Thursday, August 25, 2011

Sample Lesson on Disarmament education

In modifying the sample lesson for a class of young adults taking Computer appreciation training, I’d make the learners focus on: -
 The monetary costs of armed conflicts;
 The negative effects of armed conflicts on the normal day-to-day lives of children c aught up in conflict areas.
 The psychological and physical trauma suffered by women and children in conflict areas

METHODS

Disarmament education could be integrated into a training session on the use of Internet search engines to source for information online.

Learners could be divided into groups to use acquired online search techniques. Each group would be assigned one or two of the following sub-topics on Disarmament education:
 At least 3 different definitions of Disarmament.
 List of at least 10 dangerous arms used in armed conflicts;
 Information/news on an armed conflict in Africa using Wikipedia;
 News pictures of armed conflicts sourced from online sites;
 Information on the effects of the armed conflicts on the lives of children in the affected areas (education, health, nutrition, Industries, Forced migration (internal and external),
 Information about global efforts on disarmament.

The learners will then be guided to learn how to copy information from WebPages (text/images) and then paste it into Ms Word to create a Conflict review report to be printed and bound. It will also be a good opportunity to teach the learners about copyright issues on the Internet.

Each group will then be guided to use the contents of its report to create an Ms PowerPoint Slideshow highlighting the key points of its research.

In-group discussions will have to be facilitated regularly to allow group members actively debate their various findings and thus comprehend the problems brought about by a militarised approach to conflict resolution.

By the end of the term/session, groups will then share copies of their reports with other groups.

The teacher to discuss the findings of all the groups should then facilitate a general class discussion session.

As the Moderator of such a session, I’d pick up highlights that are recurring in all the reports and throw up the main topics up for general class consideration.

I’d also try directing the sessions towards asking the learners to proffer suggestions on what they feel WE can do ensure our community does not experience an armed conflict.

The key points of the discussion sessions will be written down, used in creating an Ms PowerPoint Slideshow. The important parts used in shaping the tone for next discussions.

3 comments:

  1. Ibrahim,

    Great lesson! Students will learn the research skills you are teaching them for their computer studies along with valuable information about disarmament.

    Not sure I understand what students will be discussing in their groups while gathering information. Maybe I'm just not reading carefully enough.

    It seems that after they have all presented their information, that this would be a good time to further the project through discussion of various topics related to disarmament.

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  2. I mean guiding them to discuss the data they are gathering so that they don't just treat it as 'raw data" but as something they can they can construct meaning from and relate to.

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  3. Ibrahim,

    Thanks for the clarification. Should be a valuable lesson for students. I look forward to hearing how your lesson works out and what the students take away from/react to it.

    Gwen

    ReplyDelete

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This work by Ibrahim K. Oyekanmi (mallamibro@gmail.com) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.