In the midst of all of this, I was looking to start a new lesson for my Spanish 3 class. We could have continued on in the book, where the next chapter was on medical terminology, but I decided to push that aside in favor of the environmental chapter, where the students are building vocabulary about hurricanes, temperature changes, blizzards, etc. With the change of seasons happening right now, it just made sense.
I was chatting with a fellow Middlebury Monterey Language Academy RA about what to do with a lesson on Hurricane Sandy and an idea suddenly came to me. This week is a crucial week not only for grades and college recommendations, but it is the final week before the 2012 presidential election. Many journalists have been commenting that Obama's response to this hurricane could make a difference in the outcome of the election. Since I know my Spanish 3 class to be particularly politically aware, I decided to put them in the shoes of an organization that has gotten a lot of press lately, namely FEMA.
The situation was the following:
"24 hours before Hurricane Sandy is supposed to hit the east coast, two major crises happen. First, all of FEMA's workers are simultaneously assassinated. Secondly, all their files have been wiped in an act of cyberterrorism. You and your classmates have been chosen to become the new heads of FEMA. President Obama has given you a check with $5 billion to deal with the damages as you see fit. You will need to quickly elect a director and some managers deal with different problems you anticipate that the hurricane will bring. The first question you must deal with as a group is whether to evacuate or stay put."
After receiving these instructions, I unleashed them to decide for themselves. Leadership quickly arose and they started delegating out jobs. One student assumed the role of the accountant and set up shop at the teacher's desk. Within minutes, he had two body guards who were making sure that an orderly line formed to ask for remunerations for different projects. Each board held plans of the different sectors of medical, police, firefighters, and housing commissions, and they started detailing the costs of each program as they researched the real costs. Meanwhile, the elected director of FEMA roamed around the room asking questions, approving plans, or making suggestions for improvements.
At the end of the class, the students were asked to write up a detailed letter to President Obama explaining their plan of action and providing the budget details. Many used their smart phones to take pictures of the board they were working on for later reference.
This was an example of a lesson that had a completely unrealistic premise, but that efficiently empowered student leadership by putting the onus of responsibility on the students. We had generated disaster vocabulary yesterday in class and for homework, they had written about the aftereffects Sandy had exacted on the communities in our region. The students were primed and ready to be able talk about making preparations for an impending hurricane. The specific instructions of whether to evacuate or to stay gave them a launching pad for how to approach the rest of the anticipated emergencies that come with natural disasters. Within the context of hurricane preparation, the students were free to think and generate all of the problems that they could anticipate, which is what would happen if this situation of assassinations and cyberterrorism actually occurred.
This lesson allowed the students to feel empowered and at the same time process the lesson on a much deeper level given that they were required to produce something meaningful in a time crunch. This lesson gave the students a reason to focus and provided an opportunity to use technology for a useful purpose.
Here are a few pictures from the lesson. Enjoy!
Posted with Blogsy
No comments:
Post a Comment