What lessons have had the greatest impact on your students?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Tom on December 20, 2008 at 9:00pm

When I went into the classroom to teach 16-year olds US History, my speciality quickly became the integrated use of PowerPoint and video clips in the classroom (this may be very common now, but at the time and in the place I was teaching, this was quite on the bleeding edge of instructional technique). When it came time to teach about the Cold War, it made sense to me to frame it in the context of the war it served as a substitute for, World War III. So, right after World War II was finished, I taught all about nuclear weapons and nuclear warfare and exactly how grim all that would have been, and along the way taught them a fair bit of the old Civil Defence material I received way back when I took earth science in 8th grade. This sort of practical knowledge is sadly lacking in most school curriculum.

I take the attitude that nothing communicates to youngsters as well as a few well-chosen video clips, or visiting the site of a historic event via Google Earth or NASA World Wind, or a wall-sized image courtesy of an LCD projector. I believed this to the extent where my district actually created a job for me at the district office supporting teachers in the use of such technology throughout the district. My experiences in that role lead me to believe this even more strongly.

Now, working for a US emergency management agency, I would still advocate the appropriate use of multimedia as a communications enhancer. Do what you can to get the message you have off the dead white page and get it moving and talking!

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Alexander D. Nayve on February 10, 2010 at 11:24am

Hi Justin,
When we trained the public elementary school teachers on DRR in Camarines Sur and Albay in southeastern Luzon in the Philippines, we were able to engage them in the preparation of sample lesson plans for all subjects and grade levels. The lesson plans were compiled into a publication and will be ready for distribution by next month. What is important in the compilation is the list of DRR competencies that we put together with teachers and the higher authorities in the Department of Education. The value of the list of DRR competencies will go beyond the publication itself and will be advocated for integration in the national revision of basic education curriculum/public elementary learning competencies. When this is done, there will be no need for integration as the DRR competencies will become mandatory competencies in elementary education. DRR corners also became a common place in the schools that we closely worked with. As a result, a corner of the classroom posts DRR terms and concepts, hazards and safety measures. One of the schools created a miniature park as a 3-dimensional teaching strategy. The 3D DRR park was very useful in teaching children about assessing risks of communities facing multiple hazards of tropical cyclones, flooding, volcanic eruption, landslides, and lahar flow. The park was also useful in determining the safe evacuation routes in relation to the topographical features of the park bearing a volcano, lowlying communities, sloping lands with inhabitants, meandering river with houses within its riparian zone. Children also get to compare the level of vulnerabilities of houses made of concrete vs huts made of light materials, or those near river or far away, or those at the foot of a volcano or farther away.
The more important outcome of trained teachers was the development and distribution of children's workbooks on disaster preparedness. We engaged trained teachers on translating the hazards and safety measures into topics in the workbooks that are tailored fit to the development stages of children in Grades 1to 6. After the distribution, the schools initiated supervised studies for 30 minutes twice a week using the children's workbooks.
After the pupils learned about hazards and safety measures, they voluntarily engaged in pupil-to-pupil lectures for 15-30 minutes daily. They learned to use the workbooks as teaching tools. They became little teachers and were organized into pupil emergency response teams, a committee that works closely with the school DRR management groups. Together with the teachers group, an incident command system was developed to guide the school heads and pupils leaders on appropriate instructions to give before, during and after earthquakes and fire while in school. All required safety measures like duck, cover and hold on, crawl low under smoke, stop, drop and roll, switch off the main power switch are turned into disaster preparedness algorithm march that became embedded in flag ceremonies and physical education classes.
In one of the children's summer camps, pupils with guidance from teachers made a declaration on the rights of the child in emergencies and disasters. The local governments translated the declaration into a barangay (community) code on the rights of the child in emergencies and disasters. The code provided a good link with the community disaster management and contingency plan.
All these were partly propelled by a motivation building strategy of patiently searching for model DRR structures, a 9-month long multi-province competition and a powerful M&E tool.
I can't upload any documents relating to this because of some propriety considerations imposed by my employer. I am working for a non-UN child-rights organization that influenced the passage of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Once the publications are posted on the net, I will send the links to our network, if that at all will be allowed by my employer.
I find our network very informative and helpful in my line of work. I had been in the DRR work for 2 years and I am really enjoying the shift in my working horizon. I had been working for natural resource management and child centered community development for a decade with 3 INGOs and 1 national NGO in the Philippines. Now, I am taking a Master of Science in Disaster Risk Management in our province in Camarines Sur.
I hope this helps.

• ▶ Reply