Monday, January 09, 2006
545 1-9
Start of the new semester and I have started trying to be more constructivist in my classroom. 1st and 2nd hours I had students circle up and we discussed evolution and religion. It still seemed that I was doing most of the talking still. It is tough to do when we are first introducing a new topic for the students to come up with a lot to talk about. I noticed that when we were talking about evoultion and religion that there are a lot of students that are so ingrained in their beliefs that it seems that they may try to fight this unit. I will start a post on my AP bio page to let them discuss their misgivings about evolution. See a great site about Intelligent design: http://www.venganza.org/
# posted by Wallace @ 10:17 AM 
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It will take time for them to open up and do more of the work. The more we ask this of them, the more they will respond. Also, it's the start of a new semester - my classes were always pretty quite that first week or two until we reached the "comfort zone."
I have found that sometimes students need the opportunity to prepare to participate in a discussion. Perhaps you might give them a few minutes to write down their views, then a few minutes to write what they believe an opponent might say to them. Then, when you start the discussion, you might find that they do have plenty to offer.
I have also had this difficulty in terms of such controversial topics. Sometimes, beginning the activity with cartoons (I have some that introduce these ideas) and discussing it in small groups then coming together in a large group format will make a difference. Just some suggestions. Way to go Adam!
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