Ideas in Education: Increasing Relevance
For most of my educational career, I taught World History to 1500. I’ll be the first to admit that this period of history isn’t extremely interesting or relevant to their 14 and 15 year-old lives. As such, I tended to focus more on the themes of history--the BIG ideas, if you will--than the minutiae. These themes--haves and have nots, identity, moral/religious codes, etc.--are what repeat throughout history and continue into our modern day lives; to me, this is why the study of history is important.
Of course, the SOLs still required students to know facts like that the Phoenicians were known for their trade of purple dye and cedar wood and their alphabet was a foundation for Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek alphabets.
As a teacher I wrote DORM on my board every day.
D: Do Now
O: Objective
R: Relevancy
M: Most important
I believe the DORM served both my students and me well. It forced us to focus on the objective, the relevancy and what was most important. We completed the relevancy section in parts: at the beginning of the class, during the class and at the end of the class. The most important portion, which consisted of a 1-3 sentence summary, was saved for the end of the class or homework.
Providing relevancy occurs before and during the lesson. Below are some strategies and ideas to ensure and increase student relevancy.
Strategy
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Explanation of the strategy
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In the Phoenician Example
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Anticipation Set/Guide
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Before teaching, get students to think about how the subject is relevant to their own opinions or ideas and how it may relate to something they already know. For example, before reading, you may have students read 5-10 statements and have them agree, disagree, or qualify each statement. This could be done individually or in pairs. After the reading or lesson, the students could discuss the same statements from either an accuracy perspective or based on the author’s perspective.
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The do now for this assignment was Tally how many people were wearing red, blue, purple, green, yellow, black, and white. Then, work with a partner to figure out the “meaning” associated with each of the colors. Usually only a couple of students associated the color purple with royalty (this was in the days before cell phones/computers in classes where I could’ve had students look this up). Then I asked why would purple be the color of royalty? (We came back to that at the end of class.)
We also talked briefly about where these colors natural dyes could come from (the most common guess for purple were berries).
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Using Advance Organizers
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Advance organizers, which can be graphic organizers, help students see how they parts of the unite are connected. An advance organizer can be distributed at the beginning of a unit (Grant Wiggins talked about completing concept webs throughout a unit, for example).
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For this lesson, I provided students with a storyboard. The students would draw a picture and a caption for each part of the lesson with a focus on Politics, Military, Economy/Trade, Culture (these were themes that they were used to seeing).
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Build Background Knowledge
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Using mini-lessons to provide background knowledge before diving in is extremely important, especially for students who lack the background knowledge. Use mini-lessons for some or all students a couple of days before the lesson. These mini-lessons prime the brain. This would be a great use for Mustang Morning.
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Several days before the lesson, I provided students with a Readers’ Theater script that I created for this lesson. Students were to read their sections for homework.
The day before the lesson, we watched a short video about the Phoenicians.
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Engage the students
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As a rule of thumb, the drier or less relevant the subject, the more important it is that the we bring the subject alive for the students.
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I chose to create a Readers’ Theater for this lesson. Each student had a role (or in smaller classes multiple roles). The students performed the lesson, reading and acting along the way. We had props (a sailboat, a fake tree, snail shells, beautiful purple fabrics, cedar wood, and scenery) as the students traveled throughout the Mediterranean.
After each scene, the students stopped and completed their organizer.
I carefully chose the roles in advance based on the students. I worked with and supported some of the students more closely.
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After the Readers’ Theater, we’d complete the Most Important section of the DORM and we’d revisit the Relevancy section as well. We would discuss Why did purple become the color of royalty? To me, these were both great indications of the lesson’s effectiveness and provided me with great student feedback about the lesson and what was learned.
I knew this was a good lesson when students asked questions about the natural color of fibers and were encouraged to learn more. Comparisons were made between the Phoenicians and modern trade (ranging from comparisons to Japan, NAFTA, multi-national companies, etc.). Students also discussed the role of colors in culture.
For the Most Important, students often needed reminders about how to truly glean and summarize what was most important and were encouraged to look back at the learning objective and their organizers. Otherwise, I found that students tended to focus on some of the more trivial (see below) or on the parts that they played in the Readers’ Theater.
And just so you know: The Phoenician purple was one of the only bright dyes available to ancient civilizations. The sought-after dye, whose color often worn by royalty, was created from the extracts of marine snails. It required thousands of snails to produce miniscule amounts of the dye (reportedly 10,000 snails for 1 gram of dye). The snails were collected by the thousands, left out, and then boiled, which broke down their glands which secreted a protective slime. Needless to say, the dye was extremely expensive; a pound of dyed wool was worth a pound of gold. The exact nature of the chemical process has been lost in time but the manufacturing process dictated the shade of purple. Today there are still mounds of discarded snail shells that measure over 125 feet high.
The Phoenicians, who originally settled on the shores of the eastern Mediterranean, were skilled seafarers. Their trading routes took them as far as Britain, the Canary Islands, and India and they established outposts and later colonies throughout the Mediterranean. Carthage, ancient Rome’s enemy, was a Phoenician colony in north Africa. As their trade empire expanded, they became both importers and exporters, often serving as middlemen. Goods were bought and sold in a controlled manner with pre-set prices established through bargained trade agreements and trade treaties (often promising protection and open ports to the Phoenicians). In addition to their famed purple dye, the Phoenicians were most notably known for their exportation of cedar wood.
Important Dates and Information
Mustang Morning: Please remember to request your students for Mustang Morning for this week as the slates were wiped clean.
Showcase form due February 8.
Fire drill: Monday during 1A
February 14 (Lovefest) will be an anchor day. Friday will convert into a B-Day.
Technology Vetting: Essentially, teachers should be using this for websites/programs that are used classwide, especially any that require login information. It should also be used for other forms of media (films, for example).
Working Conditions Survey (state required: March 1 close)
Field Trips and SOLs
February 15: Drama @NSU
Birthdays
February 29: Connie Jenkins
Useful Information
Bell Schedules : http://bit.ly/MOHSbells
Morning Announcement Stream: http://streaming.k12albemarle.org/ACPS/links.htm
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Worth Your Time
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