Teaching About Community with BrainPOP – A CBE Aha! Moment 4.19
Posted by cemignano on
Finding time to integrate new tools into an already packed curriculum can be a daunting task. As part of the Certified BrainPOP Educator process, we ask participants to identify their BrainPOP Aha! Moment and brainstorm ways they plan to improve past practices with BrainPOP’s tools to make them even better. We’re excited to share April CBE of the Month, Natalia Rasavong’s Aha! Moment and hope it will inspire you to identify your own BrainPOP Aha! Moment, as well!
1) Tell us your BrainPOP “Aha! Moment” from the certification process. What specific use or application of BrainPOP excited you during this course? How did it change your expectation for using BrainPOP in your teaching practice?
My big Aha! Moment is about all of the resources that BrainPOP has to offer. Third grade curriculum focuses on your community, your town, and your city. We study our city and the different parts of our community all year. We learn about the location, the population, the community helpers, the business and the government. Discovering all of BrainPOP’s resources opened a whole new world of potential for teaching about our community.
2) What is a specific lesson or unit you’ve taught in the past that you can re-formulate to bring in the new tools, features, or content you discovered through the CBE process?
Last year, I used many of the BrainPOP’s movies and quizzes but that was it. This time around, I’m going to create a class and add my students further giving me the ability to customize the quizzes from the movies for the kids.
I will also will use the Make-a-Map tool and games to accomplish a deeper understanding topics, and I will be able to check each student’s progress. I want to teach other educators in my district and building how to use all the other resources that BrainPOP offers.
3) How will you integrate BrainPOP’s new features and tools to replace what you’ve done in the past?
As a final project at the end of the year, I want my students to make a BrainPOP movie about our city using the Make-a-Movie tool. I think this will be a great opportunity for the students to bring all of BrainPOP’s learning resources together.
