How to Teach a Textbook Chapter

I decided that I'm going to start blogging about some of the lessons I create and teach. I'm doing this for several reasons. The first (and biggest) reason is that when I went searching for how to do the lesson plan I am going to blog about I couldn't find ANYTHING! There wasn't even tips on what to teach. Of course, this was a college textbook, so it's a little bit different. I want to other people to be able to use the resources. The second reason is I want to be able to reference back to what I've done, and just note whether it was successful or not. The third reason is I want feedback! Good or bad, from education majors to doctors. I don't care! I'd love feedback because I learn differently than you, and sometimes I don't understand how some people just don't grasp certain concepts that I find easy and vice versa.

In my diversity class we were put into groups to do a project. Each group was to present a chapter out of the book. However, my entire group dropped the class. I was on my own, but it actually worked out for the best because I'm more of an independent person.

What do you want the audience to learn? My chapter was on geography, and when I read it I was SO overwhelmed with the amount of information. I knew I didn't want to just lecture on the entire chapter because that's boring and that is what the rest of the class was doing. Since the class is full of prospective teachers I decided to focus the lesson around the question, "How can this chapter prepare teachers?" This meant I needed to stay away from boring facts.

Next, the problem was how was I going to present this chapter. I didn't want to lecture because that is boring, and I'm really bad at it. Plus, I wanted the information to stick. The first part of the chapter split the United States up into 6 regions. I thought this was the perfect opportunity to use the jigsaw. I split the class up into 6 groups. Then I assigned each group a region. Then I passed out the following worksheet, I made, to each student.

1. I had each student fill out the first 5 sections on their own using their textbook. Then when they were done they talked about what they got with their group. Together as a group they completed the "Discuss" section about how teachers can best reach their students.

2. When they were done I split the class into three groups so that every region was represented. Each student spoke briefly about their region and what teachers should know and do to help the students in each unique region. This way they taught each other and it was more meaningful than just lecturing.

I created this Prezi as a my lecture. Of course I had to lecture a little bit, but not as much as I could have. Feel free to click around.