Active Learning

Well long time no blog. Life gets particularly crazy at times. I have two major assignments due this week. One is done the other has been procrastinated upon almost to death. I have it in my head and my school is on spring break, sooo more time is available for finishing up. Is that terrible or what? I mean, I don't want to know if my students do that when I am teaching them, I know they will.
Went to look at Harley Davidson motorcycles with my husband. He has always had a bike, (has never had a Harley) until the last few years and he's jones'n. He is so excited. We picked out one we could afford. We figure why pour our dollars into Chevron with no return on our money. I hate paying it out to the oil companies. We didn't make the purchase, giving ourselves a week to think about about it, but I can't see us not heading back to the dealer to finalize the deal Saturday.
Saw a movie "Code 48" Interesting futuristic love story. One line really grabbed me. The woman asks her love interest if he has children. He says yes and she asks him if the child is very special. Of course he responds that yes the child is special. She replies, of course all children are so very special. She then says how it is curious that all of these special children grow up to be such ordinary adults. I really liked that line.
Okay, what is active learning? I invision it as all parties involved participating in each other's education. I invision that prior to a lecture I would have my students bonepile. Bonepiling is introducing a subject and allowing the students to call out words or phrases that relate to the topic. At the point I have a proper bonepile I can see what we already know as well as what we need to know. I can then progress into the lecture. I do like the idea of breaking at strategic points to allow formulation of ideas the students can share at the end of the lecture, either in groups or classwide or both. This allows the students to teach me and their classmates. I also see as part of homework, that each student formulate one question on the study topic. I will then use these questions as well as my own for assessment purposes. This way each student can contribute what they feel is important about the lesson. It is good to know some techniques to enhance lectures, thanks Bernie. (I bookmarked the site you provided, it will be good for future reference.)
Time is just flying by.
I picked up an older disc from the Flaming Lips "Soft Bulletin". It has a couple of bug songs on it. I like that. I really like bugs, not all bugs just the beneficial type, like Praying Mantis. Once my husband, an intimidating looking man entered our local pharmacy. He said everyone looked at him with shocked expressions. He said he was used to people looking at him warily, but this was excessive. A young woman pointed to his shoulder. There was the largest Praying Mantis my husband had ever seen sitting on his shoulder. He smiled at the huge creature and calmly said, "I told you to wait outside." He then walked the creature out of the store. Everyone was pretty tickled about that. Me too.
Mean One out