Currently in Greece...

Today Becky and I did our current event presentation. We decided to do the project on Greece so it could tie in with our unit plan. When we were assigned the presentation, we knew we wanted to include Greece's current economic state, so that is where we started. While looking through Dr. Smirnova's resources for current event lessons, we landed NY Times suggestions. We both really liked #19, Mix and Match Headlines.For this lesson, the headlines and pictures would be removed from the articles and mixed up. Students would then have to piece them back together by finding the key information from the text.

To find appropriate articles we focused on NewsELA. For the in class presentation, we picked 6 articles to use that covered different aspects of modern Greece. Because of the nature of the assignment, we didn't want to post links to the articles before hand, because it would give away the answers. Instead, we included close reading and inference skills in the lesson plan. By only being able to skim the articles, our peers were going to have to find key words that would help make connections to the articles.

While watching everyone complete the activity, I enjoyed watching how the two groups solved the problem. The first group went through and matched each headline to an article. Then went through again and matched all of the pictures. The second group was matching all three components as they went along. Group one was able to make all of the matches in their first try, but took longer because they had to go through each article twice. Group two had to make changes as they went along, but finished in the same amount of time. In the end, both groups had all of the articles pieced together correctly.

If I used this method in my future classroom, I would make a few adjustments. I would give take the time to edit the pictures and headlines out of the text myself so students could have the articles beforehand. This could also translate into another lesson on finding the main idea of an article. By giving them the article before, students would have an easier time matching up the headlines and pictures. One suggestion Dr. Smirnova made was to use the phrase "Hands on, minds on" instead of just calling it a hands on activity. This reminds students that not only will they be working with their hairs and using movement, but they will also be exercising their minds.

One of the other activities we participated in during class, was Mike's debate. The debate was centered around an article about having police officers in schools as security officers. Our class split into groups as pros and cons. Colleen and I were on the con side. I have to admit, I got really invested in the activity. I thought it was exciting! I think when adapting it to a classroom, the topic was on point to get students engaged. The one change I would make would be to provide a few more articles for students to draw information from.