2) Needs of the audience: a better way for discussion leaders to coordinate discussion questions and a plan before class begins. Rather than have them take five minutes before class, which leaves me scrambling to do something with the rest of the group, they can coordinate thoughts online from home the night before. 

3) Technology: Padlet will help provide a space for brainstorming questions that doesn't feel too formal. Hopefully, the sticky note vibe of it will keep students relaxed. This is a relatively simple project, but will hopefully remedy a consistent challenge throughout the year. 

 Example:
https://padlet.com/mturnbull3/yatou8i2cyu7#

AP Human Geography – seniors. Summer reading discussion on “Fast Food Nation.”

 

Discussions in class were good last year on this topic, but there seemed to be a lot of fumbling around the text. Ultimately, the discussions lacked focus. Some students dominated the discussion more as well. I would like to begin the class conversations asynchronously at home using Flipgrid, and then use class time to further add to these ideas.

 

I will set up three discussion prompt areas on Flipgrid related to the three key themes of “Fast Food Nation”: economic impacts, environmental impacts, and social/cultural impacts. I made a flipgrid sample for the economic impacts here. Each student will be assigned to one of these themes. There are 15 students in the class, so there are 5 students per group. To begin, each student should extract a quote from the textbook relating to their theme, read it aloud, and explain why it resonated with them in the context of their overall takeaway from the book. They must do this in under 1:30 so as to create a focused and critical argument. They should also respond directly to at least two other members of the class within their group, and watch the other group contributions as well. We can then use this in our classroom to have a more focused discussion on the textbook to begin our AP Human Geography class. 

Needs of the audience: A more effective way for students to review annotation at their own pace rather than through in-class lecture or demonstration. It will also connect the skill of annotation with SOAPSTone, an acronym used to decode the rhetorical purpose of a reading. This activity will provide a review of annotation and SOAPSTone and also an opportunity for guided practice annotating a practice passage. At the end, the students will practice connecting their annotations to writing a thesis statement.

How technology: I will create an EdPuzzle using an annotation video on YouTube. I will review annotation and SOAPSTone in class. Then the students will watch the video and work through the questions and practice passage. I will print out a hard copy of the practice passage in the video and the students will follow the prompts in the video to identify the SOAPSTone of the passage and to annotate the passage on their own. The students will compare their work with the work in the video. 

EdPuzzle Link:  https://edpuzzle.com/media/595533749a710f3f371d82b7