Darryl Plummer Post Lesson Reflection (22-24 October 2013) 1. To what extent were lesson objectives achieved?

(Utilize assessment data to justify your level of achievement) Daily Objectives: Students will be able to (SWBAT) Provide examples of how geography affects political boundaries Hypothesize about what effect a geographic feature might have on people/political boundaries/language Name selected countries/cities/landforms/water features in Europe Identify traditional regions of Europe Explain a language map of Switzerland and Belgium geographically Explain how the environment affects how cities are built.

After grading the map quiz, all but 2 students got a 90% or better and the 2 that did not got an 80%. I believe objectives 3 and 4 were met based on this data. My assessment for the first 2 and last 2 objectives was informal and based on calling on students or addressing a question to the class. By the end of the lecture (and multiple examples) all students understood how barriers such as water or mountains commonly divide countries. I also think a significant number (although not all) were capable of hypothesizing about what sort of political boundaries/people/language might exist in an area based on the terrain around.

2. What changes, omissions, or additions to the lesson would you make if you were to teach again? Day 1 I was pretty happy with how my presentation and slideshow were put together. I was able to use the slideshow to present information but also very well as an informal assessment tool (by slowly adding new pieces of information until students understood). By the 2nd example, students were able to hit the 2nd objective almost immediately. I stopped my presentation after 25 minutes and let them work on their maps to avoid fatigue. This worked pretty well. Students were able to use the geographical regions I used as examples to better fill out their map. One change I might make in the future is to do a more student centered activity on objective 2 instead of just having them fill out maps. Day 2 I originally wanted to go more in depth on languages and why different areas or countries speak different languages, focusing in on the historical Roman Empire and modern day Romance languages.

Darryl Plummer However, I just didnt have time to prepare it well enough and decided to scrap it. In the future, I think including the 3 main language groups of Europe (Slavic, Germanic, and Romance) would be both interesting and really tie together the whole language concept for students. Day 3 We finished the map quiz and graded it with 20 minutes left of class, which I did not expect. As it was a Thursday before a 3 day weekend, I panicked a bit because I knew they would be squirrely. In a snap decision, I decided to talk about the breakup of Yugoslavia because a student had asked me why Macedonia was called FYROM (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia). I used this as a springboard to talk about historical claims to a name (there is a province of Macedonia in Greece and FYROM is actually mostly Slavic, not Greek). I also explained why the countries of Montenegro and Kosovo werent on the map in the context of Balkanization. If I were to teach this again, I would definitely have something planned for this time and perhaps pictures to accompany it. I collected both the maps they used to fill out to study for the test and the map quiz. I unfortunately did the maps at the beginning of class and the quizzes at the end. This made it so I had to match the two different documents together in order to lump them together for the grade. I should have just collected them both at the same time in order to save myself some hassle.

3. What do you envision for the next lesson? (continued practice, reteach content, etc) In the next lesson, I will be covering the European Union. Although I talked about the Balkan Peninsula, I think it will prove useful to me when I talk about Basque, Catalonian, and Galician separatism in Spain because there is a very similar dynamic there. As students scored very well on the Map Quiz and I feel they have the groundwork laid to understand some of the cultural and language aspects of Europe, I think they are ready for a lesson on the European Union.