The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of activity as students realize the semester is coming to an end and their margin for error is dwindling!
Students in U.S. History have been learning about the Civil War- one of my favorite topics! This includes preparation for war, the role of the 20th Maine regiment, the impact on culture, and some great fun with Lincoln. We analyzed the Gettysburg Address, analyzed Lincoln, and analyzed tensions between North and South and connected them to modern tensions in our culture. Awesome stuff!
In AP Psychology, students worked on a learning project. They had to demonstrate an understanding of Conditioning by choosing a subject to Condition. They had to document their experiment with a short video and come up with a report to explain what happened and the results.
In History v. Hollywood we watched the film
JFK and students worked on their Final project. Students must pick a topic in history and analyze how two different films portrayed the topic. While in Ethics students chose a current controversial Ethical dilemma faced by society and explained how it could be resolved using the dilemma protocols we learned in class. Next week is the final week of the semester and students will be taking tests and presenting projects. Next semester I will have a new section of Ethics and will be teaching a section of Psychology. I am ready for a little change!
As part of my evaluation, I have to give a class of students some sort of pre-assessment, chart the results, then re-assess them after teaching and hopefully see improvement. These "Student Learning Objectives" (abbreviated as SLO), must be reflected by the standards. This is all part of our evaluation system as developed by that guru Dr. Marzano. After getting my paperwork approved, I gave my pre-assessment in December. Just this week they completed the post-assessment and I am happy to report that my students met their goals! It seems like a lot of unnecessary hoops to jump through and paperwork to complete, but I did it and will get the points for that on my evaluation. I strive for positivity, so I won't complain about the new evaluation process here. Having said that, I find it an unnecessary distraction that reflects little about my effectiveness as a teacher. However, I am happy to have done what I am asked to do successfully.
I am still actively involved in the
Understanding Sacrifice program with the
ABMC. We have recently been reading the book
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. This classic book gives some insight to the war from the perspective of the soldier. In addiiton to reading this and participating in a webinar, I met with Bob Madore and conducted an oral history interview with him (
video from my interview with Bob). He told as much as he knew about his father so that I may tell his story as part of my Fallen Hero project. Much work remains on this project, but I am starting to think about our trip to Italy and France this summer!
Model United Nations has begun! We are just starting, but the applications are out for students. This is an exciting learning opportunity for students that we have been doing for more than 10 years now. We take students to Northeastern University in Boston, MA for two days to simulate a session of the United Nations. Its always great fun and we enjoy the experience. I'm sure this year will be no different.
I'm a Junior advisor and we have started thinking about and planning for the Prom. The Prom will be held in Augusta a the
Governor Hill Mansion on April 30. I'm happy to report that our theme is Star Wars!!! More to come on this topic!
I was unable to attend the
Maine Council for the Social Studies Board meeting this month, but I'm anxious to hear about the work we are doing and plan to continue my involvement next month. We are co-sponsoring a workshop to be held in Portland in March related to the Constitution. More on this work to come!
January can be a tough month with the weather, but keeping busy certainly helps me!
