I chose the lesson plan “Mending Walls:
Barriers in Communications” because I thought it started out by making a great
connection between a song by Pink Floyd, “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)”
and their movie “The Wall.” I think this is a good example of incorporating two
different forms of media, music and film, into a lesson. The main teaching
strategy used is group discussion. I think this would be effective for the main
goals of the lesson, because much of the unit is centered around discovering
meaning, making interpretations, and comparing ideas. However, I think that
there should be included some aspect of a lecture or presentation on the part
of the teacher, because each student is coming from a different understanding
of the background of the song and the film, or may have no previous knowledge
of either. Setting up some sort of common ground of a basic explanation of the
song and the film may be helpful before embarking on the group discussions. The
technologies required would be the CD or mp3 recording of the music, a CD
player or mp3 player and speakers, the DVD or recording of the film, and a
movie projector to play the film. I think that these technologies support the
goals of the lesson well. On their own, the technologies do not carry as much
pedagogical significance, as they may be viewed as technologies for every day
use, but used in this way they become an important supplement to the
instructional goals. Rather than just reading lyrics or discussing a movie,
students are able to actually hear the song and watch the film. Part of the
unit involved reading Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall,” so I think that making the
distinction between only reading and reading lyrics while listening to a song
provides variety in the instruction. Overall, I believe that the goal of
discussing the concept of barriers would be effectively achieved through group
discussion centered around listening to songs, reading and watching film.
It is very interesting how the inter activities are beginning to relate to each other. The post where we talked about the pieces of educational technology the has shaped our learning careers didn't seem like a big deal until we did this post. Many lesson plans required the use of a tv or CD player in almost every subject across the board. As for your lesson plan it was nice to see someone talk about music other than what one typically learns in school today this would a fun one to do for real one day. Lastly your spreadsheet is very informative as to what your lesson is about good job
ReplyDeleteI love your essential question and how it raises such deep thought and hopefully inspires self reflection with each students. Everyone comes from a different place in regards to how they were raised culturally to the kind of day they are having, and any question asked to a student has a thousand variables. I am interested to see how students would collaborate, what kind of answers you would get and why. This is a great lesson plan and truly seems to have higher order thinking involved as well as a great use of cross curricular concepts between music english and history. Great job liz! love the thought engaging ideas.
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