The Week That Was In 505

Another shortened week. We are 7 or 8 weeks into the 3rd quarter and we haven’t had a full/normal week of school yet. That’s not a joke. As frustrating as it is, I didn’t choose for that to happen. The only choice I can make is how I respond to the inconsistencies. I keep a positive mindset and try to make the most of it with the lessons and students learning.

This week we began the War of 1812 and studied the causes, effects, and different perspectives about the war with Federalists and Democratic-Republicans. This lesson has a good mixture of EduProtocols that eventually led to the students creating a blog post or Yelp review.

When I took a step back this week and looked at where we were, I decided to end the unit after the War of 1812 lesson. I need to shift my focus on writing thesis statements, multi-paragraph essays, and getting students ready for writing on the state test. I usually don’t explicitly focus on this because it’s not engaging. However, it needs to be done. As a result, I have some ideas running through my mind and I’ve been collaborating with Scott Petri (@scottmpetri) on some ideas. More to come on this…

Here was my week as I used a This or That Choice Board Template from Stephanie Howell (@mrshowell24)…

Monday – Thin Slide, GimKit, Choice: EdPuzzle or Frayer

Tuesday – Thin Slide, GimKit, Choice: Solo Iron Chef, Organizers

Wednesday – GimKit, Empathy Map or Dialogue Slide

Thursday – Blog or Yelp Review, GimKit

Friday – PD Day

Monday

Today was the day to start the War of 1812. This quarter I have a student teacher and he had a great prompt idea for a Thin Slide – Why do countries go to war? and Why do countries want to avoid war? – This was an awesome way to begin the War of 1812. I gave students 4 minutes to add one picture and one word for both sides of the prompt. At the end of 4 minutes I had students choose one side to present, from their seats, in 10 seconds or less. Here is an example of the thin slide.

I had students choose one side or the other when presenting because I wanted to point out their reasons for, or not, going to war were similar to the reasons brought up by Federalists and Democratic-Republicans. Following the Thin Slide presentations, we switch to a GimKit.

I have been using GimKit lately because students gets more repetition with questions. Plus, it uses Interleaving which helps students learn the content. I ran the gimkit for 5 minutes and gave feedback. Then I ran the same Gimkit again for 5 minutes at the end of class. With 10 total minutes of a Gimkit, all classes answered a total of 800 to 1,200 questions. This sounds awesome, but, BUT, BUT……teach your students to not just click through answers and learn.

After the first GimKit, students had a choice of watching an EdPuzzle video or completing a Frayer for these 3 words: War Hawks, Impressment, and War of 1812. The EdPuzzle video covered these terms, so this is why I had it as a choice. Students had 10-15 minutes to complete one of these options.

Tuesday

On this day I began class with another Thin Slide focused on vocabulary. Students designed a slide based on one of these three words: War Hawk, Impressment, or War of 1812. Students had 3 minutes to design their slide by adding the word, a picture, and their OWN definition. At the end of 3 minutes we had a twist – go to another slide and add to their definition or fix their definition.

After our Thin Slide, students had a choice of completing a Solo Iron Chef or a worksheet with various graphic organizers (cause/effect, venn diagram, and a bubble map). I hand made this worksheet. Most students chose the worksheet. I had the same reading paired with both assignments. The reading was set up as causes of the War of 1812, differences between War Hawks and Federalists, and Results of the war. Here are some of the Solo Iron Chef Slides:

The last 10 minutes of class I ran the same GimKit as the day before and raised our first day averages by 20% or higher.

Wednesday

The goal for Wednesday was finishing the Solo Iron Chef or worksheet from the previous day. Then students had a choice to connect what they learned through an Empathy Map or a Dialogue Slide. Both of these activities had students looking at reasons for going to war or avoiding war with different perspectives. Here are some examples:

We finished out the day with a GimKit to review the War of 1812. The more reps you can get with GimKit, Quizizz, or Blooket the better. These reps with the questions will help eliminate the Forgetting Curve and help with learning.

Thursday

Today was the final day for the War of 1812 and students had a choice with all of the information they collected – write a blog post or create a Yelp Review from the perspective of a Federalist or Democratic Republican. Some students seemed overwhelmed with writing a new blog or Yelp, but I reminded them they had all of the information. I had to show them they had the information and this was the point of a graphic organizer – to help you create!! Nevertheless, students were doing great and completed some awesome blogs and reviews. By the end of class we were doing a GimKit with ALL the content from our unit on the New Republic. Here are some blogs and Yelp reviews…

And that’s it – the end of the unit. This unit should have taken 5 weeks to complete, instead, it took 7-8 weeks to complete. I can’t let it bother me as I choose how to respond. I made the most of this unit and have some ideas up my sleeve for next year.

Looking back on this unit with the New Republic, if there was one thing I would change it would be eliminating the choice for the blog, Facebook profile, or Yelp Review. I would like to eliminate the Facebook profile as most students didn’t connect with that platform.