Today I got to teach my very first lesson in a public high school. I was so excited, yet worried and went into this expecting the worst. I was pleasantly surprised because students I taught in all three classes were just great.
My lesson today was over the concept of Group Think. In speech, this is where people in a group go against their better judgment or rationality and conform to a group's decision. In the case of Group Think, usually poor decisions result.
For my lesson, I opened up the lesson with an attention getter. I made print outs and used scissors to make gender cards; one that read "BOY" and the other that read "GIRL". These pieces of paper were taped to the desks at random. Each desk got a gender label. So, when the students came in to sit down, they were faced with an internal choice: to either sit at their usual seat, or move to a different seat with their appropriate gender card.
I gave away no hints, and when the students were all sitting down, I began the class with an activity game. I performed the Asch's Conformity Experiment on them. That is a famous sociological experiment that studies group conformity. You can find the experiment on You Tube. The activity game today yielded results that showed in the beginning that the students stick with their own decision, before ultimately conforming to the rest of the players.
Next, I told them they had just participated in two activities, one being the gender seating, and the other being the conforming experiment. I also used Power Point to both inform the students about Group Think and to show them the real Asch's Experiment, plus other confirming examples.
I had a very successful day. I was able to make the lesson fit in to the proper amount of time for each class. The first two lessons I was able to expand to last for an hour and a half, while the 5th period class's lesson was shortened to just an hour.
Next week, I will have my supervisor come and watch me teach the same lesson to other classes. :) Looking forward to it.
No comments:
Post a Comment