Theatre Lesson Reflection

1. Instructional Decisions/Teaching (Intask Standard #9): Discuss the implementation process and describe
My lesson incorporated an arts standard that introduced set design.  The implementation of my lesson went well for the most part.  It was difficult to keep my students focused during the reading of the book because they were tired and not quite focused.  However, when we went on to the creation of the sets, the students were very engaged and creative.  They presented their designs well and presented them to the group.

2. Mechanics
My lesson used a book and Pixie.  The students had a pleasant time working with the computer program and luckily had prior knowledge of the programs.  The lesson was the perfect length.  There was  few minutes that were short but in a normal classroom I feel that the time period would have been perfect and we probably would have had to shorten the lesson to accommodate.  I would have had more extensions and things to take out to have a variety for the students who would be at different levels.

3. Assessment of Learning (Intask Standard #6): Refer to Assessing Student Learning
My assessment of my students was based on them being able to create their set design including the elements we had established were key parts to a play.  I can look at their set designs and determine that they understood the purpose of a set design.

Oregon Trail Lesson

I. Rationale

Westward expansion was an important part of our countries history, especially as people who live out in the west, we are given the opportunity to understand what it was like for those who were traveling out to this side of the country.  We can see just how different times were and how far we've come in the last 150 years.

II. Overview

Grade Level: Ninth

Subject(s): Social Studies

Topic of Study: Westward Expansion

Time Allotment: 60 minutes

Standards:

PO 1. Trace the growth of the American nation during the period of western expansion:
a. North west Territory
b. Louisiana Territory
c. Florida
d. Texas
e. Oregon Country
f. Mexican Cession
g. Gadsden Purchase
h. Alaska 

Objectives: SWBAT demonstrate an understanding of the struggles of the people who traveled the Oregon Trail by examining the hardships and playing the game Oregon Trail.

Reflection

• Students will most likely not have very much prior knowledge on this subject and we will therefore need to go more in depth when we begin talking about this subject.
• Students will be given 10 minutes to begin playing with Oregon Trail.  They first must purchase all the supplies they believe they will need, and therefore this will help assess how much they have heard and seen about the Oregon Trail and Westward Expansion in the past.
• I will plan with the understanding that my students have very little prior knowledge.
• 2nd grade begins a students understanding of the world around them, however, it is still a quite abstract concept that history happened because they only know the time that they are alive.  Therefore playing the game helps give some concrete meaning to what they are doing.
• My standard involves understanding why people chose to travel west and examining the hardships they had to overcome through the process.
• This lesson will be taught towards the end of the school year as we are approaching third grade so students have a better understanding of the information we are learning about.

III. Implementation

Procedures:

1. Students will listen to an introduction I give explaining what we are going to be talking about. (Westward Expansion and traveling)

2. I will give students instructions on how to get to the Oregon Trail website.

    Go to google > Type in "Oregon Trail" > Click on Virtual Apple II > Download from Chrome Webstore > Refresh page

3. Students will be turned lose to play Oregon Trail for about 10 minutes and explore how the game works and what starting a trip out is like.

4. I will walk around and monitor progress and do some informal assessment on the prior knowledge of my students.

5. We will come together and have some discussion about what happened during our game.  

What did you buy?

How many people came with you?
What did you think was important along the trail?
Can you imagine this being real life?
6. Together we will create a blog to do our own "Dear America" to map our journey through the Oregon Trail.
7.  I will show the students how to go onto blogger.com and create a new blog dedicated to our journaling.
8. Next we will talk about what kind of supplies would be necessary for our travels by going through the buying process together by making a list first of all the items we think are important and keeping our budget.
9. Once we have made our list, the students will be turned loose to play the game and journal every time they come to a stop.
10. Once the students die or reach the end, they will write a reflection on how they think they could have improved their journey and how they think they would have felt if this was real life.
11. Students will then be turned lose to continue playing and see if they can get any farther in their journey.

Technology Integration: Students will be playing Oregon Trail online and creating their own blog to journal about their journey.

Differentiated Instruction: 
Cognitive delay - Students will be doing a lot of independent work and will have the capability to talk to their neighbors or myself about what they are doing and can ask questions freely.
Gifted - Students who are gifted will be expected to write longer journal entries and put lots of detail into what they are writing about.
ELL - The game is written in English and students will be able to practice their language skills through reading at the low level that the games language is at.  Additionally, students will be typing their journey through the blog where I can provide feedback on their language skills to help them improve.
Additional Differentiation - Under the accessories folder there is an "Ease of Access" folder where there are are functions such as a magnifier or a narrator which is available to those who need it. 

Reflection

• My instructional methods allow for my students to gather information as they understand it and is very friendly to students who are at different levels and students can journal in a way that makes sense to them.
• My method brings in multiple subjects to practice our use of social studies, reading and writing.  The students have the ability explore a different time period in a real life scenario through the simulation on the computer.
• By creating a blog, this allows students to go back and refer to what they learned and continue to research more information about westward expansion based on what they experience by playing Oregon Trail.

IV. Assessment

Procedure:

Diagnostic Assessment - Students will play the game immediately and see how far they get with no knowledge on what kind of supplies to buy or how to handle difficult situations along the trail.  Depending on how far they get, this will help me to determine how much prior knowledge they have on the subject.

Formative Assessment - After the students have had some time to play the game, we will have a discussion about what we noticed during the game and what we think about these situations.  This will help us to explore parts of the time period more and figure out what would be helpful in understanding this part of history.

Summative Assessment - Following the students journey, I will be able to read their blogs and see what they gained from the experience of playing the game and what they learned about westward expansion.  Additionally I can leave comments and feedback and give the students guidance on what to explore further.

Instruments: Students will be playing Oregon Trail and creating a blog.

Reflection

• My standards are about explore the different aspects of Westward expansion and in this case we would be focusing on the Oregon aspect of that expansion and how it contributed to the creation of the west.
• The students will demonstrate their understanding through the creation of a blog and journaling about their experience while going through the Oregon Trail.
• Students will be going through this experience with no prior knowledge necessarily on westward expansion and what it is about.
• The assessment will show me which children struggled and where they succeeded.  This will help me decide which aspects of the westward expansion concepts we will expand on further throughout the unit.  Therefore this would be an activity that would take place towards the beginning of our unit.

V. Materials and Resources

• Oregon Trail online
• Blogger.com
• Computers

Reflection

• Students are given the freedom to write about what they find interesting and important related to the Oregon Trail expansion.
• Students are exposed to how to make a blog and how to use the Oregon Trail program on the computer.
• Students will be aware of the etiquette for using the computers and what is expected of them.  We will have prior knowledge of what a responsible computer user does and how they get the computers taken away from them if they are not following directions.  Additionally, I will walk them step by step through the sites they should be on so there is no wandering through the internet where students shouldn't be.