Why is was great:<\/span> The novelty of having their cell phones\u00a0actually permitted<\/em> in class was a riot! They loved the independence of running around the school testing out their learning and working as a team to answer questions and challenge their learning.\u00a0 What wasn\u2019t so awesome:<\/span> I don\u2019t think this was \u201cexperiential learning\u201d as much as just active, fun, and novel. Which is important, but the actual deep learning wasn\u2019t so present.<\/p>\n Week Two: Acadian Expulsion Simulation What it was:<\/span> Inspired by this little gem I found over the winter break, I started the class in costume (as an Acadian woman, Madeleine, of course), welcoming them into my house. I was gathering all the women together from our town to decide what to do about all the men being locked in the church for 3 days. After some discussion about what to do, I left the class (to milk my cow\u2026who else is going to do it), and returned as a British officer. I took them down to the church (chapel) and they became the men of Acadia, having to decide whether to sign the Oath of Allegiance. The students then debated back and forth about why they would sign and eventually had to make a decision.<\/p>\n Why it was great:<\/span> The students loved being thrust into a character. Some really got into it. They also commented the they really liked having to make those hard decisions themselves and they developed more empathy for what the Acadians went through. I could also refresh the information from their Independent Learning (homework) in character and they actually developed a deep, complex understanding of this chapter in History.<\/p>\n What wasn\u2019t so awesome:<\/span> While it\u2019s a lot of fun to be in character, it\u2019s also exhausting. Most of the students went along with it, but some were a little sly and kept asking why we weren\u2019t speaking French if we weren\u2019t in Acadia? Ha ha!<\/p>\n Week Three: Battle of the Plains of Abraham<\/strong><\/p>\n Why it was great:<\/span> The students totally got into it! They loved the dramatic death scenes, acting it out, and having their peers play key roles of the important characters. It was a nice day outside and playing around in the fresh air was a welcome change from the classroom (so was being in the chapel last week, for that matter).<\/p>\n What wasn\u2019t so awesome:<\/span> The questions on their weekly check-in quiz were centred around the aftermath of the battle, not the actual battle itself. The information from the experiential part of the learn was stickier, so students often reverted to using this information on the quiz (even if it didn\u2019t actually answer the given question). I realized that whatever we do in the \u201cPlaying History\u201d day is going to have a more lasting impact than what the students read or discuss in class.<\/p>\n Later today, we will go through a Loyalist simulation that is one part \u201cOctopus\u201d and one part \u201cMafia\u201d. Stay tuned on the learning moments from that experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We are now into week four of this History adventure and there have been some ups and downs\u2026some moments of sheer brilliance and some moments of \u201cwhat the heck was I thinking?\u201d But like anything in the life of a teacher, you win some and you lose some. Here are some highlights from the last … Continue reading “First steps towards “wow””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-actionplan","category-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":862,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions\/862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"IMG_2299\"](\"http:\/\/cohort21.com\/ckirsh\/files\/2016\/01\/IMG_2299-300x182.jpg\")
<\/a>What it was:<\/span> After their pre-learning, the girls scattered throughout their school, cell phones in hand, and completed a scavenger hunt all about the people of New France.<\/p>\n![\"IMG_2296\"](\"http:\/\/cohort21.com\/ckirsh\/files\/2016\/01\/IMG_2296-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/acadian\/images\/timeline\/embarkation.jpg\")
<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"IMG_2354\"](\"http:\/\/cohort21.com\/ckirsh\/files\/2016\/01\/IMG_2354-300x124.jpg\")
<\/a>What it was:<\/span> We reenacted the famous battle that decided the fate of New France.<\/p>\n