Presenting Like Pirates #TLAP

Students had seen a few good #TLAP lessons throughout second semester and would continually mention how great those were.  Little did they know they soon would be given the charge to "Present Like Pirates".  I figured I would give students the option of researching topics that they were interested in around our water unit.  We ended up with the following topics of research:

Protecting Our Reefs High Tech Ocean Exploration Marine Endangered Species Greak Lake Invasives Water Wars WI Boating Laws Effects of Global Warming on H2O Dam Construction & Ecological Impact Aquifers & Water Supply Wells WI Aquifers & Water Supply Wells Africa WI Fishing Laws Waukesha H2O

Students were charged with the challenge of creating a lesson to teach these concepts to their classmates.  They had a template(proposal) to follow to guide their thinking.  An emphasis on this lesson was for students to demonstrate speaking skills, 21st century skills, and to engage their audience in their presentation.  You know as well as I do how boring days of presentations can become when they are lacking the engagement piece.  Often times we are guilty of this ourselves.  Throughout the process of students working on these projects, there were mini-lessons that were presented along the way.  For one activity, I played a Youtube video of Steve Jobs speaking, and asked students to pull out what he did to engage his audience and keep their attention.  Credit is given to @PaulSolarz for sharing his list of 21st Century Skills that he focuses on in his classroom.  I was able to pull a few for students to focus on.

Keys to this project were that:

1.  Topics were based on student interests.

Topics were proposed by the class and students names were drawn from a deck to give preference to topics.  This increased the level of engagement of students within the project because they were interested in what they were learning about.

2.  Students had complete ownership over their topic and presentation.

It was really exciting to see students thinking outside of the box and exhibiting creativity because they had complete ownership over what they were doing.  The only thing I had to outlaw was the use of water guns.  Students were also responsible for creating the rubric in which their speaking skills were assessed.  Students got feedback on the rubric prior to presenting and made necessary changes so that it was clear when I was grading.

3.  Students took the engagement piece to a whole new level.  When students asked how long it should take for their presentation, I told them that there was no limit.  Some groups presentations were close to taking the entire class period for their presentation.  The presentations that were done really well took a significant amount of time.  I saw students challenging each other on the engagement piece.  Groups dressed the part, created games, brought in treats and props, provided formative quizzes for their classmates, and most importantly HAD FUN while presenting!  One group started off the presentations and we were "fishing" in a Wisconsin Lake.  Other groups had us dive down to the depths of coral reefs to visit Nemo.

4.  Topics were relevant and current.
Students were asked to find at least two current event articles to relate to their topic that they were presenting and share what they found with the class.


5.  Students demonstrated 21st Century Skills and increased their awareness of speaking skills.
I asked students to choose skills to focus on that they thought were challenging.  This project also relied on a tremendous amount of collaboration as students had to communicate outside of class to make sure that loose ends were taken care of.  If students were using class time well I was more willing to give them extra time to work in class.  Most projects were presented via Google Presentation and students did an excellent job embedding relevant short video clips into their presentations.

6.  Students were responsible for giving feedback for each presentation.
Students were required to give feedback for every 4th presentation.  I typically have students do this on small slips of paper, collect, and I compile the feedback on the grading rubric.

Not only was this an interdisciplinary approach to learning, I also learned a few things myself about engaging the audience.