Troublesome: Globalization

Yesterday, upon arriving back to class after spring break, I decided to give my students a little review sheet for bellwork.  When they had finished, and graded the sheet, I tallied up how many students missed each question in each class.

Most students did well - even thought they hadn't thought of school in over a week.  For instance, here are the numbers of students who missed a question about the British Empire in each class: 4, 1, 4, 5, 5, 3.

One question question (on human capital) came out like this: 3, 6, 3, 6, 14, 5.  So, I know I need to review with the class that had 14 students miss that one.

But two questions really stood out to me: one was on globalization, and one was on urbanization.

Here are the numbers: globalization:  17, 14, 20, 13, 19, 8.  Urbanization: 18, 21, 24, 15, 25, 19.

A SIGNIFICANT number of students missed those questions.  The globalization question is especially troubling, because we spent quite a bit of time covering it.  (...Although I didn't always tie the topics - such as cultural borrowing, cultural diffusion, etc... back to the term globalization.)

The two parts to globalization that students really need to know are world culture and international trade.  And even though they didn't get the answer on the test, my gut is they understand the concept.

The urbanization question had even worse results, but the students explained why they got it wrong.  I gave them a definition: "the increasing growth and spread of cities all all over the planet."  They had to come up with the term urbanization.

Several students pointed out that the definition I'd given them before was, "people moving to the city - usually for better paying jobs."

It didn't take long to point out that these definitions were essentially the same thing: if people move to the city for better paying jobs, what is going to happen to that city?  It's going to grow.

It's a continual struggle for teachers to get students to understand ideas and concepts rather than just memorize facts and definitions.

We've been studying Hinduism.  But, with ISTEP coming up, and the results of the globalization question on that review, I'm going to continue to review globalization while teaching Hinduism.

Today, we started in on a series by NPR.  It's worth checking out.  Here's what we watched today:

If you want extra credit for reading and discussing the blog with an adult, write a paragraph about your discussion.  Explain the two parts of globalization (world culture and international trade).  Have the adult you read the blog with sign the paper.  Turn it in tomorrow in the extra credit tray.

Stations! Stations, Everyone!

Ancient Civilization Quiz grades will be entered soon.  If students weren't here on Friday, they should make up the quiz on Wednesday.

Today and tomorrow we're working on stations.

In past years, I haven't done as good of a job as I've wanted reviewing throughout the year.  That changed today.  Around the room, I made 7 stations.  Students had a little over 10 minutes to complete each one.

Almost all of them focused on something we had studied earlier in the year.

Here's a picture from each

Station 1:  Globalization, Industrialization, Urbanization

Urbanization

We're still tying everything together, and looking at the pros and cons of globalization - and there are a lot of both.  We worked on understanding some of the terms that tie in to globalization:

• GDP
• Economics
• Interdependence
• Industrialization
• Standard of Living

...All things we've talked about before.  We added two today: developing nations, and urbanization.

To teach urbanization, I had students draw flowers on their bellwork.  They were in their groups, as they always are.  Each group represented a village, or town.  I told them I'd pay them in construction paper for the flowers they were drawing.  And I did.

But one group was a city.  They drew cars instead of flowers.  ...And I paid that group in Starburst.

At the end of the week, I offered students the opportunity to move to the city, if they wanted to.  Many, MANY students did.

Some students still did not move.  Maybe they liked drawing flowers more than cars.  Maybe they didn't feel like moving their desk.

This is like real life: maybe moving to the city is worth it to get a higher paying job.  ...But it may not be worth it for everybody.

Hopefully this sent home the idea that urbanization = moving to the city.  It usually happens because the person moving is looking for a higher paying job.

If you want the extra credit, tell the adult you're reading and discussing this with what you thought of the activity.  Then, when you're done, write a couple sentences from your discussion on a piece of notebook paper.  Make sure your name, date, and hour are on it.  Turn it in on Monday.

There are some pictures below the page break:

Urbanization & Industrialization

Yesterday Mr. Helmuth taught the concept of urbanization to the students.  They had the option to move into the city and have more employment opportunities.

There's a bit of a cycle here: as people would move to cities, factories would spring up in cities - drawing more people.

When a country moves from agriculture (farming) to industries (factories) we call this industrialization.

That's the term we gave students today.  They had some questions from a map for bellwork.  Here's the map:

After that, we took some notes depicting the play between urbanization and industrialization.

Mr. Helmuth even let me use my mad artistic skills for the notes today...  He's so generous:

I should probably put all the picture notes in here, but there's just not time.  And you're probably running short on time at home, too.

If you want the extra credit for reading and discussing the blog with an adult, find a scrap of paper.  Adults, ask the student what urbanization and industrialization mean.  Have them write their definitions down on a piece of paper.  Then, have the adult sign the paper.

Turn it in tomorrow in the extra credit tray.