End-of-Semester Time Fillers for your Classroom, part 2
Just a few days left of the first semester and you’ve wrapped up everything you needed to get done. But what to do with the extra time? Here’s part 2 of our list of engaging and educational activities you can do with your students.
”On the Road” with Steve Hartman
“On the Road” with Steve Hartman is a regular feature of the CBS Evening News. Journalist Steve Hartman travels America meeting people and telling their stories. In November 2022, Hartman’s story introduced teacher Derek Brown, who uses “On the Road” segments in his classroom at the Alhambra Traditional School in Phoenix. Brown uses the segments to teach empathy and kindness and character, and as Hartman discovered, he’s one of many teachers who does so.
To celebrate the work Brown and teachers like him do, Hartman and CBS created a Facebook group called Kindness 101 for Teachers. The group shares lesson plans, success stories, and more, and it’s well-worth joining.
You don’t need to join the Facebook group to use these news segments in the classroom, though. Head to the main “On the Road” page at CBSnews.com (also available as a playlist on YouTube) and scroll through years’ worth of news segments you can show your students. After viewing the segment, you could lead a class discussion, have students write a reflective statement, or discuss how what students saw in the segment connects to the I.B. Learner profile. Which characteristics did they see? Is the activity from the news segment something that connects to Creativity, Activity, Service (CAS)?
Here are some of our favorite segments, organized by subject/IB subject groups:
Group 1: Studies in Language and Literature
Group 2: Language Acquisition
Group 3: Individuals and Societies
Group 4: Sciences
Group 5: Mathematics
Sorry, math teachers; there’s plenty on science in the available videos, but none explicitly on math. If you find one we missed, let us know!
Group 6: The Arts
Non-subject-specific, but high-interest for high school students