"Not actually anything to do with wargaming..." Topic

But I am preparing to complete my Teachers Training Award, and have multiple sessions to plan.

I am aiming to do a micro-teach on The battle of Marathon, with slides and visual aids (30 minutes…) is it possible to do this, or should I focus on something smaller…

I have a five minute micro-teach – three slides, aim to cover the arms and armour of the Greeks and Persians.

and then A macro teach – this is the hardest as its a full hour and ten minutes, with no powerpoint, no slides, only a small flipchart, limited spend on resources etc. Different topic – (the whole of the first world war!) in 70 minutes….!

I have my own Ideas, but I am asking for other people to just throw out what they would do… (and don't suggest get a stiff drink or ten…)

There is more to it than that, but I am just asking for advice.

The first two should be feasible but 5 mins seems a bit pointless IMHO, what can you judge from that about a person's ability to teach. In my days of observing rookie lecturers in FE a good hour was the minimum session upon which to assess them.

I would certainly build in some interaction into the longest session. e.g. pose a question based on (say) the first 30 mins and then set up rival hypotheses and get the students to support or shoot them down – give lots of hints if they need them. Bit difficult to say what would be appropriate as I don't know the age/experience of the students.

Marathon would be great. It was not exactly huge, about 9 or 10 thousand Greeks and about twice as many Persians. The equipment was straightforward for the Greeks, but quite varied for the Persians.

And, of course, you have Pheidippides running back to Athens, yelling out "Nike" and dropping dead. The first recorded instance of a product placement.

This all sounds fine actually … agree with Gildas on the first two.

The longer challenge should be OK … just print out what would be your slideshow onto paper for the flip chart and turn it manually when you would click … (if you are slide heavy, you might want to simplify) …

As I'm sure you know maps and diagrams are very important in enabling people to follow what is going on re battles and campaigns … (make sure everyone can see them well enough … especially if people are assessing you )

Good luck

Phil

As a teacher I would suggest an attention span of 70 mins non stop is a lot to ask for depending on the pupil/ student age range. How about mixing it up with a bit of role play. The best quick explanation of ww1 I know if is the bar fight scenario doing the rounds on the internet. Maybe you could use This as a starting point role play game.

Hope it's a start

Maddaz,
I am an Instructor in a couple of areas (First Aid mainly) and understand the adult age learners.
I like the idea of your 5 minute and 30 minute teaches. This seems to flow together if it is the same candidates. Your Macro teach is ambitious! You will have to start at the point understanding that your audience has no prior knowledge and getting all the why's and where's over in that time could prove challenging. It would use your 70 minutes up in you standing talking at the candidates and you would lose them I believe.
Use a smaller campaign/war and build in some audience interaction. Napoleons campaign in 1815 and the battles leading to and ending in Waterloo may be something that could be used?

Design your long (70 minute) presentation like a one-act play. Develop the script/story and make it interesting. Find a hook to catch the audience's attention and reel them in. USE your chalkboard! It's the original PP system.

I have a 3-hour dog & pony show I take to the middle schools and elementary schools about Maine and the Civil War. Here in Maine, the 5th grade & 7th grade get Maine history and also US history, so when they are on the ACW period, I come in for a half-day's presentation. I bring props and use a chalk board, and that's pretty much it.

If the school doesn't want to do that long a presentation, then I can also scale it down to an hour, but anything less than that isn't going to get the major points across that the kids need to be exposed to.

You can do this.

Should have said that the macroteach is to a paying audience… and they want the first world war, causes, battles, trenches, armistice, maximum two props, four pages of flowchart, no slides, no music, only one/two sides of handouts, mixed ability and age adults returning to learning.

In 70 minutes. (And I am being assessed…)

And for flowchart it's obviously flip chart… Damn you auto correct..

This may be a blinding glimpse of the glaringly obvious, but…

If your limited to one page for handouts and assuming you can use both sides, one side definitely needs to be a map of Europe with the combatants color-coded by allegiance.

Re the Great War: I have been reading several books about the opening battles. It seems that Serbia was a country with government links to terrorist patriotic groups. Serb politicians had been assassinated for not toeing the patriotic line. The intelligence service was working directly with some terrorist groups and acted without the overview of the political leaders of the nation. The patriotic groups actively campaigned against their country's larger neighbor. Sure sounds like Pakistan to me.

But that may be going a little far afield. Pakistan has not yet been accused of running a team of assassins against their larger neighbor's leading politicians.

Yes, the hand out might be a map in colour, with pictures of the protagonists. They have not said how big the hand out needs to be.. so perhaps folded a3 to look like a newspaper…

Maddaz111:
On the flip chart's pages write in big bold letters:
1) "MANIA" Causes of WWI (Militarism, Alliance System, Nationalism, Imperialism, and Assassination).
2) Mobilization. Trains and Victory in the West.
3) Multiple Fronts and Military Plans.
4) Maneuver and the Marne.
5) Mud, Mining and Misery (trench warfare and life).
6) Mutiny Maybe (the Battle of Verdun)
7) Marching to Massacre (the 3 X Ypres and the Somme).
8) Machines and Miasma – Gas, tanks, airplanes, U-boats, Sound-location etc.
9) Manufacturing or Medicine (Women in WWI)
10) Merchant Marine and Concrete Ships
11) Marxism, Masses Revolt and Make Peace – Bread and Peace.
12) 'mericans Arrive.
13) Mighty Middle Made Meek
14) Embargo and Blockade.
15) Misguided Mistakes – Versailles.
16) Meetings of Minds – the League of Nations.
17) More to Come – the roots of WWII.
18) Mnemonic Memory.
Its m'm good.
Cheers.
Rod Robertson

vtsaogames said:

Re the Great War: I have been reading several books about the opening battles. It seems that Serbia was a country with government links to terrorist patriotic groups. Serb politicians had been assassinated for not toeing the patriotic line. The intelligence service was working directly with some terrorist groups and acted without the overview of the political leaders of the nation. The patriotic groups actively campaigned against their country's larger neighbor. Sure sounds like Pakistan to me.

I would refer you to this:

"One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans (1888)."
― Otto von Bismarck

I'd start by trying to find out what the students already know. Some may have a lot of prior knowledge, some little or none. Structure activities around collaborative inquiry; start with the big questions, use groups and , if you have them , the students who have prior knowledge. Teacher as facilitator and guide. They can Google anything they need to know the job of teachers these day is to help them discern what is worth knowing.Good luck!

Get Gary Sheffield's latest book on the First world War its short, with easy sections on the main points and best of all it covers the current areas of debate amongst historians.

Also: Michael Howard has a Very Brief Introduction to WWI which is excellent at about 100 pages. It's available on Kindle.