Adapting Instruction

The first suggestion I found useful was with my Boston Massacre Reenactment. It is good to practice or make a dry run of the reenactment with the students first. After the students know what do to then the teacher should step aside and let the students do the reenactment by themselves. This makes the students more dependent on each other and not the teacher. It is also a good idea to do many reenactments with the students, and have different jobs or parts during the reenactment for each student. This gives students different view points of how each side felt during the conflict. It is also a good idea to have some students as spectators in order for them to see the different view points at the same time.
The second suggestion I found useful that I plan on using in my classroom is going over the plans/expectations for the debate the day before the students participate in the debate. This gives the students a chance to gather information in order to prepare for the debate. It would also be a good idea to go ahead a put the students in their debate groups a couple days before hand so they have an idea of who they are working with, and what they need to work on to prepare for the debate. Another good idea to do would be to model a good debate to the students by showing them one that was taped from the previous classes or one that can be found on the internet.
My third and final suggestion I found useful to use in my classroom is to use Google Earth and map activities. I found this out early this week in my classes that students do not work well with maps because they do not know how to read them. In order to teach students to read and interpret a map it is best to start out by using Google Earth. Google Earth is an exciting program that will help students interpret and understand how to use a map than a regular worksheet. Map activities would also build up the students’ map skills if they are given plenty of practice on it, because practice makes perfect.