Utilizing Extra Instruction Time

One common occurrence for even the most well prepared teachers is to finish a lesson with more class time left. Though this may seem to be a time to allow students to talk quietly or work on other classwork, this is not exactly the wisest decision; class time is precious and we as teachers must forgo the urge to take this time for relaxing or working on other things. It is especially unlikely for my class of 7th graders to have the ability to talk quietly or be productive on their own. To help with this unexpected additional class time, I like to keep a set of extra activities in my figurative back pocket that can be presented quickly and executed for any amount of time necessary. I personally believe that this extra class time is great for review of the previous day's lesson. For example, if the students recently defined new vocabulary words, this is a great time to quiz the class on those definitions. However, this does not work in all conditions; if the students recently came back from a break or a long weekend, there is usually not much to review or time for the teacher to prepare review materials. In times like these, being in a geography class with a map is very useful to me. My students began the year with lessons on latitude and longitude, learning intermediate directions, and reviewing the continents. During extra class time, I can call on random students to find a coordinate of my choice on the class map. I can then include another student by calling on someone to tell me what continent or ocean that coordinate is in. This activity is also useful for differentiation techniques because I can challenge higher ability students by having them tell me what country the coordinate is in. This activity was introduced to me by my current mentor teacher, and I feel that I will definitely keep this as a back-up plan of sorts for my future teaching.

Reflecting on my inquiry project

At this point in my inquiry process for this semester, I believe I can say that I have gotten through the most difficult issues posed by my research subject. First and most importantly, I have recently filmed my first set of videos in which my students ask questions about life in China for children their age. I will say, however, that doing so was not easy for all three classes involved in my research. My third period class had numerous behavior problems (which I expected) and were nearly unable to respectfully and efficiently complete their video; I think that though this issue was a bit of a headache for me, this realization that behavior problems in the classroom will also show up in this activity will be helpful to my research and analysis.

I also successfully sent my first video to my colleague in China who has already shown my video to his class and filmed their responses to our questions. As I have stated in previous writings, I could not have picked a more difficult country to try this video communication inquiry with because the Chinese government blocks all sites that allow video sharing. My only alternative is using email to attach my videos, yet this also creates an issue because Google mail has a 25 MB limit. Thankfully, my first video was not very long so this limit was not much of an issue.

My favorite part of my inquiry so far is that I am already seeing the benefits of adding video communication and teaching global awareness into the classroom. I recently talked with the other 7th grade social studies teacher who told me that her students in homeroom have been talking about their excitement for my video activity and showing a great deal of enthusiasm for my class. I have noticed that when students asked about when we were going to watch the video from the students from China, more than anything else they were excited about having communication with people from a different part of the world. I also have been able to use our little project to help the students make connections to abstract ideas and new vocabulary. For example, we recently talked about Thomas Jefferson and his work as an ambassador to France; to explain this, I told the students to think of Mr. Blevins (my colleague in China who is a WVU graduate and US citizen) as our ambassador to China. To this thought, I heard a collective "Ohhh okay" of realization from my class. The sound of understanding is music to my ears.