Being a history teacher of 7th grade students can be intimidating for a variety of reasons. Kids are easily bored, especially by history, and, believe me, they have a number of ways they express that boredom. Then, there is the lesson planning. World history lesson plans, civil war lesson plans, social studies lesson plans, and many more have to be written up in a relatively short period of time. Not only that, they have to be created in a way that holds the attention of a room full of adolescents who would rather be anywhere else. I've been teaching for years, and with success, I'd like to think, but there comes a time when a teacher needs to try something new and expand his/her horizons as an educator. Nothing will send you running for a classroom solution like seeing glazed eyes and hearing sighs of boredom. It's the job of every teacher to keep the minds of his/her kids stimulated.
So, there I was, stuck in a rut, as it happens on occasion, and I decided to try something new. I went online and looked up the source of my biggest challenge - lesson planning. I looked up the ones I needed the most, which were civil war lesson plans and world history lesson plans. I was amazed with what I found. On the website, I found social studies lesson plans that incorporated a wonderful variety of methods, from video re-enactments of famous speeches to cartoons, crosswords puzzles, PowerPoint presentations, and interactive games. All of these are concepts that kids can enjoy, and are far better than ordinary textbook learning and lecturing. I decided to use these methods immediately.
First, I divided the kids into teams and gave each team a different re-enacted speech to watch. Then, the teams took turns recounting important aspects of the speech they were assigned, and then were given points for each aspect they remembered. The friendly competition brought out the best of their memory skills, which in turn helped them to learn and understand exactly why the speeches were important and how they impacted society at that time. Next each team was assigned a crossword to solve, and again each team earned points. At the end of the day, the team that had earned the most points was able to forfeit homework for the night.
Believe me, the idea of one less homework assignment does wonders for a 7th grader's motivation. They loved it, and began learning much faster than they had before. Every Friday was devoted to games, and we spent the whole period playing the interactive learning games that I got from the website. They were enjoying themselves so much that they had no idea they were actually learning a subject that had previously bored them to tears. Watching them enjoy learning for a change was great, but even more rewarding was seeing their confidence when it came time for tests. They knew they had nothing to worry about, and their test scores improved dramatically. The test scores went up by an average of 9 points for each child.
I can't stress enough the improvement that these innovative world history lesson plans have brought into the classroom. It's immensely rewarding to see kids laughing with each other as they learn, and to see them doing so well on tests. I no longer face a classroom of bored children, but instead walk into a roomful of kids who can barely wait to get started. The difference in their attitudes is amazing, and the time flies for all of us because of all the fun we're having.
Written by Kelly Sparks. MultiMedia Learning LLC provides
social studies lesson plans,
world history lesson plans and
civil war lesson plans through their unique PowerPoint® Presentation software. Students learn history through classroom social studies games and engaging technology. Learn more at http://www.multimedialearning.org .
