During class today, my group worked on our culminating project for our proposed unit: The Road to Revolution. For this project, we decided to incorporate both a timeline activity with a Jigsaw activity. Students would be divided into three groups: pre-Revolution, during the Revolution, and post-Revolution. Each group would become "experts" about their assigned portion of the American Revolution. Once the entire timeline was completed, students would learn from each others work.
The creation of a timeline uses different modes of thinking to exhibit the students overall knowledge of the unit. It displays the students' understandings of content knowledge, as well as their abilities to work collaboratively with peers. The creation of a timeline also accounts for the various ways that students learn. Visual, auditory and kinesthetic learners all will benefit from this type of project.
Below is the format for our culminating project!
VI. Culminating Project
Climb the Ladder to American Independence (Timeline Activity)
Description: Students will engage themselves in summarizing their discoveries from this unit to create a timeline of events. The timeline will cover events from the unit: Pre- American Revolution, during the American Revolution, and results of the American Revolution. They will be able to formalize what they know and understand the events in a new way. They can extract information from direct instruction lessons and apply it through an inquiry-based project. The project will presented to their peers in other fourth grade classrooms.
Time needed to complete activity/project: 40 minutes
Goals: (might be several as this is the result of learning of the whole unit):
1. Students will develop an understanding for content of colonial life culture in which they will explore, make observations, make predictions, and make generalizations.
2. The students will understand the meaning of vocabulary words and identifications.
3. Students will research topics related to the American Revolution and will present their findings to the class by providing details.
4. Students will show a willingness to consider other points of view before drawing conclusions or making judgments, suggest alternative solutions or courses of action, evaluate the consequences for each alternative solution or course of action, prioritize the solutions based on established criteria, and propose an action plan to address the issue of how to solve the problem.
5. Students will identify the main concepts of the events leading up to the American Revolution, the American Revolution itself, and the results of the American Revolution.
Objective: Given a list of events pertaining to the American Revolution and access to research materials, students will create a timeline at 80% accuracy (at least 4 of 5 events).
Task: Students will work collaboratively to create a timeline. To do so, students will need to share their opinions while respecting the opinions of others, make group decisions and communicate effectively to convey content information. Three groups will be created to address the events leading to the American Revolution, events during the American Revolution, and events following the American Revolution. By dividing the groups, the students will be participating in a Jigsaw-like activity. Each individual group will be an “expert group,” who will in turn, teach their peers about their particular topic. This will expand on their current knowledge and reinforce their learning.
Role and Purpose: This type of activity can be beneficial to students because it allows students “simultaneous access both to sufficiently long-term perspectives to see change as a process rather than an event, and to a close-up view with enough detail for them to understand what change actually meant for those living through it” (Vella, 2011, p.16).
Audience: The students will present their timelines to their peers in other fourth grade classrooms. This will encourage students to create higher quality work. The timelines will then be hung in the hallway for passing students to explore.
Materials:
- list of events related to the American Revolution
- construction paper
- lined paper
- markers/crayons/colored pencils
- glue/tape
- books/articles/computers/smartphones/iPads (for research)
Use of Technology: A powerpoint presentation will be shown briefly using the SmartBoard. Technology such as computers, smartphones, or iPads will be used by students in order to research specific events.
Assessment (Summative) Rubric: A rubric will be used to assess student work at the end of this project. Students will be assessed on their collaborative work skills, if they completed at least 4 out of 5 of the events for their topic, their neatness, spelling, punctuation, and accuracy.
Accommodations: Students with difficulty concentrating/staying on task will be seated closer to the front of the room. This will allow teachers to be closer to these students to provide additional support. Technology can be used to keep these students on task in the form of the “Helpful Hints” listed on the powerpoint presentation. This will serve as a constant reminder for students to the task at hand. Additionally, students can be called up to the board to record their findings. This way, the students are on motivated to stay on task and can be out of their seats in a productive manner.
Students with language disabilities will be given verbal instructions from the teacher. The teacher will also check that the student is completing the necessary assignments more frequently during the lesson.
Generalizations: After completion of this unit, students will formulate generalizations in regards to the American Revolution.
In regards to Colonial and Revolutionary periods, students will be able to compare colonial life to other time periods, observe and speak about different types of daily activities, understand the ways that colonists depended on and modified their physical environments, explain colonial governments and economy, the causes and important accomplishments.
In regards to The Revolutionary War in New York State, students will be able to locate New York state, explain the significance of the state’s location/explain geographic features that influence the war, compare Loyalists to Patriots in New York State, explain war strategies, select leaders of the Revolution and explain the effects of the war.
In regards to The New Nation, students will be able to explain the foundations for the new government and the ideals of American democracy as expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitutions of the State of New York and the United States of America, select and explain individuals and groups who helped to strengthen democracy in the United States, describe the roots of American culture, how it developed from many different traditions, and the ways many people from a variety of groups and backgrounds played a role in creating it and explain the values, practices, and traditions that unite all Americans.
During today's class period, we were given time to continue working on our LiveBinders and other assignments. Today, Ericka and I worked strictly on the edTPA tasks. We began by addressing each of the questions individually. Dr. Smirnova informed us that rather than answer each question individually, we should be using the questions as a guide as we write our summary and commentary regarding our lessons.
edTPA is definitely causing me a lot of stress now, so I am glad I had the opportunity during this Social Studies Methods class to gain exposure to it rather than jumping in and trying to accomplish it while student teaching. The reflective nature of the edTPA tasks will be effective as I look back on my teaching style and lesson plans. By completing these types of reflections, I can become a more effective and engaging educator in the future.
During today's class, we participated in a mock interview. For this activity, each of the four fieldwork groups nominated a "principal." These principals created back stories about their lives and created a school that had open positions. Each of the principals shared their story and information about their schools with the entire class of possible candidates. After these introductions, we broke into fieldwork groups to begin the interview process.
Each of the principals asked our fieldwork groups "warm-up" questions. These questions included what colors or songs did we associate with specific methodologies of teaching: inquiry, cooperative learning, direct instruction. After the warm-up questions, the principals each asked one or two question to each possible candidate. I liked to be able to practice the interview process because it allowed me to be able to think on my feet, be flexible and apply my knowledge of the content I have been learning in all of my education classes. I enjoyed being interviewed in a group setting. This allowed me to build off of the answers of my peers and also set myself apart from my peers. During my first interview with Ms. Alex, a principal whose school followed the principles of behaviorism, I was able to apply my knowledge from my work experience at Hudson Valley Behavioral Solutions. HVBS allows me to work directly with students with behavioral issues, mainly autism, which gives me the opportunity to differentiate my instruction and manage behaviors effectively. I was able to impress Ms. Alex with my personal experience examples.
Hi Lindsay,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading about your plan for the culminating project for your Unit Plan. I like the use of the timeline activity to allow students to grasp the concepts and ideas taught throughout the Unit. In addition to the task presented, I think that the Jigsaw method will provide to be an effective technique that will allow for students to demonstrate their full understanding of the content. Also, students will be working cooperatively to share their learning with their peers. This is an effective approach to learning because it allows students to take responsibility for their own learning, in addition to other students' learning. Another part of the culminating project that I thought would prove to be useful in the students' learning was the accommodations and modifications suggested for students who have difficulty remaining on task for assignments. I think that by providing students with technology resources and keeping these students closer to the front of the room, teachers can better manage and target the students who are having difficulty. One suggestion that I have for your culminating project is to perhaps expand the audience beyond the group's fourth grade peers. If each group is presenting to a younger grade (3rd grade), students may develop a higher sense of pride in their work because they are teaching something new to someone else. Excellent work on your culminating project!
Lindsay,
ReplyDeleteSince we were in the same group for the role-playing interviews, I thought I would comment on your excellent answers and questions for the administrators! One of my favorite answers that you provided was the color question regarding inquiry. You responded that inquiry is like a gray color, because it is never black and white since it is one individual's research and perspective. At first, I was confused as to why you answered with gray; however, your justification made your answer exceptional. You were great with coming up with answers on the spot and using your personal experiences as a reference and justification.
I admire your reflection of being interviewed as a group. You explain that this was an opportunity to utilize other answers and "set [yourself] apart from [your] peers". I enjoyed this insight as I always thought of group setting interviews as a set of repetitive answers and detrimental to individuality.
Great job and reflective writing!
-Madison Turner