Infographics have definitely captured my attention! They are so interesting, colorful and informative, not to mention there’s a ton of already created ones out there to select from! When my students aren’t creating infographics about FACS related topics I have them…
Timetoast.com is an easy to use and free web technology that allows your students to create interactive timelines for historical data, life events, stories and research projects. There are many opportunities to use it in the Family and Consumer Science classroom.
Looking for a thought provoking way to introduce a topic or concept via YouTube clip, poem, quote, short story, or song lyrics that engage students from beginning to end? The task rotation learning grid, based on the book So, Each…
Serina wrote in asking if I had any resources for family consumer science interactive notebooks. Unfortunately a typical google search doesn’t produce anything but interactive notebook materials for science, English, and history classes. However, Interactive Notebooks are a great fit for Family and Consumer Science classes!
Need some ideas on how to construct your course or write curriculum? Here are a few examples from other Family Consumer Science programs!
How do you put students into groups? How do you grade group projects? What do you do with class clowns and students who are “free riders”? Explore the pro’s and con’s of different grouping and grading methods.
I have a class this semester that loses their concentration is and easily distracted but they enjoy my class. Methods as listed above were not working because they were not listening and able to apply what they heard and learned. Out of desperation of getting through to them I asked for their suggestions on how to make the class more productive and increase real learning. Unfortunately they did not provide usable feedback. I tried lots of methods with this class and one of the most successful was giving demonstrations that they had to take notes on and then complete using only their notes. The degree of concentration went up significantly and the learning stuck because they saw, wrote, read, and applied the information.
Demonstrations are great if everyone wants to learn and is paying attention. In years past this has always been an effective method of delivering content because the students were engaged. This semester I have a particularly distracted bunch of students. I show them a demonstration and then have them go make what I demonstrated. Over and over again I have to repeat instructions and explain things that I already demonstrated and explained thoroughly. I was perplexed for a while at how to solve this problem. I finally approached it by making them accountable for what they saw in the demonstrations through a combination of note taking, competitions and grades based on their ability to apply their notes from the demonstration they just watched to produce the desired results.
One day I was asking my students a question while they were taking notes, I kept asking the question over and over because no one was responding which was unusual for a pretty talkative class. Finally after they all stopped writing I noticed that they would then be able to answer my questions. I cut to the chase that day and asked every class how many of them could listen and take notes at the same time. Most of them said they couldn’t. I was in disbelief. I thought that I had done them a favor by giving them just fill in the blank notes but apparently they still were not absorbing what I was saying beyond the notes. We all learn better through story associations. This means that if we hear a story or example it helps us remember a concept or term. They were totally missing out on all my explanations, examples, and stories because they could not take notes and listen at the same time.
I’m a FACS teacher which means I have a lot to do to get ready for school. I have to dust off equipment, buy groceries, prepare demonstrations, unpack utensils, sanitize the child development lab’s toys, and this year unpack my…
