So, I decided to start a podcast, and one recommendation I've gotten is to post the transcript of the podcast on my blog! So, if you didn't check out episode 1, or you want to read my thoughts instead of listen to my dulcet tones, then here we go!
So last week I gave my high school economics class. Some Play-Doh. And to find out why. It's time to plai around and find out.
In today's episode, there are going to be two topics of discussion. What I'm lovingly dubbing, playdough-nomics. And the second is talking about the #InterACTIVE classroom.
So in economics, we're getting ready to discuss market systems and behavioral economics. My econ class is a survey of everything. And before we moved into a broader unit of those two concepts. We had to learn about the factors of production. Sometimes you'll hear me call it the means of production. Because I've read a lot of Marxist literature. So now, you know. But to start the class, we had maybe a 10 to 15 minute set of interactive lecture notes.
I used curipod, which is a great aI presentation and content creation platform that if you haven't used it, I'll insert a link. To the description of the episode. But I used it to create some interactive slides where we talked about the four factors, which are land labor, capital and entrepreneurship. These are very essential concepts to economics, but they're not very sexy. To learn about so I could have given them. You know, a worksheet of vocabulary activity. Things like that, where we just kind of bored it into our brain.
We took our medicine and moved on.
This is where the playdoh comes in, though. At the end of last semester, I ordered about 60 tubs of playdoh cause it was on sale. And I had a little bit of, money in an activity account setting around. And I ordered it without a plan in mind. So as I was retooling this lesson from teaching it first semester, I had an idea. The premise was simple once everybody understood the means of production. Students were each given a tub of Play-Doh and they had two minutes to make either as many snakes, which is, a, flat roll-y snake.
That is the length of a pencil. Or Springs, which was a snake wrapped around a pencil to make a coil. Each snake was worth. One point each spring was worth three points. And we did this. Everybody played along. We shared our scores and I asked kids to discuss their strategy after the first round. And I've got a bunch of sneaky game or kids. Who wanted to win and didn't necessarily want to share out at first. So we did it again. They had 90 seconds and this time. The value of Springs increased. After each round in a Google doc, they were asked to record the number of snakes and Springs they made. To discuss their strategy and what they think that round taught them about economics. And we did this about 10 times throughout the period, they were more willing to discuss as they were all kind of looking around and sneaking in on what their neighbors were doing. And throughout the different rounds, there were different challenges.
For example, they had resource deficits, they had to take up half of their playdoh and put it back in the tub. They were able to work with a neighbor. They were able to create an assembly line at their entire table cluster. They were allowed to trade four different colors, not knowing that eventually the colors would be impacting potential future point values based on the rarity of the colors.
I was cautiously optimistic throughout the lesson and the kids enjoyed it. They. They had a hoot that a lot of them were talking about how they haven't played with Play-Doh since they were in elementary school. Right. Or my couple of kids that have younger siblings can say that, you know, they've only played with Play-Doh a little bit with their siblings until it got wild and went out of control.
Throughout subsequent lessons, I had kids asking if they could get the Play-Doh out so they could either play with it as a stress manipulative. So they could, you know, try and make other things. To showcase some of the stuff that they were learning. And then the heck I've had kids coming in either during lunch period or before or after school. To be able to just sit and play with Play-Doh.
So a random whim from an Amazon sale. Definitely paid off in this lesson that the kids enjoyed the nostalgia of playing with something. They used to love as kids and you know, my kids are all three of them are eight or younger and we have tubs of Play-Doh at home and they will play with it for hours.
And it was nice to kind of see the spark of joy from them rediscovering a spirit of play from their past. It's definitely something I'm going to find more ways to incorporate again in economics. We'll find ways to make Play-Doh work in government and I definitely. I'm excited with how it turned out. In the description of this episode and on my website, teachersplAIground.com, I will link the resources used for this lesson. But if you've got any ideas or want to share how you've used some Play-Doh. To teach a lesson then most definitely. Shoot me an email. Leave a comment on the podcast. Leave. a, Q and a question through Spotify, or send me a tweet over at RimmeyAPGov. And I'd love to learn about and talk about other ways that y'all. I may have used Plano or other similar doh based manipulatives in your classes.
The second segment that I want to try and incorporate in each episode of the podcast or as often as possible is either a book review or talking about a blog post, an article that I've read. Something that I've discovered and applied somebody else's ideas in my learning and. This week. I want to talk about the book, The #interACTIVE Classroom, which is by Kristin and Joe Merrill. A pair of elementary educators , I believe they're in Florida.
There's some people who think this book is a very weird read for me that. This is a book that is geared towards making a more interactive elementary school classroom, given that both Kristen and Joe have, you know, an elementary school background, they are currently teaching. Elementary school, I think Kristen has taught around middle school too. I can't remember where she's landed now. But they think it's odd because we can't do in high school, what people do in elementary school. Right? But I found this book to be absolutely amazing.
One of the reasons why I was more than willing to pick it up. is I followed the Merrill's on Twitter, I looked at stuff on their blogs. I've used some of their tech recommendations. I got to see them speak at FETC. And I even got to talk to Joe, for a few minutes as they were racing between presentations. And this book is. A good solid read. So it's kind of divided into. Two parts part one is the methodology part where they talk about what it means to be interactive. And every time they use that word or phrase, you'll see active in all caps..
And it's good suggestions on how you can integrate some movement, some playful practice, some. Student, choice or autonomy in what's going on. And then it's, how can you take small concepts that you lean into and slowly, give more control, give more autonomy, get your students to be more active.
And I think this is something that high schoolers still need some extra love on. Because we don't necessarily expect them to be. Mindless automatons, just sitting and having information deposited into them. They need to be able to apply that knowledge. They need to be able to think about that knowledge.
They need to be able to talk about that knowledge. In an environment where there's a bit more of a safety net, especially when they're expected to have those analytical skills or to be able to take the reins on their own initiative of what they want to do in college. But they don't necessarily have the safety net to get there. What I really, really liked from the book and the second part. Is all of the different, easy to pick up app recommendations, and how you can take little bite-sized pieces and immediately incorporate them. So one of the things that the Merrill's are absolutely fantastic at is their use of what used to be known as Flipgrid, it's. Now Microsoft Flip. They are so skilled and so diverse and what they do with that app. That in 2021. They released a second interactive classroom book that is just focused on the use of flip. And I'm waiting on that one, to get delivered to my mailbox from the old Amazon. They have like two dozen different suggestions of how you can use it, how you can integrate Flipgrid with, the do ink green screen, how you can Inner weave it into. Fiction, non-fiction some SEL lessons. Various forms of content. And this is so easy that. I literally created a Flipgrid classroom that I read this book over the weekend. And I created a new topic in my flip class. Made a demo of one of the activities and have my students do it the next day. And they loved it.
The other apps that they talk about in here, I'm a little bit less familiar with a Buncee is definitely something that I want to look at in terms of the presentation software that they've got about 10. Different ways that you can incorporate that. Seesaw, which I love, I wish that I could use Seesaw in high school because I think it's got better interactivity and can have. Better ways to showcase or celebrate work or share notes or things like that than in your traditional high school LMS. They've got fake social media templates.
They've got how you can build fake conversations between different members. of a book, historical figures, that kind of stuff. And one of the things that they've got, that I am going to definitely figure out how to do this. A digital scoot activity. We're all, you know, 25 30 kids in my class are doing different tasks at the same time by spreading devices out across the room. They've also got little suggestions in terms of how to use Book creator how to use apple clips, how to use just about everything that was kind of rising into goodness.
In 2019, when this book was released. And I absolutely loved it. I shared some books on book creator on Twitter that I created after reading. Their book and I've started implementing some of this stuff in my classes two or three days after reading it. So. You'll see the link to follow the Merrill's in the show description, you'll find the link to the book and a link to other things that I've created that have been inspired by the book both in the episode description and, up on my website.
So that's it. This is our first full episode of plAI around and find out. I hope you enjoyed listening to my musings about Play-Doh in the classroom. Have you read the Merrill's book? If so, let me know of what you think of it again. Shoot me a message, tweet at me, send me an email, leave a Q and a on. Spotify and leave a comment wherever you listen to podcasts. Are there similar books that I need to be checking out? I've got a few more books on playful pedagogy that are on my to read and eventually to talk about list. So you can let me know those things as well, but definitely get those folks to follow, definitely find some, some Play-Doh or other kinds of easy manipulatives for your students to pick up and play with regardless of your grade level band that you're teaching. And I want to thank you for listening again. As always y'all. It's time to go plAI around and find out.
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