Honestly, what does Neolithic mean?

My student teaching will be spent with three World History courses. Great! There are opportunities for a lot of content, cooperating with other teachers, bringing in other cultures...I can't wait. There is just one tiny little problem, World History terrifies me.

During my four years of being a history major, I have learned a lot about history. American history. My background in World History is honestly weaker than my background in Calculus. I know the basic stuff, and I especially know the European stuff, but when you start getting into very early civilizations and non-western courses. It gets a little tougher for me. How in the world (see what I did there) am I going to get a set of class materials for this course?!

Today was my first day observing a world history course and within five minutes of being in the classroom, my worries died down a little. Mostly because I finally realized that classrooms now look SO DIFFERENT than when I was in school.

We did reading logs at home, averaging 30-60 pages of reading on our own. Then, we went to class where the teacher would run PowerPoints all class and tell us the material. This is so far from how it is done now.

The teacher only ran about fifteen minutes of PowerPoints. The he showed brief three brief videos, and then had the students doing a short activity. It was fantastic. They got the basic information through notes, and everything else through asking their own questions. I learned more about the Neolithic time period in that class than I had in 90 days at my high school.

It was amazing. Yes, I was observing, but in a way i was also a student. I was seeing this content for the first time in almost eight years, and it was easy to learn. It was so diversly presented, and quick. If a student doesn't enjoy videos, they only have to sit through three minutes before the class is onto the next thing. It was remarkable.

So, in concluision, in a 90 minute world history class today, I learned about the Neilothic time period, and how different the classroom looks today than when I was a high school student.