Summary
In the past, in my face-to-face classes, I have given a lecture (albeit an interactive one, which is my style) on Anglo-Saxon history and culture to provide background for our first unit on the texts of this time period. In order to allow more time for discussion and examination of the texts, I have added sound to my Prezi of that lecture, allowing students to view and listen to it prior to class, allowing me to focus on important points more quickly before moving into the texts themselves. This, of course, is a form of flipped classroom in which students are responsible for preparing material outside of class. In addition, by recording this lecture on Prezi, it allows students to control the speed at which they go through the presentation as each slide is controlled by a click. This resource serves well for my online course as well.
Rationale
TED-Ed is an initiative supported by the TED nonprofit. As its web site indicates, “TED-Ed’s commitment to creating lessons worth sharing is an extension of TED’s mission of spreading great ideas…This platform also allows users to take any useful educational video, not just TED’s, and easily create a customized lesson around the video. Users can then distribute TED-Ed lessons, publicly or privately, and track their impact on the world, a class, or an individual student.” Lessons can be created around any TED video or any YouTube video. Links can also be embedded in the instructions, which is what I chose to do with my Prezi, linking the video to The Saga of Biorn, a relevant video also within the Prezi. TED-Ed then allows the creation of up to 15 multiple choice or open-ended questions. I chose to do open-ended questions as I am more interested in my students’ interpretations, rather than any “right” answers. At the end, there is the option to create discussion threads, and I created two threads to allow students to communicate and collaborate with each other on the “larger” issues of conversion and the transition from oral to written literature. To complete this lesson, students will need to create a TED-Ed account, but the effort is minimal as only the first and last name, an email address, and the country of residence are required to set up this account. Once set up, this tool could be utilized more than once throughout the class, thereby maximizing its use. In addition, the platform tracks student responses and activity for the instructor, simplifying assessment. The interactive nature of the TED-Ed platform makes for a visually appealing and engaging method for disseminating information as well as checking for completion and understanding of the material (in a semi-flipped model). It also simultaneously allows for focused discussion on chosen topics.
Learning Outcomes
Students will be able to:
articulate the major historical events leading up to and through the Anglo-Saxon period;
articulate the reasons that the phrase “Dark Ages” is not accurate; and
articulate the effects of the Christian conversion on Britain and especially on early British literature.
Assessment
Students will be assessed through an online question and discussion tool (provided by TED-Ed, which will be discussed in the next section on Digital Content as the web content that integrates into this lesson) and will earn up to ten points towards their Wiki Activities grade.
Activities will be awarded points based upon the following scale.
10: Complete, follows instructions, thorough, obvious evidence of investment in activity
8-9: Complete, follows instructions, mostly thorough, solid evidence of investment in activity
6-7: Complete, although perhaps missing some instructions, very little evidence of investment in activity
1-5: Present, but almost no evidence of investment in activity, little more than name
0: Did not complete
Student Instructions
Access Unit 1: Anglo-Saxon Lesson and follow instructions.