Physical and Human Obstacles–February 13th 2013
Objective: Given whole class discussion and small group work, students will be able to identify the different types of obstacles (physical and human) by sorting obstacle cards in small groups and engaging in whole class discussion to finalize placements.
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To hook my students in, I continued the clay-mation video. I let it play from 4:00-8:00 (the end) :]
When I told my students that it was the end of that video, they were quite sad; they really enjoyed watching the clips!
After the clay-mation video, I got my students continue thinking about obstacles. I brought up the idea that obstacles could be categorized into different types and that we would be exploring physical and human obstacles. We had a class discussion about what makes an obstacle physical or human. Then, students broke out into groups to sort cards into physical and human. They were to sort cards as a group and then individually write out the groups in their journals (like a T-chart). Here are the “cards” I made and later cut out for each group set (Word Doc): obstaclecards
After groups were done making their placements, we came back together and tried to place the cards together as a group. I pulled up my PowerPoint and moved the boxes based on students’ suggestions. When there was a disagreement from another student, we talked it out. Surprisingly, there were more disagreements than I anticipated! This developed into a great conversation and discussion about what really made an obstacle physical or human. I had a few TAG students, and this was a great moment for them to think about both sides and to go deeper into the question; a student made a great case how he saw some cards to be both and was able to really think about each case. I let the students wrestle with this idea before intervening their discussion. I was not prepared for this type of discussion to happen, but boy, was it authentic and wonderful!
Here are some slides I used for this lesson (PowerPoint): Obstacle Sort
Later Days and Peace to all ♥
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