Monday, December 10, 2007

Violent Cases Group Teach

This presentation kept me much more interested than I thought I would be. I've never been much of a fan of graphic novels or comics, or anything of that nature, but I think I might have to consider using them in my classroom now that I know what I can do with them. I really liked the activity which had us all draw seperate pictures of a comic and then have the last person narrate the story of what happened. It seemed as though you guys knew what you were talking about and knew where you wanted to go, although our discussion of "memories" seemed to get off track for quite a while. One area for improvement might be to not walk around while we were working on the first few activities. Sure, this is a fine strategy to use in your future classrooms, but we are all future teachers here, I don't feel like it is necessary to walk around the inside of the circle and "check up on us" (there were only 5 of us anyway) as if we were doing something wrong - it just felt awkward. Your group did a great job though.

2 comments:

Todd Bannon said...

I have to disagree about your comments on the teachers joining the groups. First of all, I think they were trying to emulate the classroom experience, so that was part of it. Secondly, when teachers join groups, it should be to participate with the group more than just to check up on them. I do understand your concern about awkwardness or feeling watched, but I, for one, am a proponent of teachers joining break out groups.

Trevor said...

I just wanted to clarify what some of my comments were addressing. I have no problem with the teachers joing the breakout groups. After all, when our group was conducting our presentation we happened to join the smaller group activities as well. My concern about the awkwardness was only in regards to the very first activity we did, where we were to select an image from the text and write about why that image had an impact on us as a reader. It wasn't a significant concern of mine, but it just felt like someone was trying to "look over our shoulders" while we were writing down our thoughts. If we were going to be sharing our ideas with the class (at the end of the activity) then there really was no reason to "check up on our progress" as we wrote. I do, however, understand your feelings about emulating the real classroom experience, and I think that is probably what they were trying to do. Hopefully this can clear up my argument, I really meant no disrespect.