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).