Students at Korean universities don't expect much from the first week of class, the period is known as "add/drop week". Students can sign up to a class and then drop it if they think it is unsuitable and pick up a different class in the second week. This means professors tend not to start teaching until the second week when the student registrations are complete. The first week normally involves an orientation lesson, in which the professor goes over the grading criteria and gives an overview of the syllabus, but the real teaching will begin in the second week.
However, because I am trying to make my Civil Rights class reflect an A-level type course, I can't afford to waste one week and I needed to get straight into the content. After discussing the grading procedure and other issues we moved on to discussing civil rights.
We spent some time brainstorming the idea of what are civil rights. I then introduced the running dictation activity. I have used running dictation before in my English language classes and I must thank Russel Tarr for introducing me to the idea of using it in a history class, his book, A History Teaching Toolbox explained how to optimise it for a history class.
I produced twelve sentences, some of which related to civil rights, "The right to work" and some which are not classed as civil rights, "The right to a cell phone". I posted the sentences around the classroom. Students had to work in groups to find the information, once they had found a sentence, they had to remember the sentence and report back to their teammate who would write the sentence down, once they had the twelve sentences they worked together to decide which sentences are civil rights and then report back to the class.
After this activity we moved on to discuss the Atlantic Slave Trade. The first three classes will deal with giving the students the background information they need to be able to understand the situation African-Americans found themselves in after the Civil War.
The feedback from the students was positive, many students enjoyed the running dictation activity and were very happy that they started studying the topic from the first week of the semester. I have attached the screenshots of their comments below.
Next lesson: Life as a Slave
However, because I am trying to make my Civil Rights class reflect an A-level type course, I can't afford to waste one week and I needed to get straight into the content. After discussing the grading procedure and other issues we moved on to discussing civil rights.
We spent some time brainstorming the idea of what are civil rights. I then introduced the running dictation activity. I have used running dictation before in my English language classes and I must thank Russel Tarr for introducing me to the idea of using it in a history class, his book, A History Teaching Toolbox explained how to optimise it for a history class.
I produced twelve sentences, some of which related to civil rights, "The right to work" and some which are not classed as civil rights, "The right to a cell phone". I posted the sentences around the classroom. Students had to work in groups to find the information, once they had found a sentence, they had to remember the sentence and report back to their teammate who would write the sentence down, once they had the twelve sentences they worked together to decide which sentences are civil rights and then report back to the class.
After this activity we moved on to discuss the Atlantic Slave Trade. The first three classes will deal with giving the students the background information they need to be able to understand the situation African-Americans found themselves in after the Civil War.
The feedback from the students was positive, many students enjoyed the running dictation activity and were very happy that they started studying the topic from the first week of the semester. I have attached the screenshots of their comments below.
Next lesson: Life as a Slave