Summary
This lesson is designed to teach students how the United States grew in size after 1801. Students should be able to identify the territories added to the United States, describe how they were acquired, and infer how the borders of our country changed as a result of each acquisition.
TIPC Ratings
Students were asked to assemble and organize information from a variety of resources (Google Maps, Microsoft One Note, the Textbook, fellow classmates) in support of an authentic task. The task was authentic because it required students to engage in the same critical thinking skills historians use as they continue to describe the fluid boundaries between countries. The task was also authentic because it forced them to construct their own responses to questions where there was not a single correct answer. As students described how the borders of the USA changed after the addition of each territory, students could identify a variety of geographic and political boundaries to illustrate those changes. The teacher modeled strategies to guide students’ investigations (how to effectively work in a group, how to utilize resources). The teacher supported students as they acquired, evaluated, and applied information.
Students worked together in groups to learn how to utilize Google Maps. They communicated within their table groups while the teacher facilitated conversations among the groups in the classroom. This communication focused on the computer skills necessary to utilize Google Maps, the educational resources available to students as they completed the steps in the project, and the critical thinking skills needed to engage in the authentic task of describing the ever changing borders of the United States. Their final product was shared with other students in the classroom as an opportunity to learn from the efforts of their peers.
The teacher designed instruction that promoted solutions to authentic tasks. When describing the fluid borders of the United States during the time period students had to develop their own answers to questions posed by the teacher as well as utilize the sorts of critical thinking skills historians continue to employ in describing the changing boundaries between countries. The teacher supported students with digital resources and direct instruction in how to work effectively in groups as they engaged challenges and problems purposefully. Students were able to apply digital tools (Google Maps) to identify the ever changing geographic and political boundaries of the United States as it grew in the years after 1801.
The teacher developed, facilitated, and assessed an authentic task in which students were asked to be creative. Students used digital tools and critical thinking skills to solve an authentic task. The task of identifying the changing boundaries of the United States after 1801 was developed and facilitated by the teacher with the the aid of Google Maps as well as background information in the form of One Note notes. Students had to utilize critical thinking skills to identify those geographic and political boundaries that defined the new boundaries of the United States after each territorial acquisition. Creativity was required because these boundaries could be described in a variety of ways based on students’ own interpretations of the maps.
