So far the new semester is off to a good start. I've been really surprised with the physics 1st class. I was nervous to teach it, since physics is not my background. It's been okay! I'm excited to teach it again next year, now that I know a little more of what I'm doing! I think the way the course is set up, will lend well to add in a lot of lit strategies, writing, and cooperative learning.
In other news, I did my comic lesson back in December. It wasn't awesome...but it also wasn't a failure. The best part was a new technique I tried which I'll count for my January strategy.
Instead of just explaining the comic, I modeled my thought process on the board. I put up the outline and created a storyline off the top of my head with some input from students.
This would be a good strategy for any type of writing. When the students see the teacher making mistakes, they might be more willing to make mistakes and they see the importance of making corrections before a final draft. So the strategy to try is modeling writing from your head, on the board for students to see/hear your thought process.
For the comic lesson, I think next time, I would go ahead and do the whole comic on the board. I found some students took what I did and were able to create a good outline. And then they weren't as successful at taking the outline and turning it into a comic.
The other part of the comic that I liked was that I did not get any comics that were just boxes with the steps of mitosis. Every comic had at least some creativity.
My next big lesson is a DI lesson. I'm doing a project on DNA where the students have several choices for how they model and explain DNA. I'll let you know next month how it goes!
