Getting students involved in the learning process is an important task for every teacher to accomplish. By having even your younger elementary students share different pieces of information from the news, you will not only promote active learning, but you will teach students about current events as well.
Promote Active Learning through Sharing the News
Students of any age can be expected to share news in the classroom. If you start you class with a morning meeting, use this time to have students share the news. You may want to limit the news to having just three students share, or assign one student each day to share the news if it takes too long for every one to share. The news the students share can be anything that they heard in the news on the television, on the radio, or read in the newspaper.
In order for this sharing to be successful, you need to keep up on the news as well. This way, if the student shares incorrect information, or partial information, you will be able to share more accurate details about what is going on. When something happens that will be scary or traumatic to your students, such as a school shooting, remain calm and discuss how the safety protocols help to protect them.
Teaching about Current Events
Take time to discuss the news that the students share in the morning. During a presidential election year, you can use the time to discuss voting. After a natural disaster, you can teach about what an earthquake is, or what causes a tsunami. If you do not know the answers to your student's questions, take the time to teach them how to look up more information. Whenever appropriate, you can also spend class time allowing students to learn more about the information from the news.
If your students are old enough, they can put together a project about an interesting current event topic that comes up. For example, many students will be interested in the presidential inauguration, so teach them what happens during an inauguration and what the requirements are for becoming president. Have them write a report on the actual inauguration, discussing their observations and what they think about the process.
In response to traumatic events, you can have your students work together to create a project that will help them work through the issue. One first grade class at Materson Elementary School in Kennett, Missouri wrote September 12: We Knew Everything Would be Alright [Tangerine Press, 2002], in response to the tragedy at the World Trade Center in New York in 2001.
Encourage your students to become active learners in the classroom by bringing in knowledge and questions from the current news. Many news items can be used for teaching, learning and promoting an active learning environment in the classroom.
Learn more tips for teaching history.
 |
