Lesson Review          1 ASE Morning                    March 2004

Thursday, March 18, 2004             8 Learners present.                                                  3.25 hours

Getting Out of Your Own Way: Soft Skills for Job Readiness

Deborah Schey from the Career Center gave a terrific workshop that incorporated poetry, visual thinking,

 critical analysis, and lots of fun into helping  people gain strategies to stop negative, obsessive thinking.

The same strategies can help people from being overwhelmed with negative, stressful emotions.

We also had lots of practice filling out forms.  The Career Center has a 3 page form, and The Literacy

Project had a "Learner Satisfaction Survey"

 

We won't get back together again until April 5.

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Wednesday, March 17, 2004         4 Learners present.                                                  1.75 hours

The Greenfield Schools were delayed for 1.5 hours due to the weather.

Only a few learners showed up.

They worked independently on Math or various projects

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Tuesday, March 16, 2004               8 Learners present.                                                  3.25 hours

  --   Development of comprehension strategies (Reading)  Distinguish between fact & opinion (Critical Thinking) 

Modern Governmental Systems

We started to talk about the presidential elections (and maybe make resumes for the major candidates),

but decided instead to hit the GED book.

The article and items covered "Facts v. Opinions" and also dealt with "Presidential Systems" v

"Parliamentary Systems".  There was a section on the Five Pillars of Democracy that we could spend

more time on.

People were getting really good at using the text to back their answers.  There was also a lot of good

listening and thinking - which is what is really important for governmental democracies and every other

human encounter.

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Monday, March 15, 2004               9 Learners present.                                                  3.25 hours

  --  Learn strategies for organization (Writing)   Use appropriate tools to express ideas and opinions (Critical

Thinking) 

The Pyramid of Success, Accomplishment Statements, and Resumes

We looked a the Success Pyramid  from Training Inc.  One of the discussions it instigated was on the merits of focusing on ones weaknesses  or one's strengths, but we agreed that one should definitely focus on one's strengths in a resume.  People  picked out about 3 strengths and practiced writing Accomplishment Statements (Success Example  Statements) to back up that these are indeed strengths for them.

Many people continued to work on their resumes during Individual Learning Time.

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Thursday, March 11, 2004             11 Learners present.                                                 3.25 hours

  --Dynamics between various systems (Systems) the influence of behavior on health (Behavior and Change)     

Spanish Rice and Chicken

Stephanie and Amanda took charge of the chicken.  Dustin brought in his recipe for Spanish rice (and

even brought in some special utensils and ingredients.  Luz also had her ideas about Spanish rice. 

Everything came out really good (but people had to eat rice that was a little on the crunch side because

too many people kept lifting off the lid before the steam could get it done.)

Jeff was the hygiene police.

Others worked independently on GED preparation asking for help as needed.

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Tuesday, March 09, 2004               9 Learners present.                                                  3.25 hours

  --Dynamics between various systems (Systems)   Development of comprehension strategies (Reading)   

Kerry v. Bush (and Third Parties)

Read and discussed articles based on the two campaigns. 

We also did some GED items based on a passage on the recent history of Third Parties.  Three of the 4

questions had their answers right in the passage.  One of them required some critical thinking skills and/or

some background knowledge of comparative politics.

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Monday, March 08, 2004               11 Learners present.                                                 3.25 hours

  --How cultures affect identity and perspective (Cultures & Identities)  Develop writing vocabulary (Writing)

Development of comprehension strategies (Reading)   

Ode on a Grecian Urn, by John Keats. (1819)

The three Bestworks learners took a field trip to Antonio's pizza for the first part of the class, but then

returned to join this poetry activity.

Before reading the poem we placed it in historical context.  1819 is in the early 19th century which we

know as the century of the first Industrial Revolution.  The early 19th century just following the Age of

Enlightenment is sometimes called the Romantic Era, and John Keats is considered to be a "Romantic"

poet.

We read the entire poem aloud several times.  We looked at pictures of Grecian (and Greco-roman)

urns. People also chose to read certain segments aloud in order to discuss them.  We picked out

problematic vocabulary (desolate, eternity, deities, ditty, parching, flanks, pious, citadel, sylvan, pastoral).

  A lot of the discussion focused on when the poet was speaking literally about the pictures painted on a

vase, and when he was talking about abstract universal ideas and passions.

 

Thursday, March 04, 2004             9 Learners present.                                                  3.25 hours

  --   Development of comprehension strategies (Reading)    Explore scientific or technology content areas using

methods of inquiry and information technology ()

Viruses, Bacteria, and US!

This was a pre-GED level activity that connects to food safety and life science.  We started with a

"pretest" which we then reviewed to see what we had learned (just from doing the pretest) and what we

still wanted to learn.  We also reviewed reading strategies using the pre-test.  We then used the results of

the pretest to set up the following classification system:

Chemicals      Viruses     Living Cells

Then we read the article which covered this system and also introduced a way of classifying bacteria by

their shapes (spheres/cocci, rods/bacilli, spirals/spirilli).  We looked at more reading strategies for learning and for passing the GED (which is a reading test, not a memory test)

 

Sarah had started the class with mnemonic devise for learning the 13 colonies.  Talking about learning

systems connected to yesterday's work with exponents which lead to a brief discussion about Bob Moses  and The Algebra Project.

 

Wednesday, March 03, 2004         10 Learners present.                                                 3.25 hours

  --How different perspectives on human behavior, interactions, and history affect people's understanding of the

world. (Perspective & Interpretation)     Recognize there is not always a "right" answer (Critical Thinking) Algebra

- apply algebraic methods to solve and represent problems (GED, workplace, real world math) (Patterns,

Relationships & Functions)

Review of (and expansion on) Exponents

People received a multi-page handout that reviewed and provided practice on basic exponent concepts. 

It also contained new concepts such as multiplying and dividing with exponents and even using

parentheses to put exponents on exponents.  People got to choose which problems they felt comfortable

working on, and were encouraged to help each other and to ask for help.  People really challenged

themselves, but it really seemed like a terrific work environment today.

 

Before the Math Activity there was a review of Super Tuesday and what it might mean for Kerry,

Edwards and Bush.  A discussion about Social Security lead into a discussion about people who "game"

the system to claim disabilities they do not have.  People brought up concepts like "karma" to describe

how such actions and attitudes could be hurtful to the person who uses them.   Younger people spoke

more theoretically, and older people spoke from real experience.  Some people took the time to write

brief reflections on this discussion so they will have a better opportunity to write more later if they desire.

 

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Tuesday, March 02, 2004               10 Learners present.                                                 3.25 hours

  --Means and varieties of civic participation (Power, Authority, & Participation)  Learn strategies for organization

(Writing)    

Writing and Voting

Initial discussion on Primary Elections, party conventions v constitutional legislative bodies, Senators vs.

Governors, etc.

Reviewed an Essay checklist based on the standard 5 paragraph template.

Developed 3 alternate essay questions:  1.  Why should people vote?  2.  Do we need a new president?,

and 3 Why are you in school?.  Spent the rest of the period writing and REWRITING (many people

rewrote their essays on the computer)

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Monday, March 01, 2004               8 Learners present.                                                  3.25 hours

  --Learners' "PLACE" in relationship to the rest of the world (Environments & Interdependence)   Develop reading

Vocabulary (Reading)   

Local History and Hall Building Posters

Amber did a great job preparing for and running this activity.  People read from the form nominating this

building for the National Register of Historic Places.  This covered a great deal of local history but also

put it in the context of various national historical periods (colonial, federal, industrial, etc).  Amber also

had quite a few photographs and newspaper articles which, like the nomination form, were provided to us

 by the Watershed Council. People used these and other pictures and maps to make their posters.  While

we were at it, we found a geological history of Greenfield that claims the first prehistoric fossil found in the United States was found here in 1835.

Now we have four great posters to help people appreciate the importance of this building and its connection to history.

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