Your Emerging Theory/Philosophy of Teaching
Complete this rating scale to find out if your beliefs about learning are consistent with those of behaviorism, cognitivism, or humanism.
The resources and lesson plans listed below were developed by Edmund Sass, Professor of Education, College of Saint Benedict/Saint John's University. They are organized by subject/topic (see index below). Anyone wishing to reproduce and use these materials for educational purposes is free to do so as long as they credit me and the web page source.
Site Index: Disability-Related, History, Language Arts, Learning, Minnesota, Human Development, Miscellaneous/Other
Disability-Related Lesson Plans and Resources
Speaking and Writing About People with
Disabilities
Ideas and a worksheet I use for teaching
about appropriate language (including people-first language)
for speaking and writing about individuals with disabilities.
Teaching About Intellectual
Disabilities/Mental Retardation: Ideas
for Classroom Activities
Two activities, complete with handouts,
that I use in my Human Development class (Education
203)
to teach college students (mostly second year) about mental retardation/intellectual
disabilities.
I believe the activities would also be appropriate for use at
the high school level, perhaps in a psychology class.
The Polio History Pages
No unit on the the history of disabilities or disease would be
complete without some mention of polio, the near hysteria
caused by the epidemics of the early 1950s, and the euphoria
that greeted the development of the Salk vaccine. Drawing from
my book,
Polio's Legacy: An Oral History,
this site provides excerpts from polio narratives,
a polio timeline, and information about the disease, its history, and late
effects.
A Polio History Quest
A set of 25 questions, complete with a
printable worksheet, coinciding with the information provided
within the Polio History Pages. It should be appropriate for
use with grades 5 and up.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Deception:
Was It Successful?
A secondary-level activity exploring disabilities
issues within the context of FDR's efforts to hide the extent
of his disability from the American public.
History
American Educational History: A Hypertext
Timeline
My latest Web project, this annotated, clickable
timeline of American educational history extends from 1607 to
the 21st Century. See the accompanying lesson plan/activity,
American Educational History: What's Most Important?
Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Disability
A secondary-level activity exploring disabilities
issues within the context of FDR's efforts to downplay the extent
of his disability from the American public.
WW II: The Other Americans
A multicultural World War II lesson plan I developed as an example
for my students.
German-American Internet Scavenger Hunt
A site I developed for Rocori Middle School German Day.
Language Arts
A Horse is a Hoarse, Of Course, Of Coarse
An intermediate-grade lesson plan using cooperative learning
to teach about homonyms/homophones.
Using Commas and Semi-Colons Correctly
A high school lesson plan based on an activity I use with my
college students.
Courage and Fear
A lesson plan using The Red Badge of Courage developed
as an example of confluent education.
Introducing
The Hunger Games
An excellent 9th-grade lesson plan submitted by one of the students
in my Educational Psychology class.
Learning
Your Emerging Theory/Philosophy of Teaching
Complete this rating scale to find out if your beliefs about
learning are consistent with those of behaviorism, cognitivism,
or humanism.
Faculty Psychology and "Formal Discipline"
A concise overview of this historically important view of human
learning.
Classroom
Motivation Activity/Lesson
An activity I used in my Educational Psychology Class. See the related handout,
Motivation: The 4
Factors.
Minnesota
Tracking the T-Wolves
An ongoing intermediate-grade activity
designed to take advantage of students' interest in professional
sports to help them learn about the first of the five themes
of geography: location, particularly the location of U.S. and
Canadian cities having NBA teams.
Minnesota History: A WebQuest
This 25-question WebQuest might make a
good extension or culminating activity for your Minnesota state
history unit.
The Minnesota Fish Quiz
Not a lesson plan, but this interactive, online quiz is a fun way to learn
about Minnesota fish species and may be just what you need to motivate the
outdoors-types in your classroom this spring.
Where in the World Is the
Northwest Angle?
A brief lesson plan in which students learn about
the Northwest Angle's location, history, and people.
Lake Agassiz
Would this lake have been the ultimate fishing spot? Read this
hypertext essay and decide for yourself. See the
Lesson Plan and Worksheet
developed for use with this essay.
Living in Minnesota!
Are you doing a state report on Minnesota? This is your lucky
day. I wrote this essay just for you!
Human Development
Erik Erikson's
Psychosocial Stages Activity
An activity I use with my human development class.
Freudian Jigsaw
Cooperative Learning Activity
Another activity I use in class.
Kohlberg's
Stages of Moral Development: Discussion Activity
An activity I used in my Human Development class.
Other/Miscellaneous
On Sisyphus and Teaching
Read my essay.
Centigrade and Fahrenheit: What's the Difference?
A multi-level, cooperative learning lesson plan for fifth-grade
science/math.
This
site is maintained by
Edmund J.
Sass, Ed.D.
You can reach him at
esass@csbsju.edu
Background courtesy of the Assorted backgrounds