How many times have you worked on something you felt was an excellent lesson plan only to see it fail miserably in front of your students? I know it has happened to me numerous times. Our challenge, as teachers, is to know our students' different talent levels and abilities. I equate this to what Steve Jobs said one time about knowing the customer. He said, "You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology. You can’t start with the technology and try to figure out where you’re going to try to sell it and I’ve made this mistake probably more than anybody else in this room. And I’ve got the scars to prove it.” The lesson I have learned is that no lesson plan, regardless of how good it is, will work if we do not know our students well.
When I watch a presentation, I always pay attention to three things, a good beginning, emotional content, and an inspiring message. Of the three, emotional content, for me, is key. It doesn't matter what the presentation will be about. If it doesn't contain an emotional content, I get bored. When someone presents, he or she is making an effort to convince you of something that is important to them. So, if you want the audience's attention, whether they agree or not with your message, knowing how to use emotion in a presentation will make your story stick in their minds. Sally Kohn, an analyst for Fox News, uses what she calls Emotional Correctness to describe how she uses it to connect with people, even with those who disagree with her. If you can connect with your audience emotionally and not just logically, you can have a better shot at bringing them to your side. A perfect example of a presentation that contains a good beginning, emotional content, and an inspiring message is Diana Nyad's presentation that she did for Ted, where she recounts her amazing swim from Cuba to Florida, something that she had been attempting to do for many years. Another person who uses these elements in his presentation is Chris Hadfield, an astronaut, who tells us about the time he went blind while taking his space walk. Even companies have realized that it is no longer feasible to just sell their products the way they used to do it. It is not enough to just sell the benefits of their merchandise. Right now, no company that I can think of is making commercials that tell a story and that use emotional appeal like Guinness Beer. Check out these three phenomenal commercials.
There are many examples in the business and sports world of companies and teams that are not heading in the right direction, but that in order to stay afloat end up making adjustments to find new solutions. For example, See how The Golden State Warriors, the current NBA Champions, made changes in their comeback against the Cleveland Cavaliers. However, in many school classrooms across the country, this is rarely done. Teachers continue to teach in the same old way that they have done it for years. In this article, a new way is prescribed to make the classroom more engaging.
What is the role of libraries today? With the way technology is rapidly changing the landscape in education, work, and many other areas of people's lives,will libraries go the way of the dinosaur or will they adapt to this new challenge? This article has some interesting answers. Libraries
Where do we go to find ideas to solve problems? What is the difference between those who found a great idea and those who could not execute one? With this in mind, here are two videos that show where to go to find an idea and how to learn how to execute one. Talk to skateboarders
One of the ways that I try to make my students' writing more interesting is by having them focus on normal objects, the things that surround us and that many times we do not pay attention to. It can be more challenging for them, but the end result is more satisfying. Objective: To improve students' writing by having them focus on normal objects in order to enhance their descriptive writing. We begin the activity by reading a New York Times article that deals with a writer who, in her travels, has accumulated many souvenirs that are significant to her. Article
After we read the article, I divide the class into groups and ask them to annotate all the interesting sentences that they see
I followed this up with Pablo Neruda's "Ode to my Socks"
We follow the same procedure that we did with the article
Assessment At this point, my students have a pretty good idea of how good writers incorporate interesting details in their writing. I tell them that their job is to write a poem which deals with the normal experiences of their lives or the objects that they come in contact with on a daily basis. Before they write their poem, I model one for them. Poem
I always wanted to do this so here it goes. View this "60 Minutes Program" video. After you have watched it, what kind of lesson plan would you create about it? Let's not worry about the specific standards that would apply to it. Let's just have fun!
The New York Times published an article describing how authors of historical best sellers such as Laura Hillenbrand, John Meachem and many others are rewriting their original works when they write the same version for children in order to leave out things that may be uncomfortable for them to read. History cannot be sanitized. It either happened or it was invented. If a writer decides to tackle an uncomfortable topic such as the Holocaust, it needs to be described in all its violence and horror. Leaving things out to make it more palatable for children is a disservice and it is not honest. Let the kids read the real thing, so they can evaluate for themselves the information. Article
