Reflections on the Joshua Tree

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Michael Lang Reflections and Future Plans February 27, 2009

The Joshua tree

Data Analysis In reviewing previous posts, my thoughts and concerns have remained consistent. Students have been extremely engaged, well behaved, and attentive and we have not even entered the bulk of our workload yet. What began as curiosity, has been grow into full fledged mania, with students chomping at the bit to progress on a daily basis.

The bane of my existence, the CRT test, has successfully undermine my meticulous planning. In future, it will be more realistic to plan project such as this, those that will be intensive and multi-layered, either far in advance of this annual pain or after its has finished. Especially in a departmentalized situation and the scant time with each class it affords, the rescheduling must be done in order to complete the tests destroy continuity in the classroom.

Though the project has yet to be finished, I believed that I have been rather successful in the combining science and social studies ideas in such a way that they are not inseparable in the minds of the students. Using a food chain and its energy transferring model as a template, it has been rather easy for students to understand how “change” happens in the life. These concepts will be taught together in the future from now on.

Service learning is also a way to efficiently integrate mathematics, language arts, social studies, science, and non-fiction reading skills. The goliath that is the standards seem very daunting, but projects such as this can take a large number of them and cover them in a very effective way. Mini-lessons can be sprinkled throughout a unit and students can practice skills in a meaningful way that avoids “drill and kill.”

Reflections The response to the service learning project has been overall a very positive one. Even my school administration is rather impressed with how things are progressing. Student engagement is high and my craftiness as an instructor has never been better.

I wish that I had known how easy this process was in prior years because I would have instituted a project that would be effective in tying standards together earlier. My faith in projects like this is now unwavering because it gives me an opportunity to be creative. It also is a testament to utility of unit planning and the BAM model.

Since I am a social studies and science teacher only, I attempt to find ways to seamlessly marry the two concepts on a weekly basis. That there is now a project that I can do on an annual basis that will aid me in this is something to look forward to. It is always a good thing to learn a new delivery method for instruction and the enduring understanding of the learner and feel that service learning is worthwhile in this vein.

In addition to simple classroom instruction, students also attended a field trip and will have speakers make visits to the school in order to tell them about “service.� A speaker from the Springs Preserve is coming in order to educate students about environmental issues that effect Nevada and cadets from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD will visit to discuss service to our country and what that means.

Reflections cont’d Service learning has been a excellent viewpoint from which to educate students about the Civil Rights movement and other movements for human rights. Many did not know that things were not always as “harmonious� as they are now. It has been an eye opening experience to know that things like this are being illuminated.

By taking a position on a issue, students also take ownership of an issue and it is refreshing to see their passions play out. Knowing that we have not yet finished, I am looking forward to students making more connections than they have through the initial portions of our projects.

Future Plans The current success of students and their engagement in the process would dictate that this would be a tool that will used again in the future. The fact that is gives me the opportunity to very concretely integrate concepts is an opportunity that cannot be wasted.

Though I have no real issues with the process now, save the CRT debacle, I know that as I continue to craft lessons that utilize service learning that problems will arise. Moving forward, my next unit on service learning will be chock full of more speakers, a extra field trip or two, and it might be even more useful to integrate social studies concepts– civil rights and the roles and functions of the three parts of our federal government. Though students are currently able to see links in a very limited way between the actions of our government and the Civil Rights movement, having this two concepts being more synchronous would be preferable.

Artifacts...so far so good