Thought I would share a 300 word piece that just came out in Teacher Magazine that I authored. It is in the print copy version and available on the web.
Here is an excerpt-
While teaching at W.T. Cooke Elementary in Virginia a few years back, my colleague Becky Thomas and I chose a project-based approach for 4th graders’ exploration of antebellum plantations. We identified standards, objectives, and the necessary digital tools.
“A Mystery Adventure on a James River Plantation” integrated research, writing skills, social studies, and technology use—not to mention pirates and hidden treasure!
Student teams selected plantations, gathered information from Web articles, and chose real-life plantation figures to profile. They incorporated all this into fictional stories featuring ghosts based on their characters. To jump-start the kids, Becky provided a spooky opening and told them to include a treasure hunt in the plot.
Watch the Lesson
The lesson was featured on Public Broadcast Network's- NetFiles. (click on the link to watch it)
I helped two teachers design and implement technology driven lessons that were filmed to be featured on Net Files.
September 11, 2001
The second was taught by Sherry Trach, another 4th grade teacher at W.T. Cooke. The content was about how she helped her students deal with September 11, 2001 when the World Trade Center was attacked. We were a little nervous when developing this lesson about how it would go over. But in hindsight, I think it was one of the more spectacular lessons I have ever helped to implement. It is accessible here-- however forward the clip to 7:15 to get right to Sherry's lesson.
Both lesson were filmed in my lab when I was teaching teachers and students at W.T. Cooke.
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