U2 Day 1-2: PD Discussion Topic

We started with the misuse of money and then the students will pick their own problems that the see.

Privacy is a key that opens their eyes. I had them google their name, their parents and their siblings. They found items of theirs or other members of their family.

My students discussed the feasibility of combining our junior/senior high school with the elementary to try to cut costs.

We discussed if changing school times for the middle and high schools in the county to cut down on the number of drivers we would need and how the extra people could be used to cover other areas or we could just cut cost all together

Students will submit school or community problems to me the day before this lesson. I will post the list (without names) and we’ll use items from the list to spur the discussion.

They chose to find out the number of school that scan students and which boroughs have the most.

I will let my students select their own concern from their community, because it is relevantt o them.

Based on my observations and participation with such discussions with students, I would give the following list of options

  1. public safety, in particular, with respect to gun violence.

  2. Quality of Public Education, how can it be improved?

  3. Solutions to economic poverty (joblessness, rising housing cost, lack of affordable health care, rising cost of a college education).

Equal opportunity. This is a very broad subject. This can be viewed as in-classroom or out of classroom situation. Students can have an opportunity to relate to something that has either happened to them or someone else.

This is a very interesting topic. I teach at an IB school and we are working towards all teachers providing scaffolding activities to help the students with their writing for the IB Reflective Project. I’m wondering how we can help ask students great guiding questions to get them to come up with interesting topics that would lead to high levels of thinking.