Megan and I did our collection on Hinduism. We selected some awesome videos that showed Indian culture and Hindu religious ceremonies. Although the videos did excellent job demonstrating how Hindu beliefs influence the culture, they were fairly long and may not grasp the attention of students for long periods of time.
I think the best way to incorporate these videos would be to play short clips and then to ask students questions about the film. By stopping the video and engaging the students, the teacher is better able to guide the students in their thinking and learning. Furthermore, I was hoping to find a podcast of someone directly reading Hindu scriptures. Maybe I am bad at searching, but I could not locate any. It would be awesome to have students hear the Vedas spoken rather than read.
If this lesson were part of a religion unit or being taught along with Buddhism, it would be good to have students observe the similarities and differences of each. Teaching tolerance has a great lesson idea that asks students to compare religions and analyze how religious interpretations of an issue (women's roles, marital equality, etc) change over time.
If I were teaching this lesson along with Buddhism, I would assess students' understanding by asking them to first complete a Venn diagram comparing the two religions. Now that the students have the basic differences between the two, students could work in small groups and create either a podcast or powerpoint that elaborates on what the students filled in on their diagram. For instance, one of the differences between Hinduism and Buddhism is that Hinduism, unlike Buddhism, has no founder of the religion. On a Venn diagram, this would be expressed simply: "no founder" on the Hinduism side and "founded by Siddartha Gautama" on the Buddhism side. The class can come together as whole during discussion and create a master Venn diagram for the class so everyone has the same resource.
Of course, this simple discrimination of facts is an incomplete assessment of the students knowledge. The teacher can then divide the class into small groups of 3 or 4. Each group is assigned a few details from the Venn diagram and then has to elaborate on them via powerpoint presentation or podcast. For instance, group A is assigned founders of the religion. They could create an amazing powerpoint discussing the evolution of Hinduism that discusses how various gods came to be worshipped. Students could include Hindu images of the Gods and cold discuss common misconceptions in Buddha's appearance.
Furthermore, since each student in the class needs to be responsible for knowing the information provided by each group, the teacher could provide a note taking worksheet that students complete as they observe their classmates presenting. The teacher could also instruct students to post their presentations on the class website so the rest of the students can access the materials to study.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
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Sounds like you found some good podcasts. When I was studying world religions in high school the most my teachers ever did was give comparison charts based on descriptions in the text book. By using videos and podcasts, students can get a better grasp of what it means to be Hindu or Buddhist and what their religious ceremonies look like. Maybe if you had Hindu or Buddhist students in your class they could share an object/outfit/picture that is important to them in their faith. Then the other students will realize that people in their own community practice these faiths and not just people halfway around the world.
ReplyDeleteI think stopping the podcasts and explaining why each section is important is crucial in effectively using podcasts in a lesson. We were all students once; we know that people tune out when they are listening/watching to the same thing for an extended period of time. Maybe having students choose a podcast on a topic and then present it to the class would be good? This would promote inquiry learning and students would definitely take ownership in their presentation.
ReplyDeleteThis idea seems great for a religion or culture lesson! I too was worried about using the podcasts to the point that the students were bored with the material so the idea of stopping it and only showing short clips is great! Having these podcasts and other resources will help students to have a better understanding of the religion and culture which I think is very important for teaching!! :-)
ReplyDeleteI think Hinduism is a topic that students may have heard of, but are not quite aware of what it means. I think that doing a lesson and incorporating video clips will help increase inquiry learning, and force students to pay attention. Also, I think you and Alexis did a great lesson today in Practicum and would do well to incorporate those practices and strategies into more lesson on Hinduism.
ReplyDeleteI think showing short clips and then discussing the information shown is a great way to keep the students engaged. Like Louisa said, we've all sat through long movies and remember dazing off. That strategy is a good way to remedy that. I also agree with Elizabeth about Hinduism being a topic heard off but almost never understood. I think people have their own preconceived notions, so teaching about it impartially will ultimately, in my opinion, teach understanding and awareness.
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