Mini Lessons and Learning Cycle

I am a believer in constructivist teaching, and hands-on practice. Students learn by inquiry; they find out things on their own rather than by listening to a lecture how it is done. You don't need to favor this teaching method, but in order to accept or reject it, you should experiment with it a bit.

Today, we are going to model a Mini Lesson as an example for the ones each student is going to present.

This is the topic: the difference between "Me" and "My" plus -ing form. For example: Do you like my teaching? Do you like me teaching? Other examples from a teacher's instruction:

FINITE AND NON-FINITE CLAUSES

Finite clauses /sentences – finite verb forms, i.e. the verb is conjugated (past, present, future)
Non-finite clause – non-finite verb forms (no time aspect)
-ing clauses and infinitive clauses

Examples of non-finite clauses:

-ing clause with a subject:
Your changing the plan has caused a lot of trouble.
Do you mind me/my smoking?
I heard about Jim arguing all night.


Hint: you may use websites such as this one for help.

Your first task for this hour (and your homework for Friday, August 22nd, if you can't finish in class today) will be to create a Learning Cycle (LC) for an English class (grade level of your choice)about this topic.

This is an explanation of a Learning Cycle: LC


According to this model, a Learning Cycle consists of 5 E's:
Engage (you catch your students' attention to the topic)
Explore (the kids find things out by themselves)
Explain (students try to analyze the problem; you explain the rules to them)
Expand (kids get a different task to apply what they've found out)
Evaluate (you assess their comprehension)

Some people even suggest that a LC does not only have 5 E's, but 6! The mysterious number six is "E-search." Read the following article: http://science.nsta.org/enewsletter/2005-05/sc0411_47.pdf

Now, develop a lesson how you would teach the ME/MY grammatical issue to your audience, using all 6 E's, and email this lesson plan to me. You can make a separate heading for all 6 E's, and just say what you would do, and what the students would do. You are allowed to use the Internet for ideas. For the "explore" and "expand" part especially, you are welcome to do games or quizzes, etc. For the "evaluate" part, you should create a small test or quiz with sample questions. It should look user-friendly, depending on the age-group you chose - a handout you would actually use if you were the teacher of a class.

When you're done with this, here's your second task:

Post a short comment on this blog what you think about the Learning Cycle model. Originally, it was conceived for math or sciences classes. Do you think it is useful for English (or any language, or ESL) classes? Would you use it? Were you taught this way? Your personal opinion...