Out of Africa

Evaluating visual literacy and presentation styles and/or effectiveness is a little bit different for me as a teacher.

I am the "weird" science teacher according to my colleagues. I often get the remark, "How are you a science teacher?" due to my extrovert tendencies and involvement in the arts.

I am a rarity for sure - An academic "nerd" who digs math and science who also thrives in visual and performing arts. In my "other life", I am the co-director for the drama program at the high school and have been involved in acting, directing, scenic, costume, and prop design for the last 20+ years.

So, I have a different lens when it comes to presentation styles. I also can't escape evaluating ANY type of presentation. It is difficult for me to see a presentation and not critique the format - it can make focusing on the topic nearly impossible at times.

We were challenged to find a TEDed and evaluate it and how we could incorporate into our classrooms. For my Anatomy classes, I already have the students actually find and evaluate TED talks as part of monthly project, so I'm trying to direct this more towards my Natural Resource Biology students.

They are the classes using this new NGSS based curriculum centers on animals and we are about to wrap up a LONG unit based in Africa studying lion and elephant populations. This curriculum often uses video as the "hook" for a new phenomenom to question and study. Today, we introduced the idea of "tusklessness", a fairly recent phenomenon in elephant populations of Gorongosa National Park and throughout Africa. <-----------------You can view it to the left.

The video is good - it has all the relevant information and some graphics to introduce the phenomenon, but if I could - I would boost the emotional element. 
The start of the Africa unit was a video depicted a lion pride hunting wildebeest. They capture a calf and you spend the video cheering the calf to survive and tire with the lions and laugh at the safari goers comments (you can watch it to the right ----------->. 
It created an emotional connection that I think better serves as an engagement tool to get kids to want to know more and ask good questions. My next step is to try and find a TEDtalk with one of the Gorongosa researchers - or maybe a documentary depicting the civil war that caused the devastation in the park to create the emotional buy-in. 
We are in the early stages, so maybe the intro will be enough - I'll let you know...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NCCE Day 2

NCCE Day 2- Here are my biggest take-aways from Day 2 of the Conference. Love Kids Into Learning: Tara Martin, author of Be REAL , taught us how to use the "Innovator's Compass" as a quick way to create family classroom culture and quick start student relationships. The process is authentic, real, and vulnerable, but impactful and long-lasting. Lots of potential here for classroom use - particularly beginning of term and something to be revisited throughout the year to document personal growth. I would like to know more about using this technique to teach students how to ask thoughtful questions and determine first steps. IE, how to I make this assignment/content specific? She mentioned this strategy can be used to help students learn to ask good questions. Impress Me Digitally: I was hoping very much to learn about some tools to make available for our students doing the Impress Me project. I imagine VERY few of them have any experience making a video or digital pr
Read more

Worth the Wait

Image
So, I had anxiety about getting my next blog post done. I would brainstorm what I was going to write about. I must have done it about 10 times. I'm glad I didn't. I had SO many special moments these past two weeks that I know now it was worth waiting. (And please forgive the randomness...is that a word?) I keep wondering why I teach. I keep forgetting. What helps me remember? This last two weeks, I had euphoric days where I reached kids who others gave up on already. I had messy, hard days where I wasn't sure any of it was worth it. I give a LOT of energy in a single day, and I get tired. I just need a tiny bit of time to recharge. So I sat in Argo's class. He feeds my spirit. He doesn't have to say anything. Just watching him teach inspires me. He is so good at this. Why? He has energy. And sarcasm. He cares. I've never seen anyone do release of control quite like him. He lectures with stories, and pictures, and videos, and action. He models what he
Read more

In this week's, I survived...

Image
        So, Week 1 of Corona Break is over. At least 5 more to go. Part of me wonders why this is so hard for people. I mean, so far, it's not much different than Spring Break. After two weeks, it's like Christmas Break ( with less gifts and more hand-washing ). Five or six weeks? Well, for those of us who work from home or are teachers, it's and early summer break. So why are all these parents losing their minds when having to care for their children 24/7/6+ (see what I did there)?         Then I remember I am a mother of four, ages 7-15. And I am now responsible for continuing to check in on and educate my 150 students virtually, but ALSO manage my children's education from home.  We are taking on the job we trust other education professionals to do, while trying to manage our actual jobs, our households.         I've done a couple of things this week to prepare for the coming new way of life. I love Khan Academy , and have used it many times to cram for ex
Read more