Two Sides to the American Revolution:
An Inquiry Lesson using iPads
Taught by: Nicole Bosi and Lindsay Roe
Screen in which questions are
displayed during Socrative quiz.
Engage: As we had access to iPads and smartphones, Nicole and I opted to use the app, Socrative, to pre-assess and motivate students in the engage phase of the lesson. Students were asked to respond to four constructed-response items on the causes of the American Revolution learned in the direct instruction lesson. At the same time, we were able to see on our own iPad, the one in which we launched the assessment, how students were progressing. The students were eager to participate in the Socrative pre-assessment and as a result of this technology, I was able to receive responses from all students, as opposed to the few who would raise their hands to respond to questioning in a typical introduction. However, now seeing how much time it took to set up the students on the application, and for them to type in their responses on the keyboard, I would want to utilize more selected-response items in the future. Using selected-response items would also make it easier to present the answers to students immediately following each question and allow for easier scoring, all through the Socrative application.
Next, to introduce the problem, we created and planned to use a Voki "Historian." Technical difficulties prevented us from showing the Voki Historian until later in the closure. However, as a back-up plan, I read the script that the voki would have said to introduce the question: "Why did the war happen when both sides claim they did not do anything wrong?" Still, I think establishing the problem as having access to confidential files and the students assuming the roles of “history investigators” still fostered motivation. Had the Voki worked, it also would have helped to model for the students what their web-based projects would look like at the end of the inquiry process and it would have guided and motivated their participation in the inquiry process for creating their own Vokis in the explore phase.
Explore: The problem having been introduced, we then reviewed with the students the six steps of the inquiry process using animation on the SmartBoard Notebook 11. Animating the presentation so that students could contemplate and predict the steps of the inquiry process as opposed to me directly providing them to the students, allowed for students to think about what they already knew about the inquiry process as well as provide me with an understanding of their prior knowledge. During this time, the students remained attentive to the lesson, and anticipated each step that would be presented.
We then reviewed how to form "if,then" hypotheses, and gave students time to create their own hypotheses about how different points of view led to war. In hindsight, considering time constraints, the class as a whole could have come up with a hypothesis as opposed to waiting for individual students. Then groups were given their confidential group folders with the "secret" historical files that contained background information on the event that they were assigned as well as an individual account or an overview of the viewpoint of one side: colonist or British. After reading through the documents, students were asked to discuss the viewpoints with their groups and then design a script for a Voki character who had the viewpoint assigned about the event assigned (Boston Massacre, Boston Tea Party, Proclamation of 1763, or Stamp Act). I tried to go step-by-step with the whole class as opposed to modeling the entire process and then letting the students go through each step at their own pace. However, this became challenging as certain groups took longer for certain parts than others. In the future, I would tell students from the beginning that they will be creating their own Voki characters and then let that motivate and guide them through the earlier steps.
The Voki web-based project was highly motivating to students; as I observed every group working to create their Vokis, I saw all students engaged in the task, looking for a way to participate. Unfortunately, between the Socrative pre-assessment and this assignment, there was not a lot of time left for discussion among groups with different perspectives to create Venn Diagrams comparing and contrasting the different views of the causes of the American Revolution. In planning, I had hoped that groups who had the same event but different perspectives would be able to come together and compare and contrast the perspectives using Venn Diagrams. The idea was that one group would be an expert on one perspective and the other group the experts on the other perspective, then students would have to engage in analytic conversations comparing and contrasting the perspectives to fill out the middle section of the Venn Diagram. Thus, the Venn Diagram was meant to focus students' attention back to the original question and hypotheses. Nosich suggests that as students are brainstorming, concept maps or graphic organizers be utilized to identify the “fundamental and powerful concepts” that emerge (2001, p. 63). Without this part of the inquiry-based lesson, I think the lesson was less powerful in terms of the big goal of having students form generalizations about the role of perspective in leading to the American Revolution.
Explain/Closure: Instead of Venn Diagrams, groups were asked to share their Vokis with the class as their closing presentations. The Voki characters were scored according to a rubric that required the students to describe the event assigned to them and correctly portray the point of view of the assigned side on the event. Thus the entire class was able to hear both the British and the colonial perspectives on each of the four events assigned. Of the eight groups who created Voki characters, only two groups failed to meet the the requirements for accurately presenting both the perspective and the event. Thus, I feel that even just with their Voki characters, and not the Venn Diagrams, the students were still able to critically evaluate the data and represent the perspectives accordingly. All of the groups were able to speak as if they were the colonists or British referring to the event. Additionally, the students seemed very proud and enthusiastic about sharing their Voki characters with the class; this level of enthusiasm probably would not have been reached if students were only asked to share Venn Diagrams as planned.
Understanding that “the presentation of inquiry-based projects is different from traditional class reports or research assignments” and “the emphasis is on telling the story of the learning journey,” I purposefully asked students to describe how they came to create their Voki characters during their presentations (Ohio Department of Education). Similarly, Rosenshine (2012) asserts that: “The most effective teachers ask students to explain the process they used to answer the question, to explain how the answer was found. Less successful teachers ask fewer questions and almost no process questions” (p. 14). As expected, I was able to more effectively assess students’ higher-order thinking by asking them how they determined what their Voki characters would say and look like. Once again, due to the time crunch, students were not able to completely alter their characters' appearances to serve the purpose of the project, however, one group in particular did say, “I chose this character because she looked angry and the colonists were angry.” All of the students were able to refer back to earlier stages of the inquiry process when they said they chose what to say from the important data they read.
After all of the groups had presented, I was able to close the lesson by asking what the students realized from the different Vokis. The students recognized through their Voki characters that the British and colonists viewed the same cause in different ways.
Evaluate: For independent practice, students were asked to choose a different event than the one they studied in class, and write the perspective of colonists on the event, write the perspective of the British on the event, and then evaluate how the difference led to war. Instead of asking for a single essay or journal entry with all of these parts, I chose to separate each part to require a specific response so that students targeted all of the elements. I assessed the three required responses according to a holistic rubric; the learning objective for the lesson was for students to score at least two out of three on the rubric. Of the seventeen students who returned this assignment, fourteen met or surpassed the objective. This demonstrates to me that the independent practice assessment was effective, and that students learned from the inquiry-based lesson. That being said, I think that the lesson would have been even more effective had it been allowed to span two class periods. Then, students would have had more time to engage in the explain phase of the lesson, further developing their higher-order thinking skills with the Venn Diagram.
In the future, I would definitely want to utilize this lesson again. The students were thoroughly motivated and engaged by using the iPads, especially enjoying creating their own Voki characters that they could share with their classmates. However, to enhance the quality of the lesson, I would want to devote two periods to its completion. With this change, students could more fully participate in the expand and explain phases.
References
Nosich, G. (2001). Learning to think things through: A guide to critical thinking across the curriculum. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Ohio Department of Education. (n.d.). The Evidence Base for Social Studies: Inquiry-Based Learning. Retrieved March 16, 2015, from http://ims.ode.state.oh.us/ode/ims/rrt/research/Content/inquiry_based_learning_what_we_know.asp
Rosenshine, B. (2012). Principles of instruction: Research-based strategies that all teachers should know. American Educator, 36(1), 12-19, 39.
Two Sides to the American Revolution:
displayed during Socrative quiz.
Explore: The problem having been introduced, we then reviewed with the students the six steps of the inquiry process using animation on the SmartBoard Notebook 11. Animating the presentation so that students could contemplate and predict the steps of the inquiry process as opposed to me directly providing them to the students, allowed for students to think about what they already knew about the inquiry process as well as provide me with an understanding of their prior knowledge. During this time, the students remained attentive to the lesson, and anticipated each step that would be presented.
The Voki web-based project was highly motivating to students; as I observed every group working to create their Vokis, I saw all students engaged in the task, looking for a way to participate. Unfortunately, between the Socrative pre-assessment and this assignment, there was not a lot of time left for discussion among groups with different perspectives to create Venn Diagrams comparing and contrasting the different views of the causes of the American Revolution. In planning, I had hoped that groups who had the same event but different perspectives would be able to come together and compare and contrast the perspectives using Venn Diagrams. The idea was that one group would be an expert on one perspective and the other group the experts on the other perspective, then students would have to engage in analytic conversations comparing and contrasting the perspectives to fill out the middle section of the Venn Diagram. Thus, the Venn Diagram was meant to focus students' attention back to the original question and hypotheses. Nosich suggests that as students are brainstorming, concept maps or graphic organizers be utilized to identify the “fundamental and powerful concepts” that emerge (2001, p. 63). Without this part of the inquiry-based lesson, I think the lesson was less powerful in terms of the big goal of having students form generalizations about the role of perspective in leading to the American Revolution.
Explain/Closure: Instead of Venn Diagrams, groups were asked to share their Vokis with the class as their closing presentations. The Voki characters were scored according to a rubric that required the students to describe the event assigned to them and correctly portray the point of view of the assigned side on the event. Thus the entire class was able to hear both the British and the colonial perspectives on each of the four events assigned. Of the eight groups who created Voki characters, only two groups failed to meet the the requirements for accurately presenting both the perspective and the event. Thus, I feel that even just with their Voki characters, and not the Venn Diagrams, the students were still able to critically evaluate the data and represent the perspectives accordingly. All of the groups were able to speak as if they were the colonists or British referring to the event. Additionally, the students seemed very proud and enthusiastic about sharing their Voki characters with the class; this level of enthusiasm probably would not have been reached if students were only asked to share Venn Diagrams as planned.
Understanding that “the presentation of inquiry-based projects is different from traditional class reports or research assignments” and “the emphasis is on telling the story of the learning journey,” I purposefully asked students to describe how they came to create their Voki characters during their presentations (Ohio Department of Education). Similarly, Rosenshine (2012) asserts that: “The most effective teachers ask students to explain the process they used to answer the question, to explain how the answer was found. Less successful teachers ask fewer questions and almost no process questions” (p. 14). As expected, I was able to more effectively assess students’ higher-order thinking by asking them how they determined what their Voki characters would say and look like. Once again, due to the time crunch, students were not able to completely alter their characters' appearances to serve the purpose of the project, however, one group in particular did say, “I chose this character because she looked angry and the colonists were angry.” All of the students were able to refer back to earlier stages of the inquiry process when they said they chose what to say from the important data they read.
After all of the groups had presented, I was able to close the lesson by asking what the students realized from the different Vokis. The students recognized through their Voki characters that the British and colonists viewed the same cause in different ways.
Evaluate: For independent practice, students were asked to choose a different event than the one they studied in class, and write the perspective of colonists on the event, write the perspective of the British on the event, and then evaluate how the difference led to war. Instead of asking for a single essay or journal entry with all of these parts, I chose to separate each part to require a specific response so that students targeted all of the elements. I assessed the three required responses according to a holistic rubric; the learning objective for the lesson was for students to score at least two out of three on the rubric. Of the seventeen students who returned this assignment, fourteen met or surpassed the objective. This demonstrates to me that the independent practice assessment was effective, and that students learned from the inquiry-based lesson. That being said, I think that the lesson would have been even more effective had it been allowed to span two class periods. Then, students would have had more time to engage in the explain phase of the lesson, further developing their higher-order thinking skills with the Venn Diagram.
In the future, I would definitely want to utilize this lesson again. The students were thoroughly motivated and engaged by using the iPads, especially enjoying creating their own Voki characters that they could share with their classmates. However, to enhance the quality of the lesson, I would want to devote two periods to its completion. With this change, students could more fully participate in the expand and explain phases.
References
Nosich, G. (2001). Learning to think things through: A guide to critical thinking across the curriculum. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Ohio Department of Education. (n.d.). The Evidence Base for Social Studies: Inquiry-Based Learning. Retrieved March 16, 2015, from http://ims.ode.state.oh.us/ode/ims/rrt/research/Content/inquiry_based_learning_what_we_know.asp
Rosenshine, B. (2012). Principles of instruction: Research-based strategies that all teachers should know. American Educator, 36(1), 12-19, 39.
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