Learner Description - 41 third grade students including ESL and Title One/Reading Partners

Overview - Being able to understand how the community and it's citizens have been effected by past and present tragedies. To have the students gain an understanding of ways communities react to world wide events.

Unit will be taught using these skills:

• Comparing and contrasting past and present situations

• Community reaction to past and present tragedies

• Letter writing

• Use of the digital camera

• Interview skills

• Word processing

• Interaction with senior citizens

• Appleworks Presentation

Rationale - Purpose for the unit as a whole. The WHY questions.

Why would you teach this unit?

The purpose of this unit is to give students a real-life situation where they can utilize their skills/values in a community setting. The students will gain an understanding of current events and how they relate to their lives.

Why would this this qualify as an Engaged Learning unit?

This would qualify as an Engaged Learning Unit because of the following:

• The students are responsible for their learning.

• It is a collaborative learning effort between partners and senior citizen.

• The tasks are authentic because they are made relevant to their lives.

• Students have opportunities to explore new ideas/tools.

• There are small groups with persons from different ability levels and backgrounds.

Why is technology an important component of this unit?

Technology is an important component because they created their own Appleworks Slide Show to allow for creativity.

Why is this project authentic/meaningful, and challenging for students?

This project is authentic and challenging because during the interview they had to develop interesting questions and facilitate the discussion. It was authentic because their generation lived through their first war.

Goals - Content, Cognitive and Social - The WHAT questions

What new attributes (knowledge, skills, attitudes) do you expect students to gain?

1. Know the steps needed to gather information firsthand from a human

resource, including writing interview questions, and learning how to

build upon an answer to obtain more information.

2. Work cooperatively in small groups to attain, decipher, edit, and

compile lists of information, purposefully selecting the most important

information, while discarding less important information.

3. Develop an appreciation of the knowledge and friendships that our

senior citizens can share with us.

4. Learn how to interact with adults in an interview and interpersonal

setting.

5. Create a presentation using transcribed information that they

gathered and present it to a group of children and adults in a school

setting.

6. Feel self-satisfaction for completion of a challenging assignment.

What school, district, state and national standards/benchmarks are addressed?

State Standards addressed in this Unit Project.

Social Studies: Goal #2 As a result of their schooling, students will be able to understand and analyze events, trends, personalities, and movements shaping the history of the world, the United States, and Illinois.

•Third grade students will be able to develop an awareness of the concept of history and its relationship to the present and future.

Goal #3 As a result of their schooling, students will be able to demonstrate a knowledge of the basic concepts of the social students and how these help to interpret human behavior.

•Third grade students will be able to demonstrate an understanding of their responsibilities as learners.

Goal #5 As a result of their schooling, students will be able to apply the skills and knowledge gained in the social sciences to decision-making in life situations.

•Third grade students will be able to demonstrate an understanding of the need for participation in community service.

Literacy: Goal #1 Read with Understanding and Fluency

C. Comprehend a broad range of reading materials.

•Demonstrates ability to summarize information from various texts.

Goal #2 Read and Understand Literature Representative of Various Societies, Eras, and Ideas

B. Read and interpret a variety of literary works.

• Responds to literary materials by making inferences, drawing conclusions, and comparing it to their own experiences.

Goal #3 Write to Communicate for a Variety of Purposes

C. Communicate Ideas in writing to accomplish a variety of purposes.

• Writes for a variety of purposes: letter writing, reports.

Goal #4 Listen and Speak Effectively ina Variety of Situations

A. Listen effectively in formal and informal situations.

• Listens and interprets a conversation.

Goal #5 Use the Language Arts to Acquire, Assess, and Communicate Information

A. Locate, organize, and use information from various sources to answer questions, solve problems and communicate ideas.

• Identifies questions and gathers information.

• Accesses, organizes, and integrates information from a variety of sources. 

Learning Activities - The activities required to achieve the goals.

1. We discussed the September 11th tragedy, how they felt, what happened, how it affected others and their family. We talked about what people did to help.

2. We related September 11th to past wars and how the United States and small communities dealt with it.

3. The students suggested to visit senior citizens to discuss past wars and September 11th. They wanted to find out similarities and differences between the two wars.

4. We grouped the students into pairs (of mixed ability) and they composed a friendly letter to a resident of Brighton Gardens Assisted Living Home. Prior to writing the letter we reviewed letter writing format.

5. We talked about what an interview was and what you do during an interview.

6. As a group we brainstormed questions to ask the residents during the interview. We talked about "get to know you" questions to start off the interview to establish a comfort level, then questions about particular wars they have been involved in or lived through. Finally, we concluded with questions about September 11th.

7. Partners then worked together to create a list of interview questions. They first wrote a rough draft and then typed their final copy on Appleworks 6.

8. They practiced their questions and decided who would ask what question.

9. Prior to leaving we talked about the possibility of probing for more answers and information. We discussed writing down notes and not the full answer.

10. We went to Brighton Gardens, there was not enough residents willing to participate, so groups had to be changed. The children were very flexible. The residents and students talked freely, though some residents had to be pushed for some answers. Other residents had a wealth of information. We took digital pictures of their interview. To conclude they left on a friendly note by reading a book together with their new friend.

11. After the interviews we debriefed and learned new things from others. We learned that most residents lived through World War II.

12. The interview groups came together and wrote a summary of their new friend's past and present experiences. They typed these on Appleworks 6 and inserted a graphic.

13. The students created an Appleworks Presentation together. Their first slide consisted of a picture, that they saved in their server and imported into their presentation. The second slide they imported their summary from their server.

14. Students researched information on September 11th.

15. They began their third slide that consisted of information about September 11th:

•Describe the tragedy.

• U.S. reaction

• Actions the government took

• Heroes and what roles they played

16. They then researched information from World War II.

17. The fourth card consisted of information about World War II.

18. The students self-assessed their work on the project.

19. They assessed each others projects and talked about strengths and weaknesses.

The How questions.

Student Assessment- Enables student and teacher to measure student's attainment of goals.

What are my scoring characteristics? (What do I want to measure? What is an important outcome of this unit?)

We want to measure that there is a connection between people's reactions with past and present wars. Students will come away with interview skills and the ability to summarize new information.

What will indicate that students are novices, practitioners, or experts?

Students are practitioners with interview skills and letter writing. They are novices with Appleworks Presentation because they are exploring as they work on the project.

How will I measure and communicate student progress on the goals?

We will measure and communicate student progress by checking in with the groups and having check points for their slide show.

How can students be involved in establishing goals and criteria for the assessment?

Students are involved in establishing goals and criteria by creating a self-assessment.

How will the assessments be implemented to ensure that they are generative? Seamless and ongoing? Equitable for all students? An authentic task?

The assessment will be equitable for all students and authentic because they are based on their creativity within their presentations.

How will students demonstrate their knowledge and skills? (Observations, portfolios, projects, performances, oral reports, paper-&-pencil activities, journals, checklists, student self-assessment, student peer assessment, etc.)

Students will demonstrate their knowledge and skills by students self and peer assessments. Their summaries will be put into a book for everyone to view.

Resources - What resources will you need to do this unit?

The resources that we used are residents of Brighton Gardens, Digital Camera, Appleworks 6, Internet, Disk Drive, and Jan T. (Technology Coordinator).

Management

How will you manage student work individually and in groups?

We managed student work individually and in groups by having small groups so all children participated.

How will the room(s) be arranged.

The room will be arranged by allowing for small group work on the floor and using the computer lab.

Where will equipment and materials be located to promote maximum use?

Equipment will be located in the classroom and computer lab.

Where will students need to work and how can they be accommodated?

Students will work throughout the classroom, with teacher assistance.

How will students with special needs be helped?

Students with special needs will be helped by the Title I and ESL teacher working with the groups.

Unit Evaluation

What will I need to do, be aware of, and/or gather while teaching the unit in order to answer these questions:

What was effective?

What wasn't effective?

What will I do differently next time?

Through observation, teachers will watch for time on task, percentage of computer down time, student enthusiasm, reactions from assisted living participants, and document obstacles that students faced. Through debriefing sessions with the students, we will be discussing what worked and what they experienced as difficulties. Upon the conclusion of the unit, a student self-assessment as well as a peer evaluation was given. Next time, we would spend more time researching the people the children would interview. We would make sure that we have enough residents for each group. Overall, we feel this project was very successful and a growing experience for all involved.