Youtube Play

In class this week, I planned a new lesson that didn't go very well. It involved playing a few videos from the Youtube Play biennial competition for the class. I wanted them to write down some main points about the videos, and then we were going to talk about how we'd group them for division-classification essays.

Here's one of the videos I used:


And another one:


This lesson didn't go well for two reasons, the main one being that I really suck at explaining division-classification essays. Honestly, I really didn't entirely understand the concept myself, even though it's the second time I've taught it. I just kept thinking of it like comparison-contrast, and couldn't get that out of my head, even though that's not really right. I kept talking, and looking out at a sea of blank faces.

Also, the lesson failed in my first class because Youtube was soooo slow. I learned my lesson and got all of the videos up and buffering long before I needed them, so they were fully buffered come show time in my second class. That time, they seemed to enjoy the videos more and it generated more discussion about the content .... but in the end, I still don't think they understand division-classification. Because I didn't understand it.

This was a good lesson for me that the content (which I still think was very cool!) is only secondary to my own understanding and explanation of the material.