Sunday, November 2, 2008

Crazy Professor Reading Game


After seeing the title of the video for the, Crazy Professor Reading Game, I was expecting to see some type of a game format, but it appeared to be more a good idea for a lesson that went bad. It reminded me of student teaching when I would think of great lessons, different types of assessments, and/or activities that seemed like excellent ideas on paper, but then failed miserably when the class executed them.
In theory, this "game" has some merit to it. It looked like the students were reading, but were more concerned with acting out the gestures with their partners. One variation that this teacher should use in the future is to have one student read the book, while the other student is acting out the story with gestures. Then, students could switch roles after every page, or every few pages. It was also very chaotic because all of the students were packed in like sardines. One helpful tool might be to assign different spots in the room for each reading group. This would alleviate some of the noise problems so that students could hear themselves read the book instead of surrounding groups. The last problem that I noticed with this "game" was that the teacher seemed to be in hiding. Maybe this was because she was filming the activity, but an assistant or a para should have been circulating around the room to make sure the students were on task, or simply helping the students with difficult words.
Thanks for the video.

1 comment:

Denise's 555 & 570 Blog said...

Hey, I just read your blog on that crazy professor strategy and I totally agree. I thaught it was way too chaotic. Just for fun I tried with my sixth graders and I wanted to run out the room. The kids were out of control and looked sooooo confused. Defintely a thing I would not use or recommed. =)