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Thank you for participating in TIRP service-learning outreach!
Your reports are the basis for academic credit. Whether or not you are seeking a credit option, reports are required as a record of your teaching complex issues in local schools.
1. For each report, select Post Reply. (Do not select New Topic)
2. Copy/paste from your Word file and save a copy until after the semester is over.
3. Before pasting, confirm that you have met the minimum of at least 500 words.
4. Each report must be submitted within 3 days after each session.
Remember:
a. The webboard is public. Do not refer to students by name; instead call them Student A, B or C. If you include names, commentary or observations, you will need to revise your post.
b. Guiding questions for reports are provided in section F of the Requirements & Guidelines.
c. If you include too much focus on the step-by-step process of the lesson rather than content, you may be asked to revise your report.
A CALIS staff member will review your report each week and post a message below of the scoring for your performance evaluation.
We welcome any questions or concerns you have about scoring.
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Session 1
On time: 3/3
Substantive: 6/6
Student specifics: 6/6
Total: 15/15
Excellent first report, Madeline! It is clear your team did a great job preparing for your session and made sure to maximize what the students got out of it. I also appreciated your student specifics, particularly when describing the mini-debate! -CT on 9/28
Session 2
On time: 3/3
Substantive: 6/6
Student specifics: 6/6
Total: 15/15
Great report, Madeline! Way to encourage the students to consider all perspectives of such a controversial issue! -CT on 10/6
Session 3
On time: 3/3
Substantive: 6/6
Student specifics: 6/6
Total: 15/15
Another great report, Madeline! Your team is doing a great job of having the students look at both sides. I also like how you had the students evaluate US climate policy at the end! -CT on 10/12
Session 4
On time: 3/3
Substantive: 6/6
Student specifics: 6/6
Total: 15/15
Great work this semester Madeline! I think your team did a great job connecting the ideas from all of your sessions to conclude your work with this class. And I'm glad you took the time to do a mock election--sounds pretty fun! -CT on 10/18
Monday morning my TIRP team and I visited a 12th grade U.S. Government class at the California Academy of Math and Science to teach them about competing perspectives and election issues. We assumed that this would be a relatively new topic for the students, so my team and I focused on creating a lesson plan that would be a good introduction to the subject. This included choosing a lesson that introduced the main ideas behind popular political ideology and parities in the United States. Our learning objective for the class was to show them the competing perspectives in American, and global, politics and how to overlap and differ.
We began the class period with brief introductions of ourselves and then distributed the first worksheet to the students. From here, we each explained one of the three political ideologies – liberal, conservative, and libertarian. We also defined some important terms and concepts such as international relations, political science, government intervention in the economy, free-market, civil liberties, etc.
We then did a practical application as a class to make sure the students understood what we had taught before we moved into smaller groups. Students then decided where along a number line each philosophy would fall on certain issues – government intervention in the economy and culture, and the providing of social services. One student, Student A, quickly answered the first question by saying that the conservative view would rank low on government intervention in the economy because they favor a free-market.
After finishing the first activity, my team and I split the class into smaller groups of about four students. Each group was given a political party to read about and to summarize what their views were in three main ideas. We gave them about ten minutes to read and discuss as a group before we circulated and talked to each of them. We then spoke to all the groups and helped to answer questions, mostly on vocabulary.
Once they were done discussing and we had talked to all the groups times, we regrouped as a class and shared our answers. We asked for volunteers to help us rank on a number line on the board where the parties would fit in. Student B said in term is cultural intervention by the government, the libertarian party would rank the lowest, with the peace and freedom party not far behind. The rest of the class agreed with their reasoning and we moved onto the next question. The question regarding social service programs sparked some debate. Many students gave conflicting answers and explained their reasoning to each other and us. One student, student C, was very adamant that the peace and freedom party would favor the most social services. Based on her reading, she said it was a “dead giveaway” because of their socialist leanings.
By the end of the class, we felt that the students now had a much better understanding of the views that dominate political parties today. We concluded by answering any other questions the students had, which were mainly college related, and introduced the topic we will be covering for the next session.
Our first class felt like a success as the students were giving well thought-out answers and were actively participating throughout of class. Mr. Almeida seemed very pleased with the session and my team and I are looking forward to returning.
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Session 2:
Monday morning my TIRP team and I visited a 12th grade U.S. Government class at the California Academy of Math and Science High School to teach them about competing perspectives and election issues. Our last TIRP session gave the students an overview of different political ideologies and views on the role of government. For this class, we decided to do a more in-depth look at each major party’s candidate and their policies on the issue of immigration. We assumed that this would be a relatively new topic for the students, so my team and I focused on creating a lesson plan that would be a good introduction to the subject.
We began the class period with a brief review of our last session and then distributed the first worksheet to the students. From here, we each explained the concept of the four worlds chart in international relations and gave an example in each world. We split the students into group and then has them brainstorm more examples or elements of immigration that fit into every world. We asked the students for their answered once we regrouped as a class and we were very impressed with their answers. Group A thought that security and border issues would be major players in the political world, while another student, brought up the idea of resource depletion and a strain on the economy from immigrants.
We then assigned half the class to read Clinton’s position and the other half to read Trump’s. They were then supposed to discuss their assigned candidate’s policies on immigration and summarize their overall platform. Then, as a class, we wrote their policies under the categories of citizenship/undocumented, administration/enforcement, border security, deportation/detention, and restrictions/refugees. The class was very active in their participation of making this chart.
Once the chart was laid out on the board, we asked the students whether they liked/agree with or disliked/disagreed with each policy. Most of the students generally agreed with Clinton’s stance on immigration issues and give her a plus sign, while many of Trump’s policies were unpopular. We asked the students to argue for both sides of each policy – playing devil’s advocate – and some strong arguments were made that made student reevaluate their positions. One student brought up the fact that defunding sanctuary cities would alleviate tax burdens and that ramping up law enforcement in the area of immigration would be a good thing. Another student argued that while they personally felt empathy for immigrants, the laws are the laws and should be followed – people here illegally are here illegally.
By the end of the class, we felt that the students now had a much better understanding of the differing policies on immigration within the United States. We concluded by answering any other questions the students had, and introduced the topic we will be covering for the next session.
Our second class felt like a success as the students were giving well thought-out answers and were actively participating throughout of class. Mr. Almeida seemed very pleased with the session and my team and I are looking forward to returning.
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Session 3:
Monday morning my TIRP team and I visited a 12th grade U.S. Government class at the California Academy of Math and Science High School to teach them about competing perspectives and election issues. Our last TIRP session gave the students an in depth view on the two main candidate’s policies towards immigration. For this class, we decided to do another in depth look at each major party’s candidate and their policies on the issue of climate change. We assumed that this would be a relatively new topic for the students, so my team and I focused on creating a lesson plan that would be a good introduction to the subject.
We began the class period with a brief review of our last session and then distributed the first worksheet to the students. From here, we each asked the student to explain to us the concept of the four worlds, which we had gone over in our last session. We split the students into group and then has them brainstorm some examples or elements of climate change that fit into each world. We asked the students for their answered once we regrouped as a class and we were very impressed with their answers. Group A thought that the change to eco-friendlier energies is often an expense endeavor would make it fall into the economic world. Another group talked about how climate change is effecting the cultural aspects of groups of people, like Native Americans or coal mining communities.
We then assigned half the class to read Clinton’s position and the other half to read Trump’s. They were then supposed to discuss their assigned candidate’s policies on climate change and summarize their overall platform. Then, as a class, we wrote their policies under the categories of clean energy, oil usage, carbon pricing, and international commitments. The class was very active in their participation of making this chart.
Once the chart was laid out on the board, we asked the students whether they liked/agree with or disliked/disagreed with each policy. Most of the students generally agreed with Clinton’s stance on climate change issues and give her a plus sign, while many of Trump’s policies were unpopular. We asked the students to debate for both sides of each policy though, and some strong arguments were made that made student reevaluate their positions. One student brought up the fact that drilling in the US would alleviate our dependency on foreign oil and that the Keystone Pipeline would be very beneficial in creating jobs.
We then asked the students where, on a number scale 1-10, did the United States fall on our current climate change policies. Most responded within the 2-5 range We then asked them what it would take to move that number to a ten. Students said that we needed to increase our use clean energy, reduce our overall carbo emission, and increase research into new energy sources.
By the end of the class, we felt that the students now had a much better understanding of the differing policies on climate change within the United States. We concluded by answering any other questions the students had, and introduced the topic we will be covering for the next session.
Our third class felt like a success as the students were giving well thought-out answers and were actively participating throughout class. Mr. Almeida seemed very pleased with the session and my team and I are looking forward to returning.
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Session 4:
This Monday morning my TIRP team and I visited a 12th grade U.S. Government class at the California Academy of Math and Science High School to teach them about competing perspectives and election issues. As this was our last session, we wanted to give the students a recap of our last sessions – an overview of the differing political beliefs in the US and in-depth looks at Clinton’s and Trump’s policies toward immigration and climate change – and tie them into our last lesson and the idea of competing perspectives and election issues as a whole. Our learning objective for this specific class was to show the students how political culture influences policy preferences, but on a whole, to inform them on the competing perspectives in this election American.
We began the class period with brief reintroductions of ourselves and then distributed the first worksheet to the students. From here, we asked the students to tell us what we did in our last three classes and more importantly why we studied these topics. After discussing this for a bit, we turned towards introducing the students to the idea of political culture. We asked them to define it for us and one student said that culture is like a group of people with similar beliefs and customs, so it would make sense if political culture dealt with people’s beliefs about politics. We then gave the class an official definition - a set of attitudes, beliefs and sentiments that give order and meaning to a political process and which provide the underlying assumptions and rules that govern behavior in the political system.
We then explained to the students the idea of the political culture continuum and the varying levels of government interference in the economy, making sure to tie this back into the lesson on political parties and government acting as a balancing-act. We then had the students work on filling out the continuum with the example of plastic grocery bags. They were given about ten minutes to read and discuss as a group before we circulated and talked to each of them. We then spoke to all the groups and helped to answer questions.
Once they were done discussing and we had talked to all the groups times, we regrouped as a class and shared our answers. We asked for volunteers to tell us where they placed letters A-F. The students were spot on with their answered and told us where each letter belonged based on its level of market intervention. We then asked them which policy they favor, and which policy the major presidential candidates would most likely favor. One student said they support a complete ban on plastic bags because they are harmful to the environment and it is the government’s job to protect the environment, whereas another student supported incentives to start using reusable bags because he felt a full ban would be impractical.
After discussing their opinions and answers regarding the presidential candidates, we held a mock election. After discussing some of the candidates polices in depth, we felt that the class represented a well informed electorate and should have the opportunity to vote. The overwhelming majority chose to vote for Clinton, while Trump, Stein, and Johnson all got 2-3 votes.
By the end of the class, we felt that the students now had a much better understanding of the views that dominate political parties today and how political culture is important to our political system. We ended the lesson with about 10 minutes to spare, so we concluded by answering any other questions the students had, which were mainly college related, and thanked them for being such a great class.
Our four-week plan felt like a huge success as the students were giving well thought-out answers and were actively participating throughout all the class periods. They seemed to really enjoy our lessons and learned a lot throughout the process. Mr. Almeida seemed very pleased with the sessions and my team and I had a great experience with TIRP this semester!
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