Learner Description - The students are second graders at Eisenhower Elementary School. For the culminating activity of this unit, the students will demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of Africa by creating a class alphabet book about Africa.

Overview - Brief description of the unit

What will be taught

A comprehensive unit on Africa

How will it be taught/What will the students learn?

-The students will learn about the three areas of Africa (the rain forests, the savannahs and the desert)

-They will learn about the environment, transportation, people, customs, lifestyles, homes, clothing, and food of each area.

-This unit will be taught through the use of trade books, lectures, cooperative group activities, videos, cassettes, the internet, posters, hands on activities, art activities, and authentic African artifacts and items.

-The students will show their knowledge of Africa by cooperatively creating an alphabet book about Africa.

Rationale -

I chose to have the students create this African book to not only show me what they learned about Africa, but also as a way for the children to create a tool to teach other people (children and adults) about Africa. This class book gives the children ownership. They created this book that can now be shared with others. The children are now sharing their expertise with others.

Engaged Learning Indicators

Vision of Learning -

* Strategic - Learner actively develops repertoire of thinking/learning strategies

*Energized By Learning - Learner is not dependent on rewards from others;has a passion for learning

* Collaborative - Learner develops new ideas and understanding in conversations and work with others

Tasks -

* Authentic - Pertains to real world: may be addressed to personal interest.

* Challenging - Difficult enough to be interesting but not totally frustrating usually sustained

*Multidisciplinary - Involves integrating disciplines to solve problems and address issues

Assessment -

* Performance-based - Involving a performance or demonstration, usually for a real audience and useful purpose

* Generative - Assessment having meaning for learner; maybe produce information, product, service.

* Seamless and ongoing - Assessment is part of instruction and vice versa; students learn during assessment

* Equitable - Assessment is culture fair

Instructional Model -

* Generative - Instruction oriented to constructing meaning; providing meaningful activities/experiences

Learning Context -

* Collaborative - Instruction conceptualizes students as part of learning community; activities are collaborative

* Empathetic - Learning Environment and experiences set up for valuing diversity, multiple perspectives, strengths

Grouping-

* Heterogeneous - Small groups with persons from different ability levels and backgrounds

* Flexible - - Different groups organized for different instructional purposes so each person is a member of different groups; work with different people

Teacher Roles -

* Guide - Helps students to construct their own meaning by modeling, mediating, explaining when needed, redirecting focus, providing options.

* Co-learner/co-investigator - Teacher considers self as a learner:willing to take risks and explore areas outside his/her expertise;collaborates with other teachers and practicing professionals

Student Roles -

* Teacher - Students develop products of real use to themselves and others

* Producer - Students develop products of real use to themselves and

others.

How is technology going to be incorporated into the unit?

Ways that technology will be incorporated into this unit is by using internet sites, checking weather daily on weather.com for Prospect Heights and Africa, using Claris Works for children to document their learning by creating the pages for the book, creating a list of brainstorming ideas for the book, using Kid Pix for book illustrations and using the Quicktake camera. Technology is a very important component to this unit. Technology is used as a tool to create this book. It is used as a tool to create the assessment form, as well as a tool for the brainstorming process.Technology also made it possible for the students to incorporate their hands on created African objects and projects into this book. This project becomes authentic and meaningful to the students by allowing the students to come up with the ideas for the book, by allowing them to chose which Quicktake photos would be included and on which page and by allowing them to create each page independently or in partners. This project became challenging when we changed it from being an information book about Africa to a different goal of having it not only informational, but also needing to be put into the form of an A-Z Journey through Africa.

Goals - Content, Cognitive and Social

What new knowledge do we expect the students to gain?

- Facts about Africa

- What life is like in the areas of the rain forest, savannahs and the deserts

- Comparing and contrasting the rain forest regions, savannah regions and desert regions

- Comparing and contrasting life in Africa to life in Prospect Heights

- How to incorporate what they learned into an effective tool that can be used to teach others about Africa

- How to incorporate pictures taken during our Africa unit into our class book

What state standards does the unit address?

1B: Apply reading strategies to improve understanding and fluency.

3A: Use correct grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization and structure.

3B: Compose well organized and coherent writing for specific purposes and audiences.

3C: Communicate ideas in writing to accomplish a variety of purposes.

4A: Listen effectively in formal and informal situations.

4B: Speak effectively using language appropriate to the situation and audience.

5B: Analyze and evaluate information acquired from various sources.

5C: Apply acquired information, concepts and ideas to communicate in a variety of formats.

15D: Understand trade a s an exchange of goods or services.

17A: Locate, describe and explain places, regions and features on the Earth.

17C: Understand relationships between geographic factors and society.

26B: Apply skills and knowledge necessary to create and perform in one or more of the arts.

Learning Activities - The activities required to achieve the goals. The students used the information about Africa to create a class book on Africa. The book was an A,B,C book of African life. Through out our unit of Africa, the students were to keep a mental journal of activities, events, lifestyles etc.. about Africa that may be used to create an informational book about Africa at the end of our studies. Also through out this unit, the class could take Quicktake images of any of our African projects, events, activities or celebrations. Towards the end of our African studies, the students used the computer to brainstorm many possible ideas for each letter of the alphabet for the book. Then the students chose which alphabet letter they wanted to work on. This would determine which page they completed. To complete this page(s), the student needed to; choose an appropriate idea off of the brainstorming list to correspond to their chosen letter, write sentences that conveyed information about Africa that corresponded to the chosen letter and decide whether to use a Quicktake image or draw one of their own pictures to appropriately illustrate the sentences. Those children who needed extra help worked in partners. After the book was edited and bound, the students shared their page(s) with the rest of the class. Each student then had the opportunity to take the class book home to teach their family all about Africa. Each book had a comment page allowing the class to get feedback from others who saw it. As a class, the students came up with a rubric with criteria that would assess the group's work as well as a ideas on how to improve the book.

Student Assessment-

What types of ongoing assessment will be used?

Observation and anecdotal records. Social skills will also be observed as the students interact with others during group activities and cooperative group activities. Finally, students will also be assessed on their willingness to get involved in their projects as well as creating the end product--the A,B,C Africa book. An important outcome of this unit is for the class as a whole to use their new knowledge of Africa to create an informational storybook about Africa that corresponds to the letters of the alphabet and includes appropriate photos or illustrations.

How will students be engaged in their own assessment?

-Student generated assessments -Student generated rubrics for the project.

How can technology be used to aid in assessment?

The student assessment was created on the computer.The final product was also created on the computer. The students were evaluated on their correct use of the various computer programs that were used. Each student's page was saved on the computer, therefore making it very easy for me to access their writing/illustrations in one compact place at a later date for future assessments as well.

Resources - human, technological, community-based, school-based and traditional.

-Teachers and parents as facilitators.

-Computers, monitors, web sites, Kidpix and Quicktake Camera

-trade books, videos, cassettes, and African Artifacts

Management

-Students worked independently, in partners, in small groups and in whole group settings too.

- Students worked in various areas around the classroom and in the computer lab.

-Equipment and needed supplies were located through out the classroom in areas that were accessible to students at all times.

Unit Evaluation

What was effective?

The students were very excited to work on our book. Their interest level stayed high through the completion of it. They took ownership and much pride in completing our book. It worked well for students with varying needs to be able to chose which page s/he wanted to work on as well as whether they needed to add an illustration or could use a Quicktake photo. The book was an excellent way to assess the classes overall knowledge gained of Africa. The book also was a great tool for the students to use to teach others, what they learned about Africa.

What wasn't effective and what will I do differently next time?

Using an oral rubric with the students with criteria for completing the written page was not effective. Next time, I will have the students/teacher rubric with the criteria for each page written down for the students to keep their eye on. Also I will encourage the students to incorporate more information for each page.This year was focused more on the storybook aspect. Next time I would like to focus more energy on the Informational aspect of the book.