Lesson
Review 1 ASE
Morning September
2004
Thursday, September
30, 2004 10 Learners
present. 3.25
hours
--How cultures vary and change (Cultures
& Identities) Participate as
a TEAM MEMBER - Contribute to group effort (Interpersonal Skills (Working with
Others))
A Renaissance Feast!
In the time it took to play a CD of Renaissance music we cooked an
amazing "Renaissance Feast" today,
the menu being:
Chicken
Limonia
Spit
Roast Meat with Egerdouce Sauce
and Rosy
Almond Cream for desert.
We had a little time to review protein synthesis before talking about
the Renaissance.
Most people who weren't cooking did a Renaissance Crossword during
Individual Learning Time before they ate.
(One reason why this was amazing is that we don't even have a stove:
people cooked on hotplates and a Ron Popeil rotisserie. But the amount of cooperation and initiative
on the part of ALMOST everyone.)
Spacer
Wednesday,
September 29, 2004 9
Learners present. 3.25
hours
--
Use computers as learning & research tool (Critical Thinking)
Construct, read & interpret tables, charts
& graphs (Statistics and Probability)
How order and organization are based on similarities and differences
(Order and Organization) SEE WITH THE
MIND'S EYE - Organize & process symbols, pictures, graphs,
objects, and other information (Thinking
Skills)
Graphing from Frequency Tables
(Revision Considerations for Writers)
Started with some demonstrations:
Grouped the class into age groups and did a tally and frequency
table. Then quickly used the
table to make a column chart and a pie chart.
Did the same with the
colors of people's notebooks.
Then teams of earners got a print out off all the "Writers Revision
Checklists" and were asked to
classify all the items into the following groups:
Overall Structure and Organization
Sentence Structure
Word Usage
Fluency and Effectiveness
They also had a frequency chart to record the tallys and counts. Then they went on the computers to
make column charts and pie
charts with Microsoft Excel.
Every team was able to make the graphs - though only one team was able
to classify all the checklist
items and put their graph on the web.
(One student did not want to do this graphing activity, but had the
creativity and wit to come up with an
impromptu survey which she administered
to the class. She then made two frequency charts to
compare the responses of males and females.)
Spacer
Tuesday, September
28, 2004 10 Learners
present. 3.25
hours
--
The FRUSTRATIONS, the REWARDS, and THE POTENTIAL for participation in
discussions
(or voting in elections).
On the surface the class was a discussion about “discussions” as much as
it was a discussion about
voting in a public election.
There was also a lot of good discussion and thinking about the value of
this class and of education in
general. (There were also two
periods of "Writing Time" when most people put a sincere and honest
effort into clarifying their thoughts and questions on paper.)
Some of the bright younger learners experienced (and dealt with) some
INTENSE frustration that
certain points could not be dealt with more seriously and "in
depth".
No matter where or when . . .
there will ALWAYS be differences in mood, interest, speed of
thinking, speed of learning, background knowledge, and experience . . .
and even differences in
"seriousness". Though
there were minor exceptions, MOST people in class did their very best to be
serious and thoughtful MOST of the time.
One of the frustrations of being human is the ability to see the
potential in oneself, in others, and in
human society as a whole. That
same ability allows one to see how far we have to go before that
potential can ever become real.
Is THAT a waste of time?
Spacer
Monday, September
27, 2004 9 Learners present. 3.25
hours
--
Awareness and control of tone & style (Writing) WRITING - Communicate thoughts, ideas
& information
in
writing; Create documents (letters, directions, reports, graphs) (Basic Skills)
Adjectives Shifter Out of Order
After reviewing the importance of the "Revision Checklists" we
looked at 5 categories for looking at
ways to change your writing
1. Overall Structure &
Organization
2. Sentence Structure
3. Word Usage
4. Fluency and Effectiveness
Then as a way of thinking about "Fluency and Effectiveness"
while also dealing with other grammar
concepts we looked at "Adjectives Out of Order"
Example:
Stem Sentence: The boy knocked on the door.
With adjectives out of order: The young boy, famished and
desperate, knocked on the door.
Some learners picked up on the structure quickly. Others were more interested in just
practicing
sentences (with or without adjectives).
Spacer
Thursday, September
23, 2004 5 Learners present. 3.25
hours
--
Express thoughts in writing (Writing) Development of comprehension
strategies (Reading) Create
connections between building blocks &
complexity in our natural or designed world (Similarity and
Protein Synthesis: Reading and
Diagrams
Did some pre-reading about the role of RNA in protein synthesis and made
up some questions. Then
we read a longer text about protein synthesis and looked at the diagram
provided. We also drew some
diagrams on the board that broke
protein synthesis down into 2 stages:
1: Transcription: copying the protein code from DNA to mRNA
2. Turning the mRNA code into a string of amino acids which are bonded
together to form a protein
chain.
People then looked on the web to try and find better diagrams of DNA,
mRNA, tRNA, ribosomes,
amino acid translation, polypeptide chains, and proteins (also codons, nucleotide bases, etc)
Spacer
Wednesday,
September 22, 2004 9
Learners present. 3.25
hours
--
Express thoughts in writing (Writing)
Compute with whole numbers, fractions, decimals & integers using
appropriate algorithms and a variety of
techniques (Number Relationships & Computation) How everything is
made up of a small number of building blocks (Similarity and
Diversity) MATHEMATICS - Perform basic
computations; approach practical problems
by choosing from a variety of math techniques (Basic Skills)
The Steps of Subtraction
Because some people were still confused about which number goes on top
and whether you should
subtract from right to left, everybody wrote out their steps.
Most of the lists included steps like . . .
1. Put the larger number on the top
2. Line up the Decimal points
3. Add
zeros after the decimal point in the top number if needed (9 = 9.0 = 9.00 = 9.00000000000)
4. Subtract from RIGHT to LEFT
5. Borrow if necessary
6. Check your answer with addition.
Some people typed up their lists and we posted them on the website.
Spacer
Tuesday, September
21, 2004 10 Learners
present. 3.25
hours
--How cultures affect identity and
perspective (Cultures & Identities)
Express thoughts in writing (Writing)
Develop reading Vocabulary (Reading) Participate as a TEAM MEMBER - Contribute
to group effort
(Interpersonal Skills (Working with
Others))
Split Group:
Given an opening, several learners chose to do their own work for the
entire class while other chose to
work with the group.
The group reviewed part of the Student Handbook, writing about and
discussing the most important
student rights and responsibilities.
We also read and discussed a published essay: "The GOP May be
the Yankees of Politics" which also compared the Democrats to the
Red Sox. This essay also had a
crossword puzzle which all of the group workers successfully completed.
(People divided into pairs to
attack the crossword puzzle.)
Interestingly, even though most of the individual workers had worthwhile
things to do - and got them
done . . . all of them ended up
leaving early which is bad for them and bad for us.
Spacer
Monday, September
20, 2004 11 Learners
present. 3.25
hours
--
Express thoughts in writing (Writing) WRITING - Communicate thoughts, ideas & information in
writing; Create documents (letters,
directions, reports, graphs) (Basic Skills)
Revision Checklists, Rewriting, and
Writing:
After some review of our current projects (Revision Checklists and Work
Banks) and topics ("How I
learn" and "Poverty and Responsibility") people were
given the following writing prompt (if they
weren't already working on a writing project):
"What big change are you going through in your life right now
. . . OR . . . Describe a transition
you
have gone through or expect to go through. How will/did you handle it?"
People mostly kept very busy.
(A small subgroup met to go over the idea of "Revision
Checklist" so they could understand what
was expected.)
Spacer
Thursday, September
16, 2004 11 Learners
present. 3.25
hours
-- human body systems (physical, mental,
social, and spiritual), their interdependence, and their roles in
health protection (Systems and
Interdependence) Develop writing vocabulary (Writing) Increased decoding
ability (Reading) How everything is made up of a small
number of building blocks (Similarity and Diversity)
UNDERSTANDS SYSTEMS - Social, organizational & technical
systems - and operating effectively with them
(Systems (Understanding Complex
Relationships)
Building on last week's activities, Joe put up terms and words related
to protein synthesis. Learners
suggested other science words from their notes. Words that related to protein synthesis were
marked
with a blue star.
After a demonstration (based on "deoxyribonucleic acid" and
"polypeptide chain") learners had time to
pick 5 terms that could be broken down into meaningful parts (or
potentially meaningful parts). One
person (not just using scientific terms) actually got over 100
"word analyses")
Then we listed meaningful word parts on the board (with their meanings
if we knew them . . . poly-,
de-, pro-, con, oxi, anti-, -ation, -ose, re- lys/lize, pre-, -elle, -dom, viz/vize, co-, cogn-, chrom,
som,
psyche, bio- . . . . )
Many learners also took some text (and diagrams) on protein synthesis
which we plan to read during
Group Time next Thursday.
The class ended with an impromptu Hangman session with many of the words
based on today's Group
Activity.
Spacer
Wednesday,
September 15, 2004 10
Learners present. 3.25
hours
--
Compute with whole numbers, fractions, decimals & integers using
appropriate algorithms and a variety
of
techniques (Number Relationships & Computation) MATHEMATICS - Perform basic computations;
approach practical problems by choosing
from a variety of math techniques (Basic Skills)
Good thing we did this! Some
people were still a little confused about zero place holders.
Spacer
Tuesday, September
14, 2004 8 Learners present. 3.25
hours
--How different perspectives on human
behavior, interactions, and history affect people's understanding of the
world. (Perspective & Interpretation) Develop writing vocabulary (Writing) Develop
reading Vocabulary
(Reading)
Recognize a speaker's point of view (Critical Thinking) Participate as a TEAM MEMBER -
Contribute to group effort (Interpersonal
Skills (Working with Others))
After a brief discussion on the above topic we read an article by a
Republican staffer about how the
two political parties relate to the problem of poverty. Then we did a crossword puzzle (in pairs -
mostly) focusing on vocabulary.
Monday, September 13, 2004 8 Learners present. 3.25 hours
--
Express thoughts in writing (Writing)
Recognize how medium affects message (Critical Thinking)
INTERPRET & COMMUNICATE INFORMATION
(Information (Acquiring and Using))
Writing Revision Checklists:
For the first 20 minutes of class people wrote independently to answer
the following questions:
"What can you do to improve something you wrote?"
"How do you know something you wrote is 'good enough' for . .
.?"
We discussed peoples writings and thoughts on these matters with the
following questions. . .
"How many people wrote/thought about what "good" writing
is?"
"How many wrote/thougt about 'who' certain kinds of writing might
be good for (or not)?"
"How many worte/thought about the purpose of the writing."
"How many people wrote/thought about things to 'look for' in their
writing before making revisions?"
How many people wrote/thought about ways of changing their writing to
make it better?"
People then created their own "Writer's Revision Checklists"
with at least 7 items. We compared
their
items to a check list on the
board from the night class.
People also shared and discussed the most important items on their
lists.
Spacer
Thursday, September
09, 2004 6 Learners present. 3.25
hours
--
Learn strategies for organization (Writing) Develop reading Vocabulary
(Reading) Explore scientific or
technology content areas using methods of
inquiry & information technology () KNOW HOW TO LEARN - Use
efficient learning techniques to acquire
& apply new knowledge & skills (Thinking Skills)
After reading an overview of some of the basic themes in modern Biology,
Chemistry, and Physics,
people (individually or in small groups) brainstormed on scientific
terms of interest.
At Jason's suggestion, people then spent time organizing their lists
into groups which they then named.
http://www.literacyproject.org/Charboneau/tunits/Resources/ScienceOverviews.htm
Spacer
Wednesday,
September 08, 2004 8
Learners present. 3.25
hours
--
Compute with whole numbers, fractions, decimals & integers using
appropriate algorithms and a variety
of
techniques (Number Relationships & Computation) MATHEMATICS - Perform basic computations;
approach practical problems by choosing
from a variety of math techniques (Basic Skills)
In addition and subtraction the decimal points always needs to be lined
up. Zeros may need to be
added to the top number.
We practiced borrowing - and borrowing over zeros.
We checked our work by adding and by using a calculator.
We used a three page worksheet culled from the internet called
"Borrowing over zero Tens" which
had models and examples for borrowing as well as practice problems and a
puzzler.
Spacer
Tuesday, September
07, 2004 11 Learners
present. 3.25
hours
--How individuals and groups interact with
and impact systems (Systems) Express
thoughts in writing
(Writing) Use appropriate tools to express ideas and opinions (Critical
Thinking) WRITING - Communicate
thoughts, ideas & information in
writing; Create documents (letters, directions, reports, graphs) (Basic Skills)
How do I learn and how do I want this
class to work for me.
Learners spent the first hour writing and talking about the following
questions. . .
Do you learn better in a group or
on your own?
What do you hope to accomplish in
the next few months?
What is something you want to write
about this month?
What do you want to focus on during
Individual Time and at Home?
What do you want the group to focus
on?
What do you expect from a teacher
in an Adult Ed class?
For the second hour people were asked to write something they could hand
in about the original topic
(How do I learn?)
They received a model "Revision Checklist for Writers"
"Writing is thinking"
"Writing is rewriting"
Spacer