Teaching topic lessons
All students in Module 5 teach in groups special Anglo-American studies lessons, which deal with topics of your choice about education, political life, minorities and immigration, religion, environment, the media, social issues, leisure time activities and sports, food, the arts, or other aspects dealing with American and British life and people. Your group chooses one of the chapters from Part II for background information on your topic and includes information about this chapter in the content thread. Of course you can and should use what you've learned in the M3 seminar as well as in all the didactic courses you've taken. Reports on didactic sources give you and your group a chance to warm-up in the first few weeks of the seminar before you teach your important topic lesson.

Content of topics lessons You must use the course material as your primary sources ideally combined with knowledge and insights you've gained in Britain and America and / or from your Module 3 seminar. Your topic lesson also includes specific information about didactic aspects and use at school. Other sources (including material and selected websites of your choice) are only possible AFTER you've consulted ALL course material. Remember to keep your audience in mind and try to choose content that will reinforce what we've learned in previous lessons / seminars or what we'll be experiencing in upcoming ones. Your topic lesson lasts thirty minutes. 

Deadline by the second Wednesday high noon: Decide together on a short name for your group (no more than twenty letters/spaces) that captures the content and helps us all remember what content you've chosen to teach us. Then open a thread with the name "1/2/3/4/5/6 x" (with your topic group number and x indicates your name with no more than twenty letters/spaces). Begin to answer in keywords as many of the questions listed below as possible.

• What did you find particularly interesting or surprising about your topic?
• How does the chapter from Part II of the course book supply relevant information about this topic?
• What information did you find in the course material (print and multimedia)? Only after providing detailed evidence that you have checked all these sources can you then share information you've gotten from other sources as long as you provide convincing justification for the reliability and usefulness of these sources.
• What do you consider to be especially important or relevant for German university students about your topic? 
• How could you imagine using what you found out in your near future (this AS course and other courses) or later (in your further studies, in your career)?
• Give as many examples as possible of the content that you've learned with Anglo-American Studies relevance (links to other seminar classes and lectures both past and future).
• Give as many examples as possible with audience relevance (content chosen based on what you expect your audience either is familiar with or would want to know more about).
• Which content aspects would be especially relevant for use at German primary and at secondary school types?

Consultations: Each group will be receiving feedback from all other groups in the workshop forum threads. We'll be spending some time in the seminar to discuss content and teaching method choices both as an entire seminar and also in groups. Depending on the semester schedule and the number of enrolled students and groups formed, we may also have time for 10-minute rehearsals in the first half of the seminar. For all seminars: All answers to the above questions must be completed at the latest by the Wednesday high noon in the week before your lesson is scheduled and follow the same guidelines as for the session summaries: all answers must be given in the text message box only - no text attachments - but can include photos or graphics attached.

Results of topic lessons:  We'll be discussing together the content and presentation techniques of your lesson immediately afterwards. In addition you can read the other topic groups' summaries and evaluations of your lesson and paper on the OLAT forum. The summary sessions at the end of the seminar will provide all students with the chance to review what they've learned from from each lesson and paper: using a content perspective and using a teaching and learning methods perspective. I'll be evaluating your session and will send the group my evaluation sheet after the session. You can share your evaluation with any other groups or the entire seminar if you wish.

Writing seminar research papers

The paper threads on the workshop and expert forums provide the framework for practice in creating a research paper.

Download paper tips to help you plan and organize your paper and choose the content.

Giving Sources: Your sources, both direct quotes and indirect information, must be cited giving exactly. If you do not cite all sources, you run the risk of failure due to plagiarism. I strongly urge all students to read the chapter on avoiding plagiarism in the Hodges' Harbrace Handbook to make yourselves aware of the seriousness of plagiarism. You should also read here the department policy on plagiarism as well as Marco's tips on avoiding plagiarism in Anglo-American Studies work.

Successful research papers make extensive use of the course material for content and the didactic sources we used during the seminar. Please critique any websites you use as part of your bibliography in the research paper using the following the six WWWWWW questions as a guide:

• Who or which institution published it on the internet?
• Why did the author(s) go through the trouble of publishing the site online?
• What did you find on the site that you couldn't find in other sources?
• Why have you as teachers used this site as a source for your lesson?
• When was the site last updated?
• When did you last access the site?

Please note: Just because web pages can be found on a government or on a university website is not sufficient proof of their reliability! You should also always give the date you checked the internet source since websites frequently change or disappear.This date (often given in the phrase "site valid as of ..." or "last accessed on..." after the address of each site) should not be more than one week prior to your lesson. I strongly recommend that you consult Part VII Research and Documentation of the Hodges' Harbrace Handbook for detailed information about using the internet before beginning your research. Research papers that make extensive use of websites and of non-accessible sources (out-of-print books not available in Anglo-American libraries, obscure books found only in foreign libraries) or sources in German with information that can also be found in sources in English risk failure.

Your work in the paper thread in the workshop and expert forums serve several purposes: 

• evidence of your ability to work together as a group to create an attractive and consistent research paper with a clear structure, useful and effective layout and graphics, a well-written introduction and conclusion, and a wisely chosen annotated bibliography 
• evidence of your individual choice of content and your awareness of seminar sources, your research work skills, and your use of language
• a service to your students by providing them with helpful information covered in your lesson, which they can use for their summaries of the session, and in preparation for your written module examinations.
  

You can read your fellow students' summaries and evaluations of your lesson and paper on the OLAT summaries of your session forum thread. We'll also be discussing in detail the mistakes and models as given in the OLAT forums during the important summary sessions at the end of the seminar.

Impressum / Disclaimer
2022.6.23