DRAFT Lesson Plan

[Anonymous]

Hi Joe,

Very interesting topic. I like all the links that you provide for student research. Another suggested link that you might consider is to http://www.easybib.com. You can demonstrate creating a bibliography and then students can use this website to easily create a bibliography. You may consider copying and pasting the standards taught directly into your lesson. You could provide the answer to the 10 Truth or Myth question along with the example intro conversation in the first week of class, a quick synopsis of what the Socratic method is, and include the quiz, etc. Capitalize China in objectives and throughout, fix typo for the word "discussion" and edit the sentence in third step # 3, and fx typo of "friends" in step 6. In step 6, how will you tabulate parent responses? Hope this helps. Great job!

[Anonymous]

Hi Shelly,
I enjoyed going through your Pictogram and the lesson plan.
The Pictogram is simple and interesting, it catch my attention.
For The lesson plan, I like the structure and the flow.
On one of your lesson objectives is to ‘Understand the general formation of Chinese words’, is it possible to show a few most frequently used words like “ How are you and Thank you” in Chinese, so the learners still can remember some Chinese in the future?

For the Day 3 on Chinese Calligraphy lesson, I think Vivian’s lesson plan has some great reference sites, you can ask her if you can borrow her ideas, but I will paste here for your reference:

Video clip links for Vivian’s lessons:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWuMe8tf_38 (4 Treasures of Study)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQOH5RTj6oE&feature=related (Kai Shu, once you have it, you may find other calligraphy styles)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9hl5B-BvAw&playnext=1&list=PL9C8458069F9AD55C (Calligraphy strokes with "yong")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_JPnUAwAZQ (Chinese painting)

Also, What I found when I practiced or write the Chinese Calligraphy before, I used the soft dark pencil, It has some similar effects of Chinese brush, I could control the flow, light or heavy strokes, I even put a quarter coin on the top of the pencil, to ensure I hold the pencil is straight vertical. I hope these help, have a great school year and keep in touch.
Wayne
edited by wchu on 9/5/2011

[Anonymous]

Hi Joe,

I like the research skills taught in the lesson. To evaluate websites critically is such an important skill to have since most student research are done online. You provided great info and resource help. You might want to organize your “Second Step” a bit to make it clearer and less daunting for students. Maybe turn it into more a step-by-step approach so students who are not so used to doing research and evaluating/verifying the credibility of websites are given a scaffold to work with. Student presentation of one of the questions is a good way to pique interest and get them to read and learn about China. As “leaders,” they need to know that they can find and evaluate answers on their own and not wait to be “spoon-fed.” I like the extension activity of surveying the responses of parents and friends. Overall, I think students will enjoy debunking some of the myths. Have a great year with the kids!

Tony

[Anonymous]

thanks Tony, very good feedback, I will make those changes asap.

[Anonymous]

Hi Ken,

I love your lesson and think your students will show a great deal of interest in this area. I have a couple questions and suggestions:

- Day 1: Can you clarify what videos you will be showing? What will their focus be? Will these help them answer the questions in the short quiz at the end of the period?

- Day 1: Quiz - what are your parameters/requirements for their answers? A paragraph? Any specific guidelines or info they should include, or are they just writing about what they learned on that subject?

- Day 2: I love the small group exercise and the topics you chose. I am interested in how they will be doing their research - will you be in the computer lab? Will 15 minutes be enough time?

- Day 3: I think the opener will be a very thoughtful discussion!

- Are the extension activities/assignments homework or will those just be included if time permits?

Great lesson plan! I'd love to hear about it afterwards!

Kellie

[Anonymous]

Hi Catherine,

I really enjoyed reading your lesson plan and plan on using myfakewall.com in my class as well. I loved how you included specific examples and the rubric in your draft lesson plan. You are very thorough in what you are asking students to accomplish and how they will be graded. I guess my main question is where they will get the initial information on the various philosophies. You ask them to discuss each philosophy at home with their parents and you also have them research one philosophy in order to complete their wall, but where do they get the background/initial information all on the philsophies to enable them to have the discussion with their parents and to select a philosophy to create a wall for. You mention the philosophies will be written on the board and they will take notes during a class discussion but should this be more lecture style vs. discussion initially? Will the Venn diagram be completed as a class or individually? I think maybe I'm just a little confused by the order of your lesson plan because in some parts it seems like the Fake wall is first and then an introduction to the philosophies happens after, and in other places it is the opposite. For ease of use by slow teachers such as myself , I'd recommend re-ordering your lesson plan to concretely spell out the order of your steps. I guess all my questions really just boil down to that.

I think the kids are going to love this lesson and would love to hear how it goes!

Kellie

[Anonymous]

Hi, Dylis:

I loved how much variety a you have in both the content and the strategies teaching the lesson. The real ewxperience of a Japanese tea ceremony is the part I like the most because students always love and remember this kind of activities that provide them the opportunity of learning through doing and experiencing.

The use of a lot of thinking bubbles (maps) are great in helping students visualize and organize all the information. The conncetion between Japanese Samurai and American soldiers are great because it brings the lesson close and relevant to students. Also love the compare and contrast you did between European and Japan as well.

If I were a student, I would be very involved and would learn a lot
edited by yfisher on 9/8/2011

[Anonymous]

Kellie and Marilyn-Thanks for the feedback. In general I agree that I am cramming a lot of material into three 55 minute sessions. I considered adding a fourth 55 minute session and expanding both the team search time for information on Korea, Japan or China, (making it the rest of day two with report outs on day 3) and also expanding the 20 minute presentation on 1,000 years of history and culture currently in day 3 to include part in day 3 and part in day 4 followed by the test.

After observing my students this past week on a self-driven research project (military leader) I decided to stay with the current plan for at least a first run through. I note that kids time spent on "research" will expand to any amount of time given and that after about 15-20 minutes they tend to get distracted anyway, so I want to see how they do pulling info in a short time period (and I won't allow them to use Wikipedia as a resource for this exercise).

In response to Kellie's questions:

1) I usually use a three question free response format, i.e. "what islands do China and Vietnam dispute the ownership of?
2) I intend to use the extra topics as potential further discussion if we chose to go another day or if a student is looking for extra credit.

Ken
edited by kireland on 9/9/2011

[Anonymous]

final draft for Marlyn JONES

[Anonymous]

Dan-Reviewed your lesson plan and have attached my edit. Most of the edits I made are purely style; however, I did have some concerns about your lesson plan, particularly the ambitious objectives. Since you are doing a longer syllabus with this lesson plan I expected them to be somewhat vague, but I found objective #1 to be too general. If you are making a lesson plan for four weeks you should probably specify what the objectives are daily or at least weekly.

Finally, your additional resources discusses trips to Chinese, Japanese and Korean cultural or commerce sites. Previous to that mention you'd focused entirely on China. Given the distinct cultures I'd recommend you not introduce Japan or Korea into the mix at that point unless you want to offer students the same opportuninities throughout the course.

Best of luck with the plan to take the kids the China. I'm sure that would be the trip of a lifetime.

Ken

[Anonymous]

Arana-I liked your lesson plan, and in particular the NRI website page "Science and Civilisation in China Series" page. After reviewing Dan's lesson plan it is clear that yours compliments his with specificity that helped me to understand where your group at ECHS wants to go with your students. I also liked the mix of tasks and the "compare life in China at that time of history to the United States." That definitely gives students a perspective on how advanced the Chinese were in comparison to what (little) we know about how native Americans lived at that time.

Nicely done,

Ken

[Anonymous]

Hi Ken, thanks for your comments.

The form of the lesson plan was developed our team leader Joe Darrough. It is a group project and we all are contributing to it. My contribution to the plan was to provide content to be integrated into a semester long course which will culminate with a trip to China. Because we are trying to relate the current day commerce situation to the ancient past, I felt that an understanding of the development of the entire region would be a good thing. The other regions will be covered in the course, but it was not my specific task. Perhaps our course is too ambitious, but it is part of the Escondido Charter School's International Leadership Program which is an "out of the box" program. Joe has worked with the local business community to sponsor students on a trip to China. Joe will travel to China during the Christmas recess to set up relationships for the student trip. I am sure that the course will modified when we have a group meeting soon. I will share your suggestions with the group. I hope that this clarifies why there are gaps in my plan. I hope that we can pull it all together. Thanks again for your input.

Dan

[Anonymous]

Hi Wayne,

Thank you so much for your feedback. I especially appreciate your listing of the video clip links. I was planning to use Vivian's web resources should the future teaching needs it. Putting a quarter coin on the top of the pencil to practice Chinese Calligraphy is very interesting. I will try it.

Thanks again, and I'll keep in touch.

Shelly

[Anonymous]

Hi Vivian,

Thanks so much for your review on my lesson plan. Your input on making objective more specific is very helpful, and I will modify the objective accordingly. As for the assessment, I was using the presentation for it. As I mentioned during the brainstorm at the seminar, I will integrate the information I am planning into my teaching as part of introduction on Chinese culture. Overall, I hope the students will get a general idea on the subjects. So, I think the presentation will be a more suitable form for the assessment.

Thanks ... a lot.

Shelly

[Anonymous]

Ken:
Thank you for your kind words about my lesson plan - I admire your work, so it means a lot coming from you. I look forward to building it out more specifically, and to the opportunity to teach the course as part of the ECHS International Leadership Program. And to continued dialogue with you and the wonderful teachers we shared two weeks with.

And, Dylis...good job!

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