Empowering Students in the Classroom

Students becoming the Teachers.

Our current class project involves a change in roles. The students must become the teacher.

The assignment is as follows:

• They have an assigned topic relative to English.
• They have 1 hour.
• They must have a presentation of the topic that allows students to learn the subject.
• They must be prepared to answer any questions the students have.
• They must have an activity that measures how well the students understood the topic.
• They are in charge of classroom management and effectively handling disruptions.

It is amazing to watch. They have spent a lot of time and thought in how they will manage their peers' behaviors. Some of the solutions have been:

1. Sending them out of the room to write an apology.

2. Giving stickers and points to students with good behaviors.

3. Moving certain people to the front.

4. Giving more responsibility to overactive students

 The really cool part is how much more the overall class participates when their peers are leading the activities and discussions.  They have been respectful to each other, managed time effectively, and created some awesome activities that I plan on using myself!  

They're teaching me too!

In the picture on the right the group above created a grammatical scavenger hunt. Below is a student answering questions about synonyms.

Great Participation!

I have learned so many things this year about myself, teaching, and how important it is to empower my students. Part of the reason I love this project so much is seeing how they flourish when given the freedom and responsibility in the classroom.

Creativity in the Classroom

What I learned from our class Biography Project...

Recently my students completed a biography project.  One thing I have had trouble with is getting the students to read a book in completion.  They will read a chapter in the beginning, one in the middle, and of course the final few pages. They assume they have highlighted the main points.

I decided from the beginning that every book my students read, I would read too. (I must say it was rather enjoyable watching them squirm when I asked them specific questions).

Students enjoying new books!

At the school I teach at, we are required to do book reports with the students every term. I didn't want to do a typical written or spoken presentation of basic facts.  I think its boring. So I decided to spice things up a bit.

Dictionaries are crucial for language learning activities.

For our biography books I used the Who Was Series. I love the design of these books. They have highlighted amazing facts, added comics, maps, and in a way that makes a fast read seem even faster.

Instead of the traditional book report. I decided to make it a public event, inviting parents and colleagues.  I believe it is important to let kids see their efforts are appreciated. I also designed the assignment as follows:

• 3 newspapers articles had to be written as informative, opinion, and entertainment about their biography
• a cartoon depicting something that happened to the character
• 3-5 advertisements based on the same time period their person was from
• 2 minute presentation of their newspaper design
• dramatization with the 3-4 other biography characters from around the same time period
• a dinner party where they had to answer as the character with questions given to the parents, to ask during the dinner

Here are a few of our Biography Characters...

The children had a chance to eat and talk in character.

I learned about some amazing people in this project. The lives of Amelia, Twain, DaVinci, Monet, Tubman, Lincoln, Dr. Suess, and so many more.  One thing they all had in common:

Their passions mixed with their cultural-moment in time, produced movements.

Sure, it might have been more efficient and easier if I had done a traditional report, but I believe in meaning in education and I think that this project brought meaning, fun, and creativity to our English class.