Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Semester Finals - Class Recap


Sunset over Waikiki Beach in Honolulu, Hawaii. It was a great year, everyone! Thank you for your hard work! Photo taken in 2011.

Hi everyone,

Today was our last day of class for the year! We had our final Israel-Palestine peace conference, reflection on the year, and also talked about life and what is coming up for a while. Here's what we did today in class:

Learning Targets: 
Communication LT 1: I can use language and style that is appropriate to the content area.
Critical Thinking LT 2: I can explain connections between events, issues, problems and concepts.
Knowledge LT 9:  I can explain demographic changes in the world and their effects.
Knowledge LT 19:  I can explain the impacts of nationalism and revolutionary movements. Knowledge LT 21:  I can explain how religious ideas impact the shaping of societies.

Soundtrack: "Thankful" by Kelly Clarkson. Selected for today because I always choose this song for the last day of class, since I am so thankful to get to teach you all. Thank you! Lyrics (some of which I read aloud in class) are here.

AGENDA 6/19/18:
News Brief/Summer Plans – Jaycee
Final Presentations
Discussion
Reflection/Adventure

Homework: Read the blog (if you want)! Have a great summer! Let me know if I can help you at any point in the future! I will be at the July 25 at 1:00 PM coffee shop meeting with Mr. Puterbaugh at the Barnes and Noble Starbucks in Tanasbourne, about summer reading (or anything else you want to), if you are going to that! See you in the fall!
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News Brief: Jaycee had the news brief today and selected an article about this story to talk about: AfricaNews.com - Nigeria to shut down border with neighboring country over poisonous rice. For the last time, we found Nigeria in the world map and noted this story. Thanks, everyone for doing this all year and getting better at geography in the process! In class, we tallied up the number of times we talked about the different continents throughout the year and talked a bit about why the news tended to be centered in a few different areas.

World Map Topics:

South America - 3

North America/Caribbean - 4

Oceania - 1

Africa - 14

Europe - 19

Asia - 11

Middle East – 25

We talked about why this might be and what we can do to continue to stay informed and engaged about the whole world.

We also watched the one minute BBC World News update. Here's the link to see the latest one minute update, at any time of day (it will probably be different from what we watched in class):

I talked in class about the importance of following the news and trying to stay up to date with what is happening in your city, state, country, and world. Knowledge is power! Try to stay plugged in to what is going on, if you can!

Final Presentations/Discussion: As promised, this was the Israel and Palestine peace conference. First, we had speeches and presentations (students that needed to demonstrate a Communication grade) that explained various aspects of the conflict and proposed possible solutions. We then had an in class discussion, first in small groups, and then as a larger class about the prospects for peace. Generally, I thought this was quite good, and students seemed to know their stuff. Thank you for your effort on this! I look forward to reading your papers, as well.

After the final project, as I alluded to all year, we played the Sporcle Country Game for one last time. Your final score as a class was 191 out of 197. Your class scored the highest out of all of my Global Studies classes this year! Thank you for playing!

Reflection: The last part to the final was a reflection short answer about how the year went in Global Studies - what you learned, what you will put into practice in your life, what you are wanting to study in American Studies or APUSH next year, and what you will remember five years from now. I look forward to reading these!

There is a fair amount of work involved in grading the finals, but the deadline to submit our grades is next Wednesday by 3:00 PM, as a heads up.

Adventure: At the end of class, I talked about having the spirit of curiosity in life and whatever you do - that could involve traveling around the world, or even just going to a local stream and exploring. I showed this video, which I've watched probably a hundred times or more to illustrate this - I hope it is as inspiring to you as it is to me, and a good reminder of so much of what we learned this year:


Thank you all so much for being so wonderful to work with. I truly loved teaching each and every one of you, and I hope you know that I care about you and want you to be successful in the future. Take care of yourselves and I hope to see you around! I am especially excited to be "looping" next year to teach American Studies to most of the class! Have a great summer! :-)

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