range of language abilities and that the students were taken outdoors for some holistic learning. It was also nice to learn a new trick from your presentation, namely, “the fist of five” for checking on student comprehension in a way they may feel comfortable with. Nice work!
I'm thrilled that the presentations have begun! It's so nice to see the amazing lesson plans that my peers have come up with. I love the collaborative aspects of PDP and the sense of community I've felt every step of the way. The second group to present this week (I was in the first one) used literature in conjunction with the 5 senses and visual arts. There is something so soothing about being in nature and taking the time to engage with it. Having the students go outside and use all their senses to explore their environment would not only stimulate the creative side of their brain, but also calm them and focus their attention. I also think their lesson allows for a great deal of creativity and imagination. I can see this exercise having positive repercussions later when students are introduced to descriptive writing. Well done team!
I pretty much love any lesson that asks children to use their imagination. The net generation, of which we are the beginning, I find has an incredibly diminished ability to imagine for themselves. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to say that students today cannot be creative, but as I work with kids year to year I can clearly see childrens' ability to be imaginative and create their own entertainment as becoming more and more difficult for them. Because this generation is constantly stimulated by media in various forms, many students have a really hard time coming up with ideas to entertain themselves because they are used to something/someone else working to entertain them.
That rant being said,this lesson of group 2's is much more important and challenging for students today than it may seem. Children need to develop their ability to conjur up their own mental images. I developed the skill from listening to radio programs when I was a child but even that was "old-school". Read-aloud in any form--a formal lesson like this or a routine novel read-aloud--should be done regularily because students cannot learn to listen efferently from just one lesson. I would be really interested to know from group 2 how they as primary teachers would go about making efferent listening a regular part of their classroom.
This presentation was great! I loved the idea of taking the kids outside on a windy day as a hook for the lesson; it would really get them in the mindset and give them some ideas to use for the activities after reading the book. I had never thought to cover up a book so that the children couldn’t see what the pictures were like, but this is a good strategy especially if you’re going to be doing a drawing activity afterward. Also, playing wind music while they are drawing is great because it serves as a reminder of what it was like being in the wind outside. You could also use other sounds of nature if you had just read a book about the rain, a mountain stream, birds or similar things. Getting the kids to draw from Millicent’s point of view may be hard for the younger kids but you could maybe get them to draw what they felt, saw, heard, etc. before reading and then afterward draw Millicent’s experience and remind them that it was probably much different from their own, so the pictures shouldn’t look alike. Overall, I thought you guys did a great job and this is definitely a lesson that I would use in my classroom!
I liked the group’s idea of taking students outside of the classroom and asking students to listen to things around them i.e. the wind. I think it is so important to remind ourselves that learning is not constrained to the four walls of the classroom. Having students experience their learning and allowing them to make connections makes learning fun! I thought that the group did an excellent job in focusing on an important listening skill which is often taken for granted -efferent listening. In the lower elementary grades, 40-60% of the lessons should focus on listening skills. I liked the idea of covering the cover page of the book and having students visualize the story on their own. Using this strategy, students are not confined to visualize what the illustrator/ author had in their own minds but rather, students are able to personalize the story with their own visualization/imagination as to how the characters look and act. I think this is a very good strategy to use to promote creative writing as well. After reading the story and asking students to draw a picture instead of writing takes into account all the students in the classroom, especially struggling writers/readers in the class. I think teachers could also use the LEA approach (Language Experience Activity) where the teacher could go up to each student and ask them to explain their drawing and record verbatim what the student dictates. This would be a good strategy to use for a K- 2 class so that students can see how speech (spoken words) can be turned into the written language and students are personally involved in the process. I look forward to using this strategy in my practicum in September. Thanks for sharing and presenting your great ideas!
Liat, Mhari, Alex and Kathryn, Good Job! I love that you have developed such an engaging and creative lesson plan with an educational twist to it. Children will be having so much fun that they will not acknowledge they are actually learning something. Taking the children outside to experience the natural environment, while putting their listening skills into practice is an amazing hook! What I liked most about this activity is that you bring focus to all the senses such as seeing, smelling, hearing, feeling and tasting. Building efferent listening skills is much more than simply hearing, but paying very close attention to language, using our senses, to make valuable meaning. This idea is clearly carried out throughout the rest of the activities in this lesson plan. For instance, reading aloud as the children close their eyes and playing background music as they draw their interpretation of the story significantly helps students relax and make much more meaningful and personal connections to what they listen to. In addition to getting students to show their comprehension skills through art, it is important that they also reflect on their work either verbally, written or both. As a result, the teacher will have deeper understanding of the students’ comprehension and language skill development. Overall, I thought your lesson was very thoughtful and appropriate for the grade level it was designed for. Well done!
Group Two feedback: Other than what I have learned in this course I am not super familiar with the way primary grades work so this lesson was very interesting for me. I really love the idea of giving kids a more concrete experience of an abstract thing by having them actually go outside and feel/hear/see the wind. I think this can really help the kids get an idea of what to picture in their minds when they are completing the assignment later in the lesson. I also like the idea of covering the book cover and not showing the pictures. As the group mentioned, this may be difficult because children will probably really want to see the pictures, but perhaps a compromise can be reached and they can see them when they are finished. I know there was some discussion around whether or not this was a good idea, but I do not think it would be harmful because it is always good to see different examples of how people perceive descriptor words and it might be a good follow up exercise in comparisons and perception. Also, the students will likely be looking at the work of their peers and looking at how they perceived the descriptions, so I figured looking at the illustrator’s maybe wouldn’t hurt?
I really enjoyed your entire presentation, but a few things really stood out for me. First off, simply asking us to close our eyes during the reading of the story made a big difference to me. Now, of course, I have been asked to close my eyes when listening to a story many times, but had never really looked at it from such a cognitive point of view previously. I was really focused on what difference, aside from fewer distractions, closing my eyes would really add to this listening experience. Surprisingly to me, I definitely felt a stronger connection to the story. I was curious if there was some sort of scientific reasoning behind this occurrence so I googled it. It was interesting to find that scientists believe that listening with your eyes closed “fires up” the area of your brain called the amygdala, the region of the brain where emotions are located. Anyway, this was an effective technique that I will definitely use in my future classroom.
I also liked your use of movement in your lesson, which I feel is so important, and your strategy of covering the book so that the kids could not get a pre-conceived idea of what the illustrations were like was brilliant (I will definitely use that one as well). Lastly, I thought that your group had a particularly strong conclusion to your presentation, where you did an excellent job of tying in the different learning theories behind your lesson. Congratulations on a fantastic presentation.
What I liked about this presentation was its emphasis on utilizing student’s sensory skills to engage them in their assignment. For instance, students got to develop their listening skills as they had to listen to the story. Their visual skills were being appealed to as they would not be shown pictures of the book. The group also mentioned targeting their sense of touch and small as they could take the students outside on a windy day to “feel” the wind. Finally, all these skills would be assimilated by their imagination as students would draw out what they imagine the title of the book to be. At the end of this lesson, I enjoyed how this relatively simple assignment really targeted so many different skills that are essential for their growth in literacy (listening, drawing, etc). What I think needed to be emphasized a bit more was the value we place on helping children using their imaginations. Far too often in the 21st century children are becoming too dependent on having visuals (whether it is from the internet, smart-boards, etc). While this can be a good thing for a variety of reasons, teachers should still prepare lessons such as this that encourages children to flex their imaginative muscles as I believe they strongly correlate to the development of their literacy abilities in future years.
Group 2: I really enjoyed participating in your lesson. I enjoyed being able to sit back and imagine the scenes from, “Millicent in the Wind.” I thought the use of the senses in visualization and comprehension of text was a really effective teaching tool. Not only does it help students to focus on and strengthen their listening skills and imagination but it provides an element of having experienced the world from Millicent’s point of view. I think this is a helpful exercise for all students but especially young students who are learning to see the world from perspectives other than their own. Having young students visualize a scene that captures the entire story is a good strategy to use from which teachers can build upon in higher grades when teaching students how to summarize text in words. I also liked how you had students to compare their cover pages for the story with the actual cover page. I thought that this was such an accessible way to teach the idea of how the author/illustrator’s view of a story may be different from the reader’s view but that each is meaningful and valid. I thought that the idea of asking the students to describe their drawing the day after the lesson to see if they could remember the idea of the lesson was an interesting idea. It can let the teacher know whether deep learning has taken place in which the students understand the big idea of the lesson. Could you also maybe try to teach multiple lessons such as this one on different days so that the repetition could aid student’s memory of visualization as a comprehension tool?
I really loved the hook of your lesson – taking students outside in the natural environment and giving them the chance to experience their senses through the wind. The idea of children closing their eyes when the story is read to them and playing background music to help them imagine and make interpretations of the story was interesting. I liked the idea of covering the book cover and not showing the pictures to students till they drew their own book cover. This is a great way to take away the stress of students about doing it wrong or different from the author. It also give students a sense of ownership and teach them that if they were authors, they would have designed the cover their way and the actual author did it in his way. I think that it was a great lesson for all the students including visual learners, English as a second language and English language learners. Good Job!
I also liked the idea of taking the class outside to "experience" the wind directly. Perhaps as the students are outside, they take down any notes regarding their senses - almost like a field study. In doing so, it could almost overlap with the science curricular themes in learning how to make observations or learning about weather. The book that the group selected to use seemed like a great resource to support efferent listening. It was also effective to focus on a non-visual theme such as Wind for the topic of the lesson because I think that that really brings out the significance and necessity of listening. Great lesson and great work! Thanks for sharing your ideas.
Sonja wrote: Group 2 feedback: This was an enjoyable lesson presentation as well. I love the story of Milicent and the Wind. My favourite ideas that stemmed from this lesson were the ideas about bringing the kids outside to try and allow the senses to sense the wind. I definitely would have liked to see more visuals in this lesson but it's only because I am a visual learner and I realize that not every lesson is going to have many visuals (I don't even think my own group is going to have a visual lesson). I appreciated how you explained what the students would be doing for each activity instead of having us actually do the activity for 20 seconds. It kept the flow a little bit better. Good lesson!
I really like the way this group brought change of setting into this lesson by having the students go outside and experience the wind first hand before going any further with the lesson. I think this would really hook kid’s interest while also providing an experiential approach which is always great and completely necessary when asking students to describe what it is they hear! I also really liked the way the group planned on playing wind sounds while the students drew and journalled.
Group Two I loved this lesson as it focused on efferent listening. Listening skills are not often specifically taught in a lesson as many assume listening skills do not need to be explicitly taught. I loved the group's decision to take the children outside so they can experience the feeling of the wind, which may allow them to better connect to the concept in the story. The addition of the wind sounds to catch the auditory learners was a really great idea! Overall I think this lesson was great! Good job!
I liked how you focused on efferent listening. Listening skills are not taught all that often in my experience and yet we as teachers get frustrated when students aren't or can't listen. I really loved the covering up the cover portion of the lesson. I thought this was such a good idea and would really allow the students a way to expresss themselves through art. I found that in my practicum it was very helpful to allow students alternative ways of showing comprehension, making predictions, or telling a story. Giving them freedom to do so in this activity would be very beneficial and was a great idea. I also really liked the idea of taking the class outside the classroom. It gives a fresh learning environment for the students and being outside brings a special energy to a lesson. Very well done presentation and really liked the “fist of five” as a assessment check during the lesson.
Group Two – Millicent and the Wind I was thrilled to see a lesson based on Millicent and the Wind. This is my favourite book from my childhood – My mom read it to me all the time. Probably one of my favourite aspects of the lesson was bringing the students outside, as well as allowing them to listen to music. I think it is really important to provide a variety of opportunities for students to explore their senses and help make connections to the text. Providing a relaxing environment is often the best approach to inspire students and get them to actively participate in the lesson. I strongly agree with Rachel when she commented on how well this group fused art with literacy and allowed students the freedom to create from their own imaginations. This is a very important aspect of the lesson for me. All in all I really appreciated this lesson because it was based on a book that brings me back to my childhood. Now I have a way to introduce my favorite book to my class one day!
Feedback: Efferent Listening
ReplyDeleteI found this group had a very creative lesson plan. This presentation focused on efferent listening and comprehension. The objective of the lesson was to visualize a story while being read. For the first part of the lesson, the students would go outside on a windy day and be asked questions such as “Can you see the wind? Can you hear the wind? Can you taste the wind?” etc. This would be a great activity for almost any grade level. It encourages students to use their imaginations and think for themselves. The second part of the lesson included a discussion and a journal activity, where the students would draw an image of the story. I think the use of wind music was great. It made me think that you can use any sort of soundscape in a lesson to get children motivated. I think this group was very original and catered to the different learning styles of students.
I like that the group focused on efferent listening, as there is often a lack of focus on this topic, and they brought the children outside of the classroom. I think that whenever children are taken outside the context of the four walls of the classroom engagement immediately increases. Visualizations were also very evident in this activity and I appreciate the time that teachers take to include this into their lessons as it really helps build imagination and visualizations. In addition, covering the front of the book and allowing children to use their imaginations to draw what they think the cover should look like offers a great opportunity for students to be creative without any previous notions. I do have one question and this may have been addressed already but how would teachers manage students that have a hard time staying focused with their eyes closed throughout the entire story?
ReplyDeleteRachel wrote:
ReplyDeleteGROUP 2 (July 12)
I agree with Delicia’s comment: I think this group was definitely creative in how they laid out their lesson. Using the content we learned and discussed in the past lectures, they were able to move beyond their knowledge and apply it into practice. I liked the idea of wrapping up the book cover with a piece of paper so that students can focus on the story that’s being read out to them and then create their own image after listening to the story. I was a little curious about what we as teachers could do if some students would refuse to draw the image according to their imagination because they don’t feel confident about what they have understood from the story. I thought the idea of simply showing an example for those students before this activity would be helpful. Overall, I really liked how this group incorporated art into language arts and allowed freedom to create students’ own form of imaginations. Great job!! :)
I thought you provided a very engaging lesson plan that allowed children to express comprehension in a creative manner. Providing children with the opportunity to demonstrate comprehension through drawing is a valuable component of your lesson because it lets students who have difficulties with other forms of expression (i.e. writing/discussion) convey their understanding through art. At the same time, there will likely be students in the classroom that have difficulty with communicating through art. In response, it may be effective for the teacher to conference with students or have students present their drawings to the class. This will allow the teacher to gain a more comprehensive assessment of student understanding. Furthermore, pairing this lesson with activities in which students have the opportunity to demonstrate their comprehension through other forms of communication (i.e. writing, acting, discussion) will provide teachers with a more thorough appreciation of student comprehension. Another component of your lesson that I loved was your decision to have students go outside and “experience” the literature. I found that this idea was important for engaging students and allowing them to connect with the atmosphere of the story.
ReplyDeleteVery effective lesson! Great Job!
The visualization aspect of this lesson is a brilliant engagement strategy. I only learned through a Pro D workshop that some students really need to practice this skill as it does not come naturally while they read. On that point, I wonder whether this lesson was meant to be part of a series of activities to develop this visualizing capacity or a single opportunity. As mentioned already, visualizing throughout the whole book may be tough for some especially if they have not practiced it much. Aside from this concern, I definitely appreciated the fact that the activity was accessible to a wide range of language abilities and that the students were taken outdoors for some holistic learning. It was also nice to learn a new trick from your presentation, namely, “the fist of five” for checking on student comprehension in a way they may feel comfortable with. Nice work!
ReplyDeleteI'm thrilled that the presentations have begun! It's so nice to see the amazing lesson plans that my peers have come up with. I love the collaborative aspects of PDP and the sense of community I've felt every step of the way. The second group to present this week (I was in the first one) used literature in conjunction with the 5 senses and visual arts. There is something so soothing about being in nature and taking the time to engage with it. Having the students go outside and use all their senses to explore their environment would not only stimulate the creative side of their brain, but also calm them and focus their attention. I also think their lesson allows for a great deal of creativity and imagination. I can see this exercise having positive repercussions later when students are introduced to descriptive writing. Well done team!
ReplyDeleteI pretty much love any lesson that asks children to use their imagination. The net generation, of which we are the beginning, I find has an incredibly diminished ability to imagine for themselves. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to say that students today cannot be creative, but as I work with kids year to year I can clearly see childrens' ability to be imaginative and create their own entertainment as becoming more and more difficult for them. Because this generation is constantly stimulated by media in various forms, many students have a really hard time coming up with ideas to entertain themselves because they are used to something/someone else working to entertain them.
ReplyDeleteThat rant being said,this lesson of group 2's is much more important and challenging for students today than it may seem. Children need to develop their ability to conjur up their own mental images. I developed the skill from listening to radio programs when I was a child but even that was "old-school". Read-aloud in any form--a formal lesson like this or a routine novel read-aloud--should be done regularily because students cannot learn to listen efferently from just one lesson. I would be really interested to know from group 2 how they as primary teachers would go about making efferent listening a regular part of their classroom.
This presentation was great! I loved the idea of taking the kids outside on a windy day as a hook for the lesson; it would really get them in the mindset and give them some ideas to use for the activities after reading the book. I had never thought to cover up a book so that the children couldn’t see what the pictures were like, but this is a good strategy especially if you’re going to be doing a drawing activity afterward. Also, playing wind music while they are drawing is great because it serves as a reminder of what it was like being in the wind outside. You could also use other sounds of nature if you had just read a book about the rain, a mountain stream, birds or similar things. Getting the kids to draw from Millicent’s point of view may be hard for the younger kids but you could maybe get them to draw what they felt, saw, heard, etc. before reading and then afterward draw Millicent’s experience and remind them that it was probably much different from their own, so the pictures shouldn’t look alike. Overall, I thought you guys did a great job and this is definitely a lesson that I would use in my classroom!
ReplyDeleteI liked the group’s idea of taking students outside of the classroom and asking students to listen to things around them i.e. the wind. I think it is so important to remind ourselves that learning is not constrained to the four walls of the classroom. Having students experience their learning and allowing them to make connections makes learning fun! I thought that the group did an excellent job in focusing on an important listening skill which is often taken for granted -efferent listening. In the lower elementary grades, 40-60% of the lessons should focus on listening skills. I liked the idea of covering the cover page of the book and having students visualize the story on their own. Using this strategy, students are not confined to visualize what the illustrator/ author had in their own minds but rather, students are able to personalize the story with their own visualization/imagination as to how the characters look and act. I think this is a very good strategy to use to promote creative writing as well. After reading the story and asking students to draw a picture instead of writing takes into account all the students in the classroom, especially struggling writers/readers in the class. I think teachers could also use the LEA approach (Language Experience Activity) where the teacher could go up to each student and ask them to explain their drawing and record verbatim what the student dictates. This would be a good strategy to use for a K- 2 class so that students can see how speech (spoken words) can be turned into the written language and students are personally involved in the process. I look forward to using this strategy in my practicum in September. Thanks for sharing and presenting your great ideas!
ReplyDeleteLiat, Mhari, Alex and Kathryn,
ReplyDeleteGood Job! I love that you have developed such an engaging and creative lesson plan with an educational twist to it. Children will be having so much fun that they will not acknowledge they are actually learning something. Taking the children outside to experience the natural environment, while putting their listening skills into practice is an amazing hook! What I liked most about this activity is that you bring focus to all the senses such as seeing, smelling, hearing, feeling and tasting. Building efferent listening skills is much more than simply hearing, but paying very close attention to language, using our senses, to make valuable meaning. This idea is clearly carried out throughout the rest of the activities in this lesson plan. For instance, reading aloud as the children close their eyes and playing background music as they draw their interpretation of the story significantly helps students relax and make much more meaningful and personal connections to what they listen to. In addition to getting students to show their comprehension skills through art, it is important that they also reflect on their work either verbally, written or both. As a result, the teacher will have deeper understanding of the students’ comprehension and language skill development. Overall, I thought your lesson was very thoughtful and appropriate for the grade level it was designed for. Well done!
Group Two feedback:
ReplyDeleteOther than what I have learned in this course I am not super familiar with the way primary grades work so this lesson was very interesting for me. I really love the idea of giving kids a more concrete experience of an abstract thing by having them actually go outside and feel/hear/see the wind. I think this can really help the kids get an idea of what to picture in their minds when they are completing the assignment later in the lesson. I also like the idea of covering the book cover and not showing the pictures. As the group mentioned, this may be difficult because children will probably really want to see the pictures, but perhaps a compromise can be reached and they can see them when they are finished. I know there was some discussion around whether or not this was a good idea, but I do not think it would be harmful because it is always good to see different examples of how people perceive descriptor words and it might be a good follow up exercise in comparisons and perception. Also, the students will likely be looking at the work of their peers and looking at how they perceived the descriptions, so I figured looking at the illustrator’s maybe wouldn’t hurt?
Liat, Mhari, Alex, and Kthryn,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your entire presentation, but a few things really stood out for me. First off, simply asking us to close our eyes during the reading of the story made a big difference to me. Now, of course, I have been asked to close my eyes when listening to a story many times, but had never really looked at it from such a cognitive point of view previously. I was really focused on what difference, aside from fewer distractions, closing my eyes would really add to this listening experience. Surprisingly to me, I definitely felt a stronger connection to the story. I was curious if there was some sort of scientific reasoning behind this occurrence so I googled it. It was interesting to find that scientists believe that listening with your eyes closed “fires up” the area of your brain called the amygdala, the region of the brain where emotions are located. Anyway, this was an effective technique that I will definitely use in my future classroom.
I also liked your use of movement in your lesson, which I feel is so important, and your strategy of covering the book so that the kids could not get a pre-conceived idea of what the illustrations were like was brilliant (I will definitely use that one as well). Lastly, I thought that your group had a particularly strong conclusion to your presentation, where you did an excellent job of tying in the different learning theories behind your lesson. Congratulations on a fantastic presentation.
What I liked about this presentation was its emphasis on utilizing student’s sensory skills to engage them in their assignment. For instance, students got to develop their listening skills as they had to listen to the story. Their visual skills were being appealed to as they would not be shown pictures of the book. The group also mentioned targeting their sense of touch and small as they could take the students outside on a windy day to “feel” the wind. Finally, all these skills would be assimilated by their imagination as students would draw out what they imagine the title of the book to be. At the end of this lesson, I enjoyed how this relatively simple assignment really targeted so many different skills that are essential for their growth in literacy (listening, drawing, etc). What I think needed to be emphasized a bit more was the value we place on helping children using their imaginations. Far too often in the 21st century children are becoming too dependent on having visuals (whether it is from the internet, smart-boards, etc). While this can be a good thing for a variety of reasons, teachers should still prepare lessons such as this that encourages children to flex their imaginative muscles as I believe they strongly correlate to the development of their literacy abilities in future years.
ReplyDeleteClass 10:
ReplyDeleteGroup 2:
I really enjoyed participating in your lesson. I enjoyed being able to sit back and imagine the scenes from, “Millicent in the Wind.” I thought the use of the senses in visualization and comprehension of text was a really effective teaching tool. Not only does it help students to focus on and strengthen their listening skills and imagination but it provides an element of having experienced the world from Millicent’s point of view. I think this is a helpful exercise for all students but especially young students who are learning to see the world from perspectives other than their own. Having young students visualize a scene that captures the entire story is a good strategy to use from which teachers can build upon in higher grades when teaching students how to summarize text in words. I also liked how you had students to compare their cover pages for the story with the actual cover page. I thought that this was such an accessible way to teach the idea of how the author/illustrator’s view of a story may be different from the reader’s view but that each is meaningful and valid. I thought that the idea of asking the students to describe their drawing the day after the lesson to see if they could remember the idea of the lesson was an interesting idea. It can let the teacher know whether deep learning has taken place in which the students understand the big idea of the lesson. Could you also maybe try to teach multiple lessons such as this one on different days so that the repetition could aid student’s memory of visualization as a comprehension tool?
I really loved the hook of your lesson – taking students outside in the natural environment and giving them the chance to experience their senses through the wind. The idea of children closing their eyes when the story is read to them and playing background music to help them imagine and make interpretations of the story was interesting. I liked the idea of covering the book cover and not showing the pictures to students till they drew their own book cover. This is a great way to take away the stress of students about doing it wrong or different from the author. It also give students a sense of ownership and teach them that if they were authors, they would have designed the cover their way and the actual author did it in his way. I think that it was a great lesson for all the students including visual learners, English as a second language and English language learners. Good Job!
ReplyDeleteI also liked the idea of taking the class outside to "experience" the wind directly. Perhaps as the students are outside, they take down any notes regarding their senses - almost like a field study. In doing so, it could almost overlap with the science curricular themes in learning how to make observations or learning about weather. The book that the group selected to use seemed like a great resource to support efferent listening. It was also effective to focus on a non-visual theme such as Wind for the topic of the lesson because I think that that really brings out the significance and necessity of listening. Great lesson and great work! Thanks for sharing your ideas.
ReplyDeleteSonja wrote:
ReplyDeleteGroup 2 feedback: This was an enjoyable lesson presentation as well. I love the story of Milicent and the Wind. My favourite ideas that stemmed from this lesson were the ideas about bringing the kids outside to try and allow the senses to sense the wind. I definitely would have liked to see more visuals in this lesson but it's only because I am a visual learner and I realize that not every lesson is going to have many visuals (I don't even think my own group is going to have a visual lesson). I appreciated how you explained what the students would be doing for each activity instead of having us actually do the activity for 20 seconds. It kept the flow a little bit better. Good lesson!
I really like the way this group brought change of setting into this lesson by having the students go outside and experience the wind first hand before going any further with the lesson. I think this would really hook kid’s interest while also providing an experiential approach which is always great and completely necessary when asking students to describe what it is they hear! I also really liked the way the group planned on playing wind sounds while the students drew and journalled.
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ReplyDeleteGroup Two
ReplyDeleteI loved this lesson as it focused on efferent listening. Listening skills are not often specifically taught in a lesson as many assume listening skills do not need to be explicitly taught. I loved the group's decision to take the children outside so they can experience the feeling of the wind, which may allow them to better connect to the concept in the story. The addition of the wind sounds to catch the auditory learners was a really great idea! Overall I think this lesson was great! Good job!
I liked how you focused on efferent listening. Listening skills are not taught all that often in my experience and yet we as teachers get frustrated when students aren't or can't listen. I really loved the covering up the cover portion of the lesson. I thought this was such a good idea and would really allow the students a way to expresss themselves through art. I found that in my practicum it was very helpful to allow students alternative ways of showing comprehension, making predictions, or telling a story. Giving them freedom to do so in this activity would be very beneficial and was a great idea. I also really liked the idea of taking the class outside the classroom. It gives a fresh learning environment for the students and being outside brings a special energy to a lesson. Very well done presentation and really liked the “fist of five” as a assessment check during the lesson.
ReplyDeleteGroup Two – Millicent and the Wind
ReplyDeleteI was thrilled to see a lesson based on Millicent and the Wind. This is my favourite book from my childhood – My mom read it to me all the time. Probably one of my favourite aspects of the lesson was bringing the students outside, as well as allowing them to listen to music. I think it is really important to provide a variety of opportunities for students to explore their senses and help make connections to the text. Providing a relaxing environment is often the best approach to inspire students and get them to actively participate in the lesson. I strongly agree with Rachel when she commented on how well this group fused art with literacy and allowed students the freedom to create from their own imaginations. This is a very important aspect of the lesson for me. All in all I really appreciated this lesson because it was based on a book that brings me back to my childhood. Now I have a way to introduce my favorite book to my class one day!