Submitted by: Candice Royall
Collaborators:
School: Pocahontas Middle School
Summary
Students will be assigned groups and a colonial region. Within their groups, they will divide the research into 5 categories: Geography/Climate; Economy; Resources; Social Life; and Political Life. I gave three options of locations to do research: a reading about Colonial America, www.ushistory.org (for more advanced readers), and the textbook. I told students that they were welcome to find another source; it just had to be approved (ex. No Wikipedia or Yahoo Answers). After their research is finished, students will summarize their findings in one picture and caption. Their picture must be cited using www.bibme.org. Then, they will use Zapd, an app on the iPad, to create a website for their region as a group. After all the websites are created, they will be reviewed as a class, students will make comments on the websites, and students learn information about the regions they did not research.
TIPC Ratings
This lesson falls into the approaching category for research and information fluency. Students did their own research to find out about their region. The students took their found research information and assembled and organized the information to create an authentic website for other students to use.
This lesson is approaching for communication and collaboration. Students had to work together in a group to create a website. Also, by creating a website, they are communicating what they have learned with the outside community. Then, students are able to go back to their classmates’ sites and communicate through making comments. Students organized their own roles in their small groups for this project.
This lesson is approaching because students worked to solve an open-ended task by creating a website that could be used by others to learn information about Colonial regions. As a group, they demonstrated used good decision-making and problem-solving practices.
This lesson is approaching for the creativity and innovation category because students are creating a website (major 21st century tool) of their own that will reach an audience beyond the classroom.
Student Artifact
Download Files
- Colonial Regions lesson plan
- Colonial website worksheet
- Zapd direction sheet
