Well, after the break, the students / teachers went to work for the 2.5 hrs. I gave them to complete the lesson plan, working in pairs. The first team, comprised of the only two guys in the group, were finished right at 5:00 PM; the others soon followed. Okay, I might have been a tad worried, but all for naught - the stuff they came up with was great! The guys did a whiz bang job on the PowerPoint end, with all sorts of animated GIFs, etc. but all of them really GOT it! After all that discussion - I suppose they were just clarifying for themselves. One of them asked, interestingly, if I had used the lesson plan format from Intel's Teach to the Future program of some years back - I replied no, but this was a fairly standard format. Hmmmm ... I wonder when / why / where they studied that?
At the very end, we gave the teachers official certificates with the Institute rector's signature as well as mine; he came to the class and they took pictures as Vitaly (the rector) and I handed the certificates to the students / teachers. The students then gave me a beautiful ceramic statuette of a woman in traditional Ukrainian garb, and then the surprise - it's filled with vodka! I will make sure that the statue makes it back home, can't say the same about the vodka ...
So, after all that, it was a very successful first class ... > WHEW
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Looks like things are going well. Did you take a guitar with you? I would like to go just to learn some of the traditional music.
ReplyDeleteNo, Rick, but I do believe they are fixin' to lend me one right soon...
ReplyDeleteHe he. That last response tells me that you've been close to Beale Street for some time now. So in response, by way of my finest Minnie Pearl, Hoooooooooooooooooow Dee!! And yes, I even left the price tag on my Stetson as I said that.
ReplyDeleteLee, when I did the Calculus seminar in Moscow with Russian and some of my students I found the Russian students were far more advanced on conceptual understanding. When you return I will show you some of the video from the Davydov schools I observed. I know the mathematics instruction is much stronger in these schools. Davydov schools are based on Vygotsky's work. One key point was the time the teachers were allowed for planning and sharing their teaching. They had 2 hours every afternoon for working on refining and planning. They also used a similar approach to the Japanese Lesson Study.
ReplyDeleteLearn all you can there about how they approach teaching.