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Playing with Blocks!

 

  This week we created interest approaches to help our students get their feet wet at the beginning of our lessons. My interest approach was created for a SAE/FFA Leadership course introducing communication and the different forms we frequently use. The students partnered up and used legos to build the actions written on their chosen note card. One student was the "speaker" and used the legos to communicate the task that they wanted their partner to complete. The "speaker" was not able to talk, motion, draw, or give any hints to their partner who was acting as the "listener".  Once all of the students had the chance to play each role we discussed who was successful, who wasn't, and why they believed that was the case. We also discussed how they communicated with partners making the transition into the content for the day which was exploring verbal and nonverbal communication.

I chose this lesson for two reasons. First, I thought it would be a fun, unique, and a hands on way for the students to truly experience a breakdown in communication and how difficult that can be. Secondly, communication is one of the many building blocks I hope to help my students use to be successful in and outside of my classroom. It is important for them to be able to communicate properly and successful in whatever they do but most specifically about the agricultural industry. Whether they choose to stay within the industry or not they still are in the position to advocate and share important information and properly communication techniques can make their job so much easier!

Overall, I was very excited to see just how interested and excited my cohort members were to participate in the activity both in person and online. I believe that if I were to do it again I would possibly use a different set of legos just because students struggled with the pieces they were supplied. I also would consider changing some of the tasks and extending the amount of building time. One thing I accomplished through this lab was moving more fluidly throughout the classroom which was a task I struggled with previously. I really enjoyed this week's lab and all of my cohort members' activities whether it was being hands on with soil, tool identification, playing Guess Who, or videos to explore animal behavior. We all were collectively able to reach our students and steer their focus towards the day's content in a fun and creative way!


Comments

  1. Dr. EwingSeptember 17, 2020 at 3:13 PM

    Megan,
    Thanks for sharing your experience this week. I agree that this activity could be used in many situations, and you chose a good one from the communication perspective. I am glad to see that you have given some thought to how you can make this an even better activity for your learners in the future!
    -Dr. Ewing

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    Replies
    1. Michaela SmithSeptember 20, 2020 at 2:41 PM

      Playing with Legos was so much fun, Megan! I thought you did a great job explaining your interest approach, walking around the room checking in with each group, and connecting your interest approach to the lesson plan for the day. I agree that it might be easier to have individually selected different Legos pieces for the class, but your students can also make any piece work (which is what we did).

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    2. elise laudenslagerSeptember 22, 2020 at 8:10 AM

      Megan, I really liked your interest approach this week, and will probably use it in the future. I also think having a set of legos could be helpful for many different courses so it seems like a good investment. Overall, I think you did a great job engaging the class and keeping us on task. It was a fun activity and really showed us how much we rely on verbal communication. I was thinking that maybe to make it a little more interesting you could assign groups that could use verbal communication (just without saying the exact work) and some groups could use hand gestures and others nothing but the blocks and then students could race to see which team could get 3-5 words fastest. I think the discussion following this would e helpful to show how the incorporation of all types of communication are needed to get your point across. Great Job this week!

      Delete
    3. Alyssa LandisSeptember 22, 2020 at 2:44 PM

      Hi Megan,
      I loved how interactive your interest approach was and I think it connected to your lesson very well. I think that if you do this activity with your students in the future that you could possibly change it by giving everyone the same sets of pieces to even out the playing field (Maddie and I definitely had an advantage with the horse piece, not that I'm complaining)! This was such an awesome and creative idea!

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