Friday, June 17, 2016

Semester Finals - Class Recap


Sunset over Waikiki Beach in Honolulu, Hawaii. It was a great semester, everyone! Thank you for your hard work! Photo taken in 2011.

Hi everyone,

Today was our last day of class for the year! We had our final Israel-Palestine Peace Conference, reflection on the year, and then talked about life and what is coming up for a while. Here's what we did today in class:

Learning Targets: 
Communication LT 1: I can use language and style that is appropriate to the content area.
Critical Thinking LT 2: I can explain connections between events, issues, problems and concepts.
Knowledge LT 9:  I can explain demographic changes in the world and their effects.
Knowledge LT 19:  I can explain the impacts of nationalism and revolutionary movements. Knowledge LT 21:  I can explain how religious ideas impact the shaping of societies.

Soundtrack: "Thankful" by Kelly Clarkson. Selected for today because I always choose this song for the last day of class, since I am so thankful to get to teach you all. Especially this year, which was a pretty challenging one, with my dad being killed - it was so helpful to be able to come to class and work with you. Thank you! Lyrics (some of which I read aloud in class) are here.

AGENDA 6/17/16:
News Brief – Malini
Final Project
Reflection
Adventure

Homework: Read the blog (if you want)! Have a great summer! Let me know if I can help you at any point in the future! I will be at the August 23rd coffee shop meeting with Mr. Puterbaugh about summer reading, if you are going to that! :-)
---
News Brief: Malini had the news brief today and selected an article about this story to talk about: BBC.com - Doping: Russian athletes remain banned from competition including Olympics. For the last time, we found Brzail in the world map and noted this story. Thanks, everyone for doing this all year and getting better at geography in the process!

I talked in class about the importance of following the news and trying to stay up to date with what is happening in your city, state, country, and world. Knowledge is power! Try to stay plugged in to what is going on, if you can!

Final Project: As promised, this was the Israel and Palestine Peace Conference. First, we had speeches (students that needed to demonstrate a Communication grade) that explained various aspects of the conflict and proposed possible solutions. We did not have enough time left in class for the discussion, but I look forward to reading everyone's papers! Generally, I thought this was quite good, and students seemed to know their stuff. Thank you for your effort on this! I look forward to reading your papers, as well.

Reflection: The last part to the final was a reflection short answer about how the year went in Global Studies - what you learned, what you will put into practice in your life, and what you will remember five years from now. I look forward to reading these!

There is a fair amount of work involved in grading the finals, as well as late work that I need to grade. So, I anticipate having the grades submitted on Monday, but it could possibly be earlier.

Adventure: At the end of class, I talked about having the spirit of curiosity in life and whatever you do - that could involve traveling around the world, or even just going to a local stream and exploring. I showed this video, which I've watched probably a hundred times or more to illustrate this - I hope it is as inspiring to you as it is to me, and a good reminder of so much of what we learned this year:


Thank you all so much for being so wonderful to work with. I truly loved teaching each and every one of you, and I hope you know that I care about you and want you to be successful in the future. Take care of yourselves and I hope to see you around! Have a great summer! :-)

7 comments:

  1. LFrizzy, thanks for making global studies so lit.. and please teach AP Government, I'm begging you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're welcome, Sim! I appreciate your encouragement! And, as we both know, it's important to do what we are passionate about. In my case (for now), it's teaching regular Government, because of reflections like this from a junior that I got yesterday: "This has been my favorite class this semester and the most interesting class I've taken at Westview, as well as the only one I've ever looked forward to going to. This class has inspired me to follow the election and U.S. government as a whole more carefully that I have before and it has inspired me to meet with our congresswoman and this class has made me want to become a lawyer. Thank you so much for this semester, it's changed me into someone who cares about the world as a whole a lot more."

      I hope you understand that letters like that (and your reflections for me, too) are why I do what I do. While I would hope I would have similar success in AP Government, for now, I much prefer drafting my own curriculum and engaging students who wouldn't typically be interested in Government (hence, non-AP students). I hope this makes sense! And maybe you can TA for me! :-)

      Delete
  2. you should keep updating the blog, people will still read it I guarantee !!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Lisanna!

      Thanks for checking in! I will update the blog next year. For now, feel free to follow along with what I am up to on Instagram and Twitter! And enjoy your summer! :-)

      Delete

Please enter your comment. I will review the comments before posting them to the blog, so don't worry if you don't see yours pop up right away. Remember, do your best with spelling and grammar! :-)