Assignment One for Price's Class

1) What is the teacher doing/what role is the teacher playing?

In the above video, the instructor is attempting to teach the students about kamikaze pilots. Utilizing the strategy of modeling during a whole group lecture, the teacher "models" what a kamikaze pilot does during a battle. Attempting to liven up the lecture, the teacher plays the role of a kamikaze plane and "crashes" (dives) into an "enemy target" (a box).

2) What are the students doing? (Are they engaged?)

In the beginning of the video, you can see a student sleeping as the teacher explains what he is about to model. However, after putting on a helmet and diving headfirst into a box (to demonstrate the impact of a kamikaze plane), EVERY student in the class is paying attention and, most importantly, is enjoying the teacher's method of teaching. Of course, the objective for the demonstration was very simple (teach students that kamikaze pilots crashed their planes into enemy targets), but the students were very engaged and, because of this fact, I would bet that they will never forget what the objective of a kamikaze pilot would be.

3) What is the curriculum? (Implicit and explicit lessons)

Within the above video, the teacher is explicitly instructing the students on the role of kamikaze pilots (most likely as a part of WWII curriculum). In terms of the implicit lessons of the demonstration, by making the learning concrete and moving beyond simply lecturing, the instructor is implicitly teaching the students that learning can (and should) be meaningful and concrete.