Edmodo Lesson Plan...sort of

This lesson plan is coming a bit late, but here is the way that I think Edmodo could be useful in the classroom. I think it would be a bit of a stretch to call this a lesson plan, but it could certainly be used throughout the year to sort of mitigate difficult themes and help the students stay organized.

I just used Edmodo as a way to make material that was WAY too difficult for my kids a bit more palatable, but I would use this similarly as a way to provide supplemental learning opportunities for my kids based on themes we discuss in class. This does two things in that it provides information for me by providing me with test scores, and also I would be able to see which themes students are struggling with. Second, it would provide either review for kids who understand the material well, or clarification for students who don’t.

To provide incentive, teachers can make this into a competition while also helping students learn about complicated themes in a book. Here is what I did:

First, I had all of my students download Edmodo on their phones, and had them make an account. This is also a good ice-breaker, because you can have your kids make their profile pictures, show them how to use their backpack, etc.

****make them write down their names and passwords on flashcards and submit them to you! The first time I did this, most students forgot by the next class.

Next, I created lessons based around themes in each chapter of the book “Outliers” by Malcom Gladwell. After teaching the theme in class, I would provide my students with study guides as to where they could find important information in the book in a doc. And post it in the library. I also had them relate the theme we discussed to the chapter of the book. (Note that this particular class was EFL, so one objective of this style of teaching is to teach your students how to skim and annotate. This would probably need to be re-structured if you were planning to teach this class with the intent of critical analysis).

Then, I would post quizzes with deadlines for the students. Each question was worth one point, and the points for all of the quizzes would be accumulated and posted on a board in the room. This way, the kids could see how they were doing in comparison to the other kids around them. I also used this as a means to offer extra points and extra credit in the class. 2 weeks before midterms and finals, I would post review quizzes, which would review the content and themes in the book. But I also posted question type study guides, practice IBT reading passages, videos that could be summarized, etc. This way, even if a student felt that they didn’t want to engage in the competition, they could still find supplementary material that would benefit them. All in all, this is a pretty effective tool for promoting supplementary learning material and review.

One thing I would have incorporated is the use of the calendar. This would be a good opportunity to get in touch with all of the teachers at the school that teach a particular grade, ask them for their syllabi, and upload all the due dates. This way you are less likely to overcrowd them and you could even collaborate with the other teachers.