<--> Spark Plug <-->
 

I am on the hunt for something to use for a Social Studies Methods class. We call them "spark plugs" and they are supposed to get someone's attention, be motivating, or funny and I need it to be around a minute or 2 long. Any body have any good ideas?

Please let me know!!!

define :confused:

Is it an object, anecdote, topic specific to the course?

It would be nice if it were class specific but I can tie almost anything to anything. I'm good like that.

PF~ Social Studies Methoda...is a class that teaches how to teach Social Studies.

Methoda....

Social Studies can be a boring topic for many students...

We have a new first year social studies teacher in our district that has integrated some new ideas in the way that she teaches her students social studies. The kids love her because she makes it more real to them. The students are on a unit studying cultures at the moment. They have to research the culture, basic stuff - religion, economy, politics, etc...and then with those facts have to write a story about a day in the life of a teenager (their age), and present it to the class.

She "sparked" their interest in this by doing a little research herself and made her own presentation to the class about a teen living in Russia in the early 1900s. When the students entered the class, she was dressed in period costume, and then pretened she was a teacher in Russia...it was pretty neat.

Lil - have you read anything by Robert Marzano? His learner-centered classroom series is very good. You may find some ideas there as well. :D

This link may be helpful...
http://www.ascd.org/publications/cl...09/marzano.html

TY Chey~ will look at it!

I don't need a lesson etc... I am looking for a short 1-2 minute, funny motivational little attention getter. Can be a joke, or word puzzles, motivational story etc.

All I can think of right now are things like Gandhi's commitment to change through non-violence, Martin Luther King . . . the big guns like that. It never hurts to remind the young folk about life before Britney. :D

One of the best spark plugs I ever heard of was literal, but my friend needed to get special permission to do it.

She teaches chemistry, and on the first day of her first class she'd been in there for HOURS setting up a simple four step Rube-Goldberg thing. When the kids sat down, she set the thing off, and it ended with a hydrogen balloon going BANG. Got everyone's attention, and into the silence she announced that by the end of the year, everyone was going to be able to explain WHY and HOW each of the reactions they'd just observed happened.

It was great. The kids were interested, engaged, and she had something she could tie everything back to for the year. Each step of he chain turned up in labs.

Don't know if it's the sort of thing you're looking for...but I always liked it.

G

This is what I'm thinking about so far http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/hist.htm

What do you think?

I did a lesson once about faith and works ... at the end I held up both a candle and a lightbulb and explained that both were items that brought light, but that I didn't believe that any amount of faith could light either of these unless I applied some action to the process, by either lighting the candle or putting the bulb into a socket and turning it on..... that's the one that comes to mind for me at the moment.

Lil, I get that sort of thing in my mailbox about twice a year, and I absolutely love it every time.

I'd worry a bit about anything that makes equates students with stupid. But I'm sure you can put the right spin on it.

GingerV I had that same thought too...I think I will speak on conceptions (be they accurate or not) and how hard it is to change them once imbedded in someone's schema. A little push for discovery and student centered learning, yes even in Social Studies.

Sorry I can't help you with this one Lil. :( I guess that^^ said it all for me. ;)

I haven't seen one of those compilations for years.
Putting aside the misinformation coming from students, they are as funny as hell!

"and the Indian women carried porpoises on their backs" What a visual!

LMAO :)