In order to set students up for success with the museum exhibits, we had to provide opportunities for the students to show us what they know along the way (We call them "check points", which are formative assessments throughout the course of the project.). As you can tell in the unit plan, students frequently wrote about events during the Civil War, using evidence from the primary sources and other selected texts. This activities were crucial to building an understanding of the Civil War so that they could later apply what they had learned to examine the impacts on our nation as a result of the war. Assessments do not always have to look like a traditional test (Thank goodness!). You can often get more information about what a students knows through conversation, a presentation, or a game. With that in mind, we try to stay creative with the methods through which we collect data that measures student understanding of significant content. Midway through the project, we created "Wanted" posters for each of the significant historical figures during the Civil War period. We displayed them in the 5th grade hallway and asked students to select a person to research and defend whether or not they consider them to be a villain or hero for their involvement in the Civil War. Students could choose the person they wanted to research and the method they wanted to use to present their findings. We chose to use a menu of options at this point in the year, since they are still gaining experience with using a variety of digital tools for creating and presentation products. They did have the option to propose a product not on the menu for approval. Once all students presented their case, they engaged in a debate about each historical figure, citing evidence from their research. Below are a few examples of their work: |
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AuthorThe three amigos! All three of us are new to 5th grade, but we are prepared for the challenge of developing authentic learning experiences for these special learners! Archives
March 2015
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