This lesson, on the reasons why people moved west in the 1800s and also the hardships they found there, was by far my favorite lesson of the unit. Granted, I still have one more to go, but based on the fact that it's going to be administering a test and sharing the posters we made from this day (day 4), I think that's a pretty safe thing to say.
The most interesting thing about this lesson was that I feel like we did the least amount of planning for this day--being exhausted and working on our plans late the night before, and polishing things up the morning of--but, at least for me, it was the lesson that went the most smoothly. It didn't necessarily stick to the time constraints that I'd placed on each phase, nor did I cover certain aspects of the topic in as much detail as I would have liked, but the students were really engaged in the process and I felt like I was getting all the kids involved, not just the high-achieving ones.
The lesson began with a quick review of the day before--which natural areas did we talk about, what states have we looked at, which peoples did we say make up the population of the West. Then, we moved on (transitioning to why those people came to the West) to a lesson using primary sources/the inductive approach (I believe). We had made up a powerpoint of photographs, song lyrics, advertisements, wanted posters, and quotes from letters and diaries related to the West and why people moved there--or conversely, why people wanted to get away from the East. For each slide/source, students first commented on what they observed, and then decided whether they thought it was a reason why people went West or why people left the East. Finally, for each slide/source, we nailed down the reason behind the source and wrote it on the board. For example, the first slide was an advertisement for real estate in Kansas. I used this slide as a model/guided practice for what they should do for each slide. I noted that the slide said Kansas--which isn't part of the region we're studying, but which was considered "west" at the time because it was west of the MS river. Then I noted that it talked about real estate and homes, and that some people must have been looking to build homes. I said this was probably a reason to go west, since it mentioned Kansas. We continued on like this for each of the slides/sources. My favorite part about this approach was that any kid can do it, regardless of background, and every kid can get involved. Questions about observations ('what do you see here?') can be directed toward students who may not be able to interpret the source as well as others, but who can most certainly tell us what they see. Follow-up questions can be tacked on to that response as appropriate, and interpretation can be scaffolded. The higher-achieving kids can do more of the interpretation on their own, and can be called on when other students aren't getting it as easily.
My favorite slide was the one representing "adventure" as a reason for going out west. On the slide were two images: a "wanted" poster for the 'Wild Bunch' and an image of Buffalo Bill on a bucking horse at one of his rodeos. Students showed a lot of interest in the Wanted poster, commenting that perhaps people wanted to go west to find criminals and get a reward. Or maybe they wanted to go west to be criminals and get money that way. I feel like my shining moment during that class was when I related the attraction to danger that spurred some of the westward migration to their lives. I noted that this image showed me the danger that was present in the West, and then asked them if they'd ever done anything because it was kind of dangerous. They all said yes--one of the students who often gets off-task fiddling with stuff in his desk--gave an emphatic yes to that question. I explained that this was the same way. It was a little dangerous and some people wanted this more rugged, dangerous lifestyle.
The inductive piece of the lesson lasted a little longer than I expected--30 minutes--and I didn't even cover the hardships actually found in the West outside of a cursory overview of them and a quick glance at a diary entry from a man in CA in 1849 who talks about how you have a 1 in 1000 chance of striking it rich in CA (and says that usually you find failure, danger, and death). So I wish I'd been a little better about watching the time, so I could've given more weight to that piece of the lesson--which I think is SO important (because the West wasn't always as great as people in the East thought). However, the discussion was going so well with the sources we did get through, that I'm glad we spent that time the way we did.
For 5 or 6 minutes after the source/reason discussion, I had them create advertisement posters (individually or in small groups), using at least one of the reasons we'd written on the board, encouraging people to move West. The students were really excited about this task, and many wanted to take their posters home to work on over the weekend. I was also impressed that we were able to get all the kids working on a poster, even one student who often seems to just not be catching on. Unfortunately, I had to cut them off so we could talk quickly about the hardships, look at the last two states we had to talk about (Washington and Oregon), pass out the study guides, and give them a heads-up about the test they have on Monday.
As I said before, the students seemed to really be engaged in this lesson, and I loved that every student was able to participate in the discussion and poster-making, no matter what their ability level. It was exciting to see students working with primary sources, and it was exciting to see kids being able to relate to an event/time period 100-175 years ago. I'm extremely impressed with the way things went, and the experience makes me really want to incorporate more primary sources into my Social Studies lessons, as well as more activities like the advertisements that are accessible to all students.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Teaching the West: Day 3
I've found that there are days that teaching clicks, and days that things don't go quite as planned. Day 3 was one of the latter days. For the day, we'd set aside 5 minutes for review of the day before, 25-30 minutes for group presentations (one on each of 5 important natural areas in the West: Yellowstone, Redwood Forest, Mt St Helens, Glacier National Park, Death Valley), and then we had about 10 minutes at the end to go over cultural groups in the West and review the day. The presentations were going to take up a major chunk of the period, as each presentation was supposed to be 3-4 minutes (according to the rubric we made up), and we were worried about not having enough time.
Of course, as I said before, things just didn't go that way. I timed each presentation, and every one of them was between 50 and 90 seconds long. Half as long as they were supposed to be. The thing was, most groups got in all the information they needed to, and I hadn't been there the day before (since we had M, T, Th, Fri, M set for teaching) so I hadn't been able to regulate and check up on the students' progress. Our CI took over for that inbetween day, Wednesday, so the projects were really as she structured them during practice and whatever students remembered me saying. I left a lesson plan for her, but obviously she had control of how things went. The only other problem was that the presenters often didn't speak loud enough--I would definitely include "speaks loudly and clearly" in the rubric next time I do something like this. I would also put more emphasis on the rubric--I didn't have enough time to really go over it well, so students seemed somewhat confused by the rubric.
Despite the time/volume dilemma, the presentations were actually pretty good. Students seem to enjoy creating and performing them, as they were supposed to be creative presentations. All the groups chose a skit of some kind--a tour of the area, a diary entry acted out, or a class being taught about one of the areas.
Since the presentations were shorter than I'd planned, I had a lot more time than I thought I would to go over the cultural setup of the West and to review. I was able to fill the time pretty easily with the material, but I was a bit flustered by the unexpected change in timing for the lesson, so I didn't come away from the lesson feeling as confident about it as I had coming out of Tuesday's lesson.
I think for future lessons like these, I would be more realistic about my time expectations. 3-4 minutes can be a long time for 4th graders, especially when the unit teacher isn't around the day they practice to note their progress and give suggestions on how to lengthen the presentations. I would also be more flexible in my planning, having a back-up plan in case presentations run short (or long). For example, in retrospect, I think it would've been better if I'd opened up the floor for questions/compliments after each presentation to keep to my time schedule, as well as to give each presentation's subject more exposure time in the class (so the kids would be more likely to pay attention, and to remember what was being said about each natural area).
The lessons I take from this day of my unit echo what I said in my first blog on my metaphor for teaching. You have to flexible as a teacher--not just having a back-up plan in mind (for preventive measures), but also being able to react appropriately as a situation arises.
Of course, as I said before, things just didn't go that way. I timed each presentation, and every one of them was between 50 and 90 seconds long. Half as long as they were supposed to be. The thing was, most groups got in all the information they needed to, and I hadn't been there the day before (since we had M, T, Th, Fri, M set for teaching) so I hadn't been able to regulate and check up on the students' progress. Our CI took over for that inbetween day, Wednesday, so the projects were really as she structured them during practice and whatever students remembered me saying. I left a lesson plan for her, but obviously she had control of how things went. The only other problem was that the presenters often didn't speak loud enough--I would definitely include "speaks loudly and clearly" in the rubric next time I do something like this. I would also put more emphasis on the rubric--I didn't have enough time to really go over it well, so students seemed somewhat confused by the rubric.
Despite the time/volume dilemma, the presentations were actually pretty good. Students seem to enjoy creating and performing them, as they were supposed to be creative presentations. All the groups chose a skit of some kind--a tour of the area, a diary entry acted out, or a class being taught about one of the areas.
Since the presentations were shorter than I'd planned, I had a lot more time than I thought I would to go over the cultural setup of the West and to review. I was able to fill the time pretty easily with the material, but I was a bit flustered by the unexpected change in timing for the lesson, so I didn't come away from the lesson feeling as confident about it as I had coming out of Tuesday's lesson.
I think for future lessons like these, I would be more realistic about my time expectations. 3-4 minutes can be a long time for 4th graders, especially when the unit teacher isn't around the day they practice to note their progress and give suggestions on how to lengthen the presentations. I would also be more flexible in my planning, having a back-up plan in case presentations run short (or long). For example, in retrospect, I think it would've been better if I'd opened up the floor for questions/compliments after each presentation to keep to my time schedule, as well as to give each presentation's subject more exposure time in the class (so the kids would be more likely to pay attention, and to remember what was being said about each natural area).
The lessons I take from this day of my unit echo what I said in my first blog on my metaphor for teaching. You have to flexible as a teacher--not just having a back-up plan in mind (for preventive measures), but also being able to react appropriately as a situation arises.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Teaching the West: Day 2
Thinking back to the metaphor for teaching I wrote in my first blog, this lesson was a much smoother ride for me. Some of the transitions (shifts) weren't quite as nice as I would've liked them, but all in all, the lesson went well. In terms of revising that metaphor, I'd say that even more than I'd thought before, it's important to note that the "car" (the class/students) plays a much larger role in determining how the class runs as they respond to the teacher's lesson. Mostly, it's a reaction to the teaching, but that reaction make a big difference in how things go. So, I like the metaphor still, if only cars were more independent and less machine-like in their responses.
The period began with a "do now" type activity on the board. Students sat at their regular seats when they came in, and began answering the questions on the board (I'd placed an index card on each desk). Students who were absent the day before were instructed to look at pg 140 in their textbook and answer the second question on the board. For one of the students, who couldn't read the questions on the board, I read them aloud and had him answer them on his card. For another student who generally tunes out and doesn't participate in class (to the point that I don't think he's getting much of anything out of being at school), I tried to scaffold his thinking with questions about what happened the day before (though I ended up giving him the answers since he couldn't remember anything--or didn't tell me). After 5 minutes or so, we reviewed the answers to questions.
Then, we reviewed the two states we had talked about the day before (Montana and Idaho). I had two students come up and point those states out on the map, then I had each student write those two names down on a map organizer I had placed face-down on each of their desks while they were answering the questions on the board.
I then explained their research project to them (natural areas in the Western US: Yellowstone, Death Valley, Glacier National Park, Mt St Helen's, Redwood Forest) and showed them their groups (which I'd written on the chalkboard, to the right of the "do now" questions). Students assembled into their respective groups and I passed out a packet to each of them. This part of the lesson was the least smooth--according to Jen it took about 2 minutes to get into groups and get things passed out. Also, students seemed unsure about what to bring with them, how to answer the questions (I forgot to tell them about the information in the packets), and throughout the time in groups, were frequently distracted by both the rubric in the packet (which I also hadn't talked about) and the idea of how to make their presentations creative. Timing of the group work worked okay, though--15 minutes for questions, 10 minutes for the graphic organizer.
I think the greatest fault of the activity was that there were many kids who tuned out or got left behind in the rush of the activity, and on the flip side, there were other students (some bossy) who took over the group and/or did most of the work. Jen suggested making sure every student had access to the material, instead of having 5-6 people sharing one packet of information. Also, students within a group could be given roles, so that they must be involved.
Another problem was that the steps of the activity (as noted above) distracted students from the work they were supposed to be doing at the time. I think it would've been better to tell them about the details of the presentation after they completed the research, as opposed to before. Jen also had a good suggestion, that we have a sort of "secret envelope" method, where they had to finish the task in one envelope to get to the next one, and all they know is that the last envelope has a fun activity in it.
Either way, students needed more structure within their groups and less information about the future pieces of the activity than I gave them.
Once the 25 minutes were up, materials were collected, and students returned to their seats. I explained the rubric to them (a "4" presentation vs. a "1" presentation), and then we moved on to state identification. The states for the day were: CA, NV, HI, and AK. Each state was approached in the same way: look at its shape, make a mental image, draw it on your desk with your finger, then discuss how we can remember it (ex. HI looks like dots, and there are two dotted i's at the end of its name, or, CA looks like a banana and lots of fruit is grown in CA).
Students were then reminded about what would happen the next day, under the guidance of Ms Costan, and then let them change classes.
Like I said above, the lesson went really pretty well and I felt a lot more confident about it than I had the day before. I think one of the reasons for that might be that I wrote the lesson plan for this day, whereas Katelyn had written out the lesson plan for the day before (so I was more familiar with this one, whereas she was more familiar with the other). Most importantly, looking at the students' answers to the do-now questions, I felt a lot better about where students were in terms of the KUDs and how they were progressing/what they'd learned.
The period began with a "do now" type activity on the board. Students sat at their regular seats when they came in, and began answering the questions on the board (I'd placed an index card on each desk). Students who were absent the day before were instructed to look at pg 140 in their textbook and answer the second question on the board. For one of the students, who couldn't read the questions on the board, I read them aloud and had him answer them on his card. For another student who generally tunes out and doesn't participate in class (to the point that I don't think he's getting much of anything out of being at school), I tried to scaffold his thinking with questions about what happened the day before (though I ended up giving him the answers since he couldn't remember anything--or didn't tell me). After 5 minutes or so, we reviewed the answers to questions.
Then, we reviewed the two states we had talked about the day before (Montana and Idaho). I had two students come up and point those states out on the map, then I had each student write those two names down on a map organizer I had placed face-down on each of their desks while they were answering the questions on the board.
I then explained their research project to them (natural areas in the Western US: Yellowstone, Death Valley, Glacier National Park, Mt St Helen's, Redwood Forest) and showed them their groups (which I'd written on the chalkboard, to the right of the "do now" questions). Students assembled into their respective groups and I passed out a packet to each of them. This part of the lesson was the least smooth--according to Jen it took about 2 minutes to get into groups and get things passed out. Also, students seemed unsure about what to bring with them, how to answer the questions (I forgot to tell them about the information in the packets), and throughout the time in groups, were frequently distracted by both the rubric in the packet (which I also hadn't talked about) and the idea of how to make their presentations creative. Timing of the group work worked okay, though--15 minutes for questions, 10 minutes for the graphic organizer.
I think the greatest fault of the activity was that there were many kids who tuned out or got left behind in the rush of the activity, and on the flip side, there were other students (some bossy) who took over the group and/or did most of the work. Jen suggested making sure every student had access to the material, instead of having 5-6 people sharing one packet of information. Also, students within a group could be given roles, so that they must be involved.
Another problem was that the steps of the activity (as noted above) distracted students from the work they were supposed to be doing at the time. I think it would've been better to tell them about the details of the presentation after they completed the research, as opposed to before. Jen also had a good suggestion, that we have a sort of "secret envelope" method, where they had to finish the task in one envelope to get to the next one, and all they know is that the last envelope has a fun activity in it.
Either way, students needed more structure within their groups and less information about the future pieces of the activity than I gave them.
Once the 25 minutes were up, materials were collected, and students returned to their seats. I explained the rubric to them (a "4" presentation vs. a "1" presentation), and then we moved on to state identification. The states for the day were: CA, NV, HI, and AK. Each state was approached in the same way: look at its shape, make a mental image, draw it on your desk with your finger, then discuss how we can remember it (ex. HI looks like dots, and there are two dotted i's at the end of its name, or, CA looks like a banana and lots of fruit is grown in CA).
Students were then reminded about what would happen the next day, under the guidance of Ms Costan, and then let them change classes.
Like I said above, the lesson went really pretty well and I felt a lot more confident about it than I had the day before. I think one of the reasons for that might be that I wrote the lesson plan for this day, whereas Katelyn had written out the lesson plan for the day before (so I was more familiar with this one, whereas she was more familiar with the other). Most importantly, looking at the students' answers to the do-now questions, I felt a lot better about where students were in terms of the KUDs and how they were progressing/what they'd learned.
Teaching the West: Day 1
The first day of teaching our unit on the Western Region of the United States for 488 went pretty well. I taught the first block (there are two blocks, Katelyn taught the second), following the basic agenda/schedule below:
At 12:15-students came in and sat in their assigned groups, which were marked with numbers and group cards (with everyone's name on it). Beneath each number were four crayons to be used for the activity and a packet of directions and maps needed for the activity (which was face-down, so students wouldn't get distracted by it during the introduction). This went relatively well, although getting into groups was a little less organized than I wanted. Nonetheless, it wasn't too bad time-wise, so I'm not too disappointed with that.
Once students were in their groups, facing the front of the class, I introduced the unit, showed some pictures of the West, and told them they'd become experts on the region. But first, students needed to put themselves in the mindset of an explorer/settler in the early West for our activity for the day. In the activity, students would look at various maps (precipitation, temperature, and topography) and for each map, plot on a large map (the US, west of the MS river) where they would settle and draw a trail to there from St. Louis. Then, considering all the factors together, they would finally choose an overall settlement point and draw a trail there. After they finished this, there were two questions for them to answer as a group (what factors did you have to consider; where did you choose and why).
Before we started the activity, we brainstormed as a class different things they might need/want to carry, as well as at their point of settlement/travel route. The final list was basically comprised of water, food, shelter (with "gold" on the side). I would've liked to have fleshed this list out more, so they would've had a better idea of what people back then needed, as well as what about climate and topography they should look for when doing their activity. We talked a little about the latter as a group, but I think I felt pressed for time, so I went through that a little too fast.
The activity went pretty well. Students seem to understand at least part of what they were supposed to be doing, and they definitelye enjoyed it. Heterogeneous grouping also worked out pretty well, though we had conflict in one or two groups. However, I felt that the steps were probably more complicated than they needed to be and that students could've gotten more out of a simpler version of the activity (with less steps). Looking at what the students produced reinforces this feeling. Some students got the gist of what we wanted them to take away from the activity, but I think in general it was a little too much all at once and they came away with a less solid understanding of how resources and environment factors into settlement/travel decisions. Timing was also something of an issue--I gave them too much time on the activity, which cut out time for us to review it and talk about the factors as a class.
After the activity, we quickly talked about Lewis and Clark: who sent them, why they were sent, what they did/didn't find or accomplish, and where they went. This section was really fast, but I think I hit on the major points that needed to be addressed. I also read the page in their book on Lolo Pass, MT (a place on the L&C trail) and Lewis and Clark's journey aloud to them. We wanted to possibly start them on a diary entry from the pt of view of someone in the L&C crew, but we knew there wasn't enough time, so we scrapped it (we guessed beforehand there wouldn't be enough time for this, but left our options open).
I finished the class debriefining them about what we'd done that day, and then worked on identifying two states. We made a visual image of the state, drew it on the desk with our fingers (I wish I'd modeled this for them first), and then the students came up with some ways we might remember its shape (ID looks like an ankle and foot, for example).
The class ended there, and I wish I'd quickly let them know what we'd be doing the next day. I think that would've helped the ending be not quite as abrupt.
Overall, I think the lesson went pretty well, and gave me some things to think about for following lessons (like how to modify the groups somewhat to avoid conflict).
At 12:15-students came in and sat in their assigned groups, which were marked with numbers and group cards (with everyone's name on it). Beneath each number were four crayons to be used for the activity and a packet of directions and maps needed for the activity (which was face-down, so students wouldn't get distracted by it during the introduction). This went relatively well, although getting into groups was a little less organized than I wanted. Nonetheless, it wasn't too bad time-wise, so I'm not too disappointed with that.
Once students were in their groups, facing the front of the class, I introduced the unit, showed some pictures of the West, and told them they'd become experts on the region. But first, students needed to put themselves in the mindset of an explorer/settler in the early West for our activity for the day. In the activity, students would look at various maps (precipitation, temperature, and topography) and for each map, plot on a large map (the US, west of the MS river) where they would settle and draw a trail to there from St. Louis. Then, considering all the factors together, they would finally choose an overall settlement point and draw a trail there. After they finished this, there were two questions for them to answer as a group (what factors did you have to consider; where did you choose and why).
Before we started the activity, we brainstormed as a class different things they might need/want to carry, as well as at their point of settlement/travel route. The final list was basically comprised of water, food, shelter (with "gold" on the side). I would've liked to have fleshed this list out more, so they would've had a better idea of what people back then needed, as well as what about climate and topography they should look for when doing their activity. We talked a little about the latter as a group, but I think I felt pressed for time, so I went through that a little too fast.
The activity went pretty well. Students seem to understand at least part of what they were supposed to be doing, and they definitelye enjoyed it. Heterogeneous grouping also worked out pretty well, though we had conflict in one or two groups. However, I felt that the steps were probably more complicated than they needed to be and that students could've gotten more out of a simpler version of the activity (with less steps). Looking at what the students produced reinforces this feeling. Some students got the gist of what we wanted them to take away from the activity, but I think in general it was a little too much all at once and they came away with a less solid understanding of how resources and environment factors into settlement/travel decisions. Timing was also something of an issue--I gave them too much time on the activity, which cut out time for us to review it and talk about the factors as a class.
After the activity, we quickly talked about Lewis and Clark: who sent them, why they were sent, what they did/didn't find or accomplish, and where they went. This section was really fast, but I think I hit on the major points that needed to be addressed. I also read the page in their book on Lolo Pass, MT (a place on the L&C trail) and Lewis and Clark's journey aloud to them. We wanted to possibly start them on a diary entry from the pt of view of someone in the L&C crew, but we knew there wasn't enough time, so we scrapped it (we guessed beforehand there wouldn't be enough time for this, but left our options open).
I finished the class debriefining them about what we'd done that day, and then worked on identifying two states. We made a visual image of the state, drew it on the desk with our fingers (I wish I'd modeled this for them first), and then the students came up with some ways we might remember its shape (ID looks like an ankle and foot, for example).
The class ended there, and I wish I'd quickly let them know what we'd be doing the next day. I think that would've helped the ending be not quite as abrupt.
Overall, I think the lesson went pretty well, and gave me some things to think about for following lessons (like how to modify the groups somewhat to avoid conflict).
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