Team-teaching with Dr Jannie Van Hees #1: 'Languaging' social studies through re-energising the brain

Today we had our lesson with my year 9 social studies class.  Jannie and I have been looking at ways to address the challenge that our kids have had with understanding and applying key concepts in the context of migration.  For this lesson, we wanted to engage the kids through slowing down the language with active learning and discussions.

The lesson:  
We started by getting the class to re-energise their brains.  This was a term that Jannie suggested would help kids to kick-start their brains and to force them to use them.  After a slow start (ie kids were shy) Jannie took a slight detour and talked about how in our brains we have lots of neurons and if we don't use those neutrons and think and force our brains to make connections using the neurons, our brains will slow down and as the saying goes, 'if you don't use it, you lose it' (I noticed the kids were engaged when they were shown this, and I wonder, if the kids knew how their brains worked, would they feel more empowered to use them to learn and apply stuff?  I'm going to do a bit of research around this).

In our planning meeting, Jannie and I agreed that we would focus on teaching the concepts and how to develop students understanding of the concepts through case studied examples.  In reality, we spent the whole double period learning and remembering what the words were and what they meant.  We used lots of different ways to engage with the concepts - individual recalling, pairs, groups, modelling, students challenging each other to remember etc.  (I filmed some of the lesson below so that I could reflect on the techniques and the lesson itself).

Reflections:
As the lesson progressed and students grew more confident in their knowledge of the concepts, I could see how slowing the learning of the language helped them feel safe and empowered in their use of the terms.  By the end of the lesson, students were standing up to share what they'd learnt and I was pleased to see this, especially from the kids who were usually the quiet ones!

For me personally I found it hard to spend so much time on learning and knowing the concepts and I was not used to taking it so painstakingly slow.  I am used to telling the kids what the words are, having them learn the definitions, then apply them to an example, then move on.  Parts of the lesson had me anxious.  On reflection, I could see that I was driven by the pressures of time - that little voice was saying 'hurry up, we need to move on to the next bit, hurry up because we won't finish everything, hurry up we're moving too slow'!.  After seeing what happened during the lesson for our kids, I have to rethink my thinking and learn to remember the 'why' around slowing the learning.  I shared my experience with a critical friend who understood my frustrations but helped me see that it is better off to pause and slow down the learning when they're younger and we can afford to this in year 9. "When you unpack the language now, then you can get back to the agenda and the kids will fly".

What next: 
Big Picture: I have to think about the overall big picture and how to plan around lessons like this where we 'slow the learning'.  What do we need to make sure we cover in our social studies curriculum?  Which achievement objectives do we have to meet and how much time do we have to meet them?   Are there things that we are teaching now, that we don't have to teach, and take out to accommodate for this new learning?  How can I measure whether this will work or not?

Applying these concepts consistently:  Over the next few lessons, I want to see if the students can remember the concepts and apply them to different contexts.   I want to find a way measure whether spending more time on the learning and knowing of these concepts will help them engage better with their learning and hopefully help them achieve success in improving their literacy skills.