A Lesson in Lessons
Over the past couple weeks, students in Ms. Angela Altomonte’s U. S. History class at Fordson have been working hard at preparing lessons to deliver to their peers on various topics of the early 20th century. Ms. Altomonte started each group off with a basic format for their lesson, which included bellwork, vocabulary activities, and other elements.
She has also had several conversations with her classes about what good teaching looks like and how students learn best by having to teach the material. During this time, students were also introduced to the rubric that would be used to assess their lessons and provide them with feedback. Ms. Altomonte created this rubric as a modified Danielson rubric designed for students and embedded it within an Assignment module on Moodle (iLearn), where she could quickly and easily assess groups as they delivered their instruction.
As students implemented their lessons, Altomonte used this rubric to simply and easily click and give feedback to students, who could access their grades and feedback almost as soon as they sat back down.
Each group of students incorporated some form of technology into their lesson. Most used the Promethean board to present, but also incorporated Google Docs and/or Google Slides, which they shared with their peers via Google Classroom. Students in some lessons accessed the shared Google Docs to answer questions and record their thoughts. Groups also used the Class Dojo framework set up by Ms. Altomonte to randomize student selections and give points for participation.
Student Moodlers
Some of the groups elected to use Moodle (iLearn) as their digital platform. Altomonte created courses for several of these groups and assigned them the role of “Teacher” in the courses so they could create content and interactive activities. Students in these groups created links to their Google Docs, gave Moodle Quizzes, and created Moodle Lessons that students worked through during the presentations. Some utilized questionnaires and other modules in Moodle. These groups also crafted their own learning targets for their lessons and made them visible in their courses. Below is a glimpse of what these 10th grade students produced in Moodle (iLearn).
