Learner Description &endash; The class consists of 22 students total. (4 gifted; 4 TPI; 1 ADHD)

Overview &endash;

What will be taught?

Students will explore the various reasons for the Civil War and the different viewpoints of the North and the South before and during the war.

What will students do and learn?

To prepare for their project students will:

1. Read and study chapters 13 and 14 from the text.

2. Complete an online scavenger hunt.

3. Read a Civil War newspaper

4. Create a timeline of important events up to and including the war.

The project will include:

Part 1:

1. Research of a chosen figure of the time.

2. Creation of an Apple Presentation highlighting the perspective of their chosen figure.

Part 2:

Creation of a group project in which the students must present the viewpoints of the North or the South to the class.

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

Why would you teach this unit?

The Civil War is a part of the 5th grade social studies curriculum as well as state goals. It is also a major event in our nation's history. Many of the essential questions for social studies can be addressed through the exploration of the Civil War. By studying the civil war, writing, research, and reading skills can also be integrated with social studies.

Why would this qualify as an Engaged Learning unit?

Vision of Learning:

Students are involved throughout the project. They have an individual assignment on a topic of their choice that will require them to use many thinking and learning strategies. Students are also a part of a group project in which they will also be involved in the assessment process. 

Tasks:

The students have a choice as to which person they would like to choose. The project is also challenging for them and integrates social studies, reading, writing, and technology.

Assessment:

The assessment is performance-based, generative, seamless, ongoing, and equitable.

Instructional Model:

The project is interactive and generative.

Learning Context:

The project is collaborative, knowledge-building, and empathetic.

Grouping:

The group portion of the project included groups that were heterogeneous and equitable. 

Teacher Roles:

During the project, I served as a facilitator, guide, and co-learner.

Student Roles:

Students served as explorers, teachers, and producers.

Why is technology an important component of this unit?

The students will be using the World Wide Web to research and determine a person that they are interested in studying. Then they will use AppleWorks to create a slideshow. Throughout their slideshow, they will be incorporating graphics from various web sites.

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

The project is authentic and meaningful because students are responsible for demonstrating their knowledge in a few different ways. The first is a Appleworks Slide Presentation which requires the students to collect and organizer their information, decided what is important, and present their information to the class. For the second part of the project, students are involved in determining a way to present several aspects of the Civil War. In order to complete their presentation, students must gather information and learn about the important events and outcomes of the Civil War. Whether or not they have acquired this information will be determined by their presentation.

There are several challenges involved in the project. Not only do the students have to make many decisions on their own, they also have to analyze, process, and organize information, work individually and with a group, and be responsible for their own learning.

Goals - Content, Cognitive and Social - The WHAT questions

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

Knowledge:

1.) Causes of the Civil War

2.) Varying perspectives of the war

3.) Major events and battles

4.) Important people involved

5.) Results of the War

6.) How does this effect our responses to the Essential Questions?

Skills and Attitudes:

1.) Cooperative learning skills

2.) Internet research skills

3.) Technology skills

4.) Writing skills

5.) Evaluating information

6.) Presentation skills

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

State Goals

Social Science Goals:

Goal 14-Understand political systems, with an emphasis on the United States.

Goal 15-Understand economic systems, with an emphasis on the United States.

Goal 16- Understand events, trends, individuals and movements shaping the history of Illinois, the United States, and other nations.

Goal 17- Understand world geography and the effects of geography on society, with an emphasis on the United States.

English Language Arts Goals

Goal 1- Read with understanding and fluency.

Goal 3- Write to communicate for a variety of purposes.

Goal 4- Listen and speak effectively in a variety of situations.

Goal 5- Use language arts to acquire, assess, and communicate information.

Learning Activities - The activities required to achieve the goals.

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?)

I want my students to be able to explain the views of the North and South during the time leading up to the Civil War. I also want them to recognize the issues and key events and figures.

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

The determining factor will be whether or not the students are able to identify the viewpoint of their chosen individual as well as the viewpoints of the two sides during the Civil War. Evidence of this will be present when they present their individual projects as well as their group projects.

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

Students have created a scoring rubric. In order to communicate progress, we periodically checked our work with the rubric to determine what need to be done.

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

Students worked as a class to create their own rubric for the slideshow. They determined what was necessary as well as the criteria.

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

Before beginning the project, the students worked to create their own rubric to assess their presentations. After finishing their presentation, they had to grade themselves using the rubric.

As a part of the group project, students are completing a peer evaluation.

How will students demonstrate their knowledge and skills?

Students will demonstrate their knowledge and skills through the creation of an AppleWorks presentation. They will present their information and their ability to create a slideshow.

For the group project, students chose to create news broadcasts, skits, radio shows, etc., to demonstrate their acquired knowledge.

Management

How will you manage student work individually and in groups? - What resources will you need to do this unit?

Necessary resources:

Social Studies text

Civil War web sites

Reference Books

Computer lab

Mobile laptop cart

Appleworks

How will the room(s) be arranged.

The room arrangement remained the same as always. The students moved themselves when meeting in groups.

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

The three computers in the classroom as well as the laptop stations were kept in the class. Students were able to use these at all times to do research or work on their project. Several reference books were placed in a special area in the class. Additional reference material and computer resources were used in the library.

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

Students were able to work in the classroom as well as the library. Additional library and computer lab times were scheduled.

Unit Evaluation

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

Throughout the project, I took note of several factors. I kept track of student progress and the effort required to complete the project. I also dialogued with students to determine if the goals and objectives of the project were being met. Were the students acquiring and understanding the essential information? I also listened to the students dialogue with each other. Some of the most astute comments came when students would tell one another about a piece of interesting information that they found. In the end, I was able to determine whether or not the objectives were met while watching and evaluating their final presentations.

What was effective?

The group portion of the project was most effective. After completing their own individual research on an important figure during the Civil War, the students gained some knowledge as to the viewpoints of a few specific individuals. However, when they combined their individual knowledge with that of the rest of the group, it seemed that light bulbs were lighting up throughout the room. The kids were making connections and developing a deeper understanding of the views of several different groups whether from the North or South. During their final group presentations, all of their information and knowledge really came together.

What wasn't effective?

The individual slideshow presentations did not result in the amount of understanding that I had hoped for. Several students did not follow the guidelines and focused on general biographical information rather than viewpoints on slavery and the Civil War.

What will I do differently next time?

The first thing I would do differently is adjust the timing and deadlines of the project. We spent so much time on the individual projects that we had to squeeze in the group project in a limited amount of time.

I would also try to be more specific about the goals of the individual projects.