Thread: Seeking H. S., psychology and speech beginningl essons plans

I am amazed that your school would start the year without textbooks. What grade are you teaching? It's hard to identify appropriate lesson plans without knowing what your curriculum objectives are. Surely your school or district has curriculum guides that delineate what you're actually supposed to teach?

For $24.95 a year, you may join Lesson Planet which has 80,000+ K-12 lesson plans with curriculum corner guides and state standards.

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Are you near your university library? A lot of them have impressive curriculum sections. Best of luck to you. :wink:

Hello, my psy and speek/public speaking class are a mix of 10-12 grade. We have no texts in the building but geography and goverment texts. It is a charter School that is in trouble and may lose the charter if we are unable to make a significant difference this year! My population is 99% African American and their reading and math levels of the high school students is at about 5th and 6th grade according to last years MEAp results so you can see what a challenge we have ahead of us but I signed up to make a difference and I beleive that I would have the most impact here if only I had a starting point.

You're at a charter school and you have no textbooks or curriculum? You're also supposed to teach 10th through 12th grade public speaking and pyschology when most of these kids are on the 5th/6th grade reading level? And you have one year to make a difference?

Ouch.

I have to tell you that my impression is that your administration has really dropped the ball. I've been in situations where I've had to make do without textbooks but we've always had a curriculum in place to define instructional goals and objectives.

Without a curriculum how will you differntiate instructional objectives between one grade level and the next? How will you verify that there are no gaps in a child's education? How is a psychology course for 10th graders differentiated from a course for 12th graders?

Of the two subjects you've listed, public speaking should be easier to teach because it involves oral communication i.e. a demonstration of appropriate bodly language skills, presentation, articulation, flow of ideas, volume, eye contact etc.

Public Speaking

Here's a basic introduction from Instructional Strategies On-line to public speaking that includes a scoring rubric for the teacher:
[url]http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/DE/PD/instr/strats/oratory/[/url]

Here's a grade 7-12 language arts lesson for persuasive speaking from lesson tutor:
[url]http://www.lessontutor.com/dppersuasive.html[/url]

Here are seven elements of successful public speaking:
[url]http://www.instantspeakingsuccess.com/public-speaking-blog/2006/02/7-elements-of-public-speaking.html[/url]

Speaking skills lesson plans from one stop English:
[url]http://www.onestopenglish.com/section.asp?sectionType=listsummary&catid=59414[/url]

Time Traveler - Intergenerational Interviews
LESSON 2: What We Can Learn From Oral History
[url]http://www.learningtogive.org/lessons/unit179/lesson2.html[/url]

Inventing and presenting unit 3: Persuasive speaking and invention promotion, grades 6/7
[url]http://www.learnnc.org/lessons/readwritethink552005897[/url]

The Other Tall Tales Language Arts Lesson Plan, Thematic Unit ...
[url]http://www.lessonplanspage.com/LATheOtherTallTales-Comprehension612.htm[/url]

With regards to psychology:

Learning styles jig-saw activity:
[url]http://www.cloudnet.com/%7Eedrbsass/learningstylesjigsaw.html[/url]

Seven pyschology lesson plans from "The Educator's Reference Desk."
[url]http://www.eduref.org/cgi-bin/lessons.cgi/Social_Studies/Psychology[/url]

A lesson plan on human development from discoveryschool.com:
[url]http://school.discovery.com/lessonplans/programs/humandev/[/url]

A lesson plan for 11th/12th grades on classical conditioning from discoveryschool.com:

If you have access to computers in school, here's an on-line simulation about Pavlov's dog (classical conditioning stimulation) from Nobelprize.org:

Project Me, a self esteem unit, grades 8-12:
[url]http://www.col-ed.org/cur/misc/misc79.txt[/url]

Dynamics of Relationships, grades 9-12:
[url]http://www.col-ed.org/cur/misc/misc36.tx[/url]

A lesson plan for grades 9-12 in which students learn about Freudian theory:
[url]http://school.discovery.com/lessonplans/programs/dreams/[/url]

A lesson plan for grades 6-12 from education World in which students learn about stress and how to cope with its effects.
[url]http://www.educationworld.com/a_tsl/archives/02-1/lesson045.shtml[/url]
A 3-week unit for grade 12 on bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and multiple personalities. See the menu on the right for week-by-week lesson plans.
[url]http://urbandreams.ousd.k12.ca.us/lessonplans/psychology/index.html[/url]
[url]http://nobelprize.org/educational_games/medicine/pavlov/index.html[/url]
[url]http://www.eduref.org/cgi-bin/printlessons.cgi/Virtual/Lessons/Social_Studies/Psychology/PSY0002.html[/url]

Yes, I am in for quite a year but I have to look at like this - at least it's a job. Schools in Michigan, where I live, are laying off all over. The school is on the verge of losing it's charter due to the poor way it has been run and the little academic acheivement that has been shown over the past few years. The management company that was in place has just been bought out by a man named Dennis Bakke. We have a new administration in place and they are trying to get curriculum guidelines in place and add technology and resource materials for all classes. However due to the budget we are lucky to open our doors this year so we were told to hang in there for the first semester and come January they hope to have a better grasp on the school and our situation and begin to move us towards a bright future. These kids need us. Last year they had 34 out of 75 teachers quit or walk out during the school year. My students are so wonderful and I just want to be able to really help them and make a difference this year no matter how challenging it will be. I know if I hang in there next year will be better. I can't thank you enough for all the great links. I plan to begin surfing them right away!!!!!!!! If anyone else has any suggestion, please feel free to post - I am up for anything to get me started.