JA day two

Todaywas the second session of JA. The session today was more informatioal than the first session. I learned from last session that preperation goes a long way, so i read ahaed for this session and saw how vanilla it was. I started to foresee boredom for the students. Last session we talked about budgeting money, personal decision-making, and financial planning on a monthly basis, and then the studetns split up into groups to play a board game. Today the intorductionary discussion was on long-term savings. Most of what the booklet told me to do in the intro i glossed over, or rearranged. I did this because I wanted to revisit what studetns thought was fun from last class and try to get them to see how the new session is an extension of what they previously learned. In addition, I tried to bring in good current examples that related to our discussion and help the studetns concentrate more. This worked well. One problem that I keep running into though is time. The sessions are supposed to be 45 minutes long but we seem to be running out of time at the end to do a summary or conclussion of what we learned. FOr next time i want to get to class earlier so that I can setup quicker.

JA update

Today was my first in-class session for JA! I learned a lot from this dirst day. The most important hing I learned is that preperation and hard work goes a long way in this profession. When I got there I had al the supplies I needed, even extra pens and markers. The thing I did forget was the booklet explaining exatly what the sessions are al about and how to conduct them. I also forgot my notes, so without these things i would have been lost except i spent the last few days studying the different facets of the materials and the economic content. So when i was stuck in this position I had to talk for about ten minutes about what I was supposed to talk about anyway only i did it without my notes or the booklet. At the same time i managed to keep the students attentive through some studetns active participation. I could not have done this without the preperation i put into the session that was planned for today.
The book i read for the book review is called The Invisible Heart. I think i would definitly recommend it to economics teachers becasue the arguments that the main character creates for defending economics and his core economic ideals is admirable in interesting.
Hope its going well for every one else.

Lesson Plan, Assesment and JA

FIrst of all I wanted to talk about my lesson plan. I looked at everyones comments about them and I appreciate them all. There were good ones and bad ones but the point is to take them all in and see how they can improve the lesson plan. I used all the comments and went back and did some good dediting. I like the finished result a lot more. Also, one of the main weaknesses that I understood after I gave the presentation and is what many of the comments said was that the presnetor, or me, was weak. Ive always had this issue, but I learn how to correct it quickly. I am really competietive with myself and now im striving to speak clearer, louder and more organized so that the people in the back of the room can hear and understand. Thanks for the insight.
Chapter 11 in the course reader I thought was great. What it said about formative assessments was really interesting. I like alot of the ideas it gave like #2 (allowing studfetns to state in their own words an economic topic or topics in a paragraph) and #8 (ask studetns to submit article from the worldwide presson an economic concept or idea that was discussed in class). I wish I would have read this chapter before the lesson plan to help give me some ideas for the plan; it would have been useful.
I start my first session of Junior Achievemnt next Wednsday at Monte Vista HS. The teachers name there is Anessa Herron who actually graduated from Monte Vista and has been teaching there for the last five years. The class is an AVID class, mostly juniors, goal of attending college, first generation college bound, and come from middle to low income families. Ive meet the students already and have a rapport with them and have communicated with the teacher about the type of program i will be presenting.
Does anyone else have the financial planning program? NEFE?
Anyway, Ill lat everyone know how the first session goes next wednsday....

thoughts on active learning

I recall when I was in high school the classes that involved active participation and I also remember the classes that I had that did not have any form of active learning were the most dull and mind-numbing; including math class and even economics class. I think I probably learned the most in classes that had some form of active learning.
Getting students involved with classmates to discuss subjects that they like and do not like is a great way for them to learn. The active learning has to be organized and not just 'get with a partner and do your assignment' type of instruction. I also tutor ESL students at Chula Vista High School and sometimes when teachers allow this it creates distractions and students can not do their work.
The Course Reader talks about cooperative learning which I like very much. I like them because students get to take responsibility for the work of each other and their own learning, and also improve their problem-solving skills.
Chapter three also talks about the use of technology that allows cooperative learning styles to be implemented into a classroom. But what about classrooms that lack certain types of technolgy? I dont think all high schools are equiped with Blackboard.