Jace Flores Student Teacher Blog

For my Microteach I decided to teach about the Articles of Confederation.

I started with a warmup asking the students to make their own set of laws as if they were leading their own newly independent nation. They could work with a partner or buy themself, and have some of the students share out what they wrote as a simple participation effort.

The next section was a historical lecture on the Articles of Confederation, starting with the background (namely what led to the outbreak of the American Revolution), then what the goals of the Articles of Confederation were, and ending with how the articles were implemented and eventually suspended and superseded by the Constitution.

The culmination of the lesson is a simulation where the kids would be divided into groups, with one group representing the federal government and the other groups being different states. Every group would be given objectives that they had to accomplish as well as parameters for how they could operate (particularly the Feds who are purposefully hamstrung). A state group would go up to the federal group and pitch their problem and possible solution, with the Feds having to try and resolve the issue while sticking to their parameters. The goal of the simulation is for the Feds group to deliberately fail in order to highlight how the Articles of Confederation were doomed.

After the simulation there would be another mini lecture breaking down in more detail why the articles failed and how that led to the Constitution.

Overall I think this microteach is a glimpse into a past sense of how I actually like to teach. My time at Freire has been quite illuminating on how to avoid lecture and emphasize group work over teacher-class work. However, I do think the creativity I have is evident in the simulation which if actually practice I think would have been quite fun. Unsurprisingly the content is quite good and I think any students who participated in it would have been quite informed and hopefully had a little fun even with the lecture emphasis for much of it.