One strategey that has worked for me with video classes is to start with an opener. This can be a riddle, an optical illusion, a cartoon, or interesting anomaly. This is also a good way to set the stage or connect with background knowledge and experiences. Here are some ideas to share. Please add to the list!
- Start with a video clip. The clip should relate to the day’s objective or the ongoing process of building science process skills. I also like to show clips of famous scientist. Teacher’s Domain has fantastic resources for lesson intros and content. Brain Pop has some great free clips and a reasonable subscription rate. Of course You Tube has a cornucopia of resource if you can find them quickly (or have access)
- Interesting fact or a Why Question How Stuff Works is are other great source to start with. You could also challenge kids to judge the credibility of web page claims and teach them how to critically choose sources. The tree octopus is a fun one to start with.
- Telling Stories. Relate the day’s objective to a funny or interesting story, myth or anecdote
- Symbols, Metaphors and Analogies . Gather an assortment of objects or pictures that are good analogies for your current objectives. Challenge the students to explain why this is a good analogy and why its a poor analogy.
- Metaphors and Analogies.
- Cartoons. What’s the punch line? Why is this funny? How does this relate to our lesson
- Writing prompts. Ask the students to write about your opener. What would you like to know? This topic reminds me of? It’s interesting because….? You can also use writing prompts or graphic organizers to help think about your opener.
- Riddles and puzzlers and optical illusions- You can find these by searching in google. Here’s and example of a site I use. Here is an example of optical illusions that some students have put together. Another good site is pzzls.