March, 2018
Background
I tried something different for my WWII unit. There is SO much to cover for WWII that this unit for me, every year, is both exciting, but also very overwhelming: Am I covering the right topics? Are my students keeping up with the different campaigns? What is important? What is not important? How can I get them more involved? Interested? What should be covered on the exam? Did I cover those topics enough? Etc. So to acknowledge all the questions above, I got rid of the end-of-the-unit exam. This in and of itself provided a relief for me. No, I do not have to cover every topic. No, I do not have to spend so much time on this concept. No, I don’t have to assign every page in the textbook, etc. So what did I do instead?
I told my students on day one, “I will not and cannot cover everything about WWII”. It is impossible to do with our time frame. Instead, I had small quizzes sprinkled throughout the unit based on the general topics we discussed. But ultimately, the students will be doing a project based solely on a WWII topic that interests them. What I did beforehand was present them the BASICS of the war, the necessary context of this time period, through various instructional methods (as well as having a physical timeline on my back board!). My students (with a partner if desired) will then contribute specifics to an event of their choosing during this time. This is what we are working on now.
I am giving them the freedom to choose their topic and how they want to present the information regarding their topic. Specifically, they will create an essential question around their topic and answer it by using some type of medium to present their answers. Below is a screenshot of their topic ideas and mediums of answering their question.
The Holocaust and the atomic bomb never fail to interest my students, which is great! By all means, that is the whole point of this project: answering an essential question with thorough and credible research and creating a way to present the answers to this topic that interests them so much. I am very much looking forward to seeing their finished products along with me using, for the first time, a single-point rubric. Thanks, Joan 😉
Takeaways
1. Students’ use of credible sources = good (Joan Tracy gave a presentation on credible sources and it paid off)
2. Those who put time and energy in their projects did a great job. Some samples are below.
3. Did they actually learn something? Some students really got into their project, others did not. Did those who did not “get into” their projects choose a topic they knew would be easy to do? This is where the single-point rubric came into play. If they did the bare minimum for the project, they fell in the B range. If they exceeded the minimum, they got the A.
4. Next time, I will not allow PPT-like presentations, but something more creative. Some of these PPT-like presentations were great, but I would much rather them go out of the box and use a different medium to present their information.
Student Project Samples
Sparks Page Presentation: https://spark.adobe.com/page/6mdXU4Nr14X8q/
Prezi Presentation: https://prezi.com/view/LIJCbctnrokIbRSpst8n/
Draw My Life video: need to convert to link
Podcast audio: need to convert to link
Collection of short stories: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jp3cAx_R0CvOW2EUk_CumOePYOAVeeirSGON3UwoW8M/edit#heading=h.gjdgxs