DISTANCE EDUCATION LESSON PLAN

Distance Education Lesson Plan Chanda Ijames EDTC 650 University of Maryland University College

Distance Education Lesson Plan

DISTANCE EDUCATION LESSON PLAN

Designer: Class: Lesson Title: Teacher: Setting:

Chanda Ijames U.S. History, 9th Grade The Great Depression Ms. Ijames Blended (Both Synchronous and Asynchronous)

Overview: Students will investigate the social, political, and economic impact of the Great Depression. This lesson will be delivered via an online distance education course. I will use audio/visual learning to introduce the lesson. A WebQuest has been created for students and it outlines the entire project. In this WebQuest, students will research the cause and effect of the Great Depression; identify key terms used during this period of time. Activities will be done in groups of four (or three depending on class size). Groups should work through the discussion board, e-mail, chat, or a document sharing tool such as Google Documents. The final project will consist of creating a wiki presentation about the Great Depression. Students will use Microsoft Word to complete worksheets and students will use the course management system Blackboard to submit all assignments and Elluminate Live for video conferencing. Objective(s): Students will: Students will be able to explain the importance of the Great Depression and how it affected the American people. Students will be able to explain how the government responded to the Great Depression. Pedagogical Approaches: For this lesson, there will be combination of pedagogical approaches incorporated to secure the success of the project. Constructivism and cooperative learning theories will be used within this lesson plan. Through the use of constructivism, students will be actively involved in a projectbased learning activity using a WebQuest that allows students to probe the Great Depression Era, create more knowledge and then reflect on and talk about what they are doing and how their understanding is changing. WebQuests use a constructivist approach (Lamb, 2004) that allows for opportunities for integrating technology. Groups will use KWL graphic organizers to record and organize information for the wiki presentation. According to Mindel and Verma (2006) a wiki is medium in which a group of individuals can work together asynchronously on an idea and capture in a reusable format. The information recorded on the KWL organizer will determine how well their learning groups are functioning and how well social skills are being employed which involves task work and teamwork. The cooperative learning activities will include small group discussions, chat, and video conferencing and board discussions. The synchronous distance learning will occur through online chats as well as video conferencing through Elluminate Live. If video conferencing is not a possibility we will have an open chat and discussion board. Asynchronous distance learning will occur when students participate in the discussion board conferences and use email for course-related activities.

DISTANCE EDUCATION LESSON PLAN

LESSON PLAN FOR THE UNIT Students will complete the Great Depression WebQuest from the following site:
http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=191302

Lesson Goal: Introduce the Great Depression, and its effect on American culture. Standards to Meet: U.S. History standard 9-12: 5.3.1a: Evaluate the hardships of the Great Depression on various groups in American society, including families, farmers, African Americans, and industrial workers. 5.3.1b: Describe the responses of the Hoover administration to the Great Depression. 5.3.1c: Describe the responses of the Roosevelt administration to the Great Depression. Timeline would normally give five 50-minute periods for the assignments. In a distance education class I would give a reasonable amount of time to complete the unit lesson. Here is a sketch of how much time I will for each activity. Lesson 1 (Day 1): Introduction to the Great Depression Lesson 1 Activity: Students will view an introductory video of the Great Depression and post a response to the following prompt via the discussion board and reply to at least two other persons comments. Respond to the following discussion board prompt: What did you learn from the Great Depression video? (Limit two paragraphs) Lesson 2 (Day 2 -5): Begin to research the social, political and economic impact of the Great Depression through small group collaborative activities. Lesson 2 Activity: Students will create groups of four and begin the small group activities. Small groups will use WebQuest online resources to answer the questions on the following worksheets: Stock Market Crash, Hoover Administration and the Roosevelt Administration. Responses will be posted in the Study Group Section. Email the instructor after all activity questions are completed.

DISTANCE EDUCATION LESSON PLAN

Lesson 3 (Day 6): Review worksheets of the Great Depression Lesson 3 Activity: Whole class review of worksheets and clear up any misunderstandings via video conferencing. Lesson 4 (Day 7-10): Prepare and create wiki presentation of the Great Depression. Lesson 4 Activity: Whole class introduction of the wikispaces project and guidelines of the project via web conferencing. Students prepare to create a wiki presentation by viewing an online video and step-bystep guide to creating a wikispaces account. Groups create wikispaces account. Students will refer to this sample wiki as a guide for their creation. Use the wiki rubric as a guideline for creating the presentation. Lesson 5 (Day 11): Reflection and Critique Lesson 5 Activity: Groups will post the link to their final presentation in the discussion board and respond to two other presentations. Students will respond to the discussion board prompt. How did this project influence how you feel about the Great Depression? (minimum two paragraphs) Students will be given this rubric to critique their fellow group members. I will be using this rubric to evaluate each individuals performance. Lesson 6 (Day 12): Interactive Assessment Lesson 6 Activity: Students will complete and submit an interactive assessment of the Great Depression.

Evaluation

DISTANCE EDUCATION LESSON PLAN

Students will be assessed on their completion of the WebQuest worksheets, online interactive assessment, group work and activities, and discussion board participation. They will also fill out the group evaluation form on the WebQuest. Their wiki presentation on the Great Depression will be out of 50 points. The wiki will be graded on requirements, organization, content, and grammar. The group work will be worth 30 points. Students will also be assessed on their beginning discussion participation and the final discussion reaction and what they have learned. Total points awarded for discussion will be 20 points. Therefore, the overall score will be based upon 100 points Materials A computer with Internet, Microsoft Word, and a Google account will be required for this lesson. Students also should have access to Elluminate Live with video conference tools and access to Blackboard for e-mail, chat and discussions, as well as video conferencing and office hours Extension Activities: Create a collection of Great Depression photographs: http://depts.washington.edu/depress/photographs.shtml
Compare and contrast the conditions in the Hoovervilles to various shantytowns and tent

cities currently in existence in the world: http://depts.washington.edu/depress/hooverville.shtml

Research the famous, infamous, and influential people of the Great Depression as a way

of understanding the time: Pretty Boy Floyd, John Dillinger, Herbert Hoover, Woodie Guthrie Dorothea Lange, and Franklin Roosevelt. Investigate the experiences of various minority populations during the Great Depression: http://depts.washington.edu/depress/civil_rights.shtml Conclusion: I really enjoyed the depth of this assignment. I had to think outside of the box. The creation of the WebQuest allows the students to work as it is available on the Internet. The activities are easy to create and its a discovery lesson. Most of the learning is student-centered and requires very little dependency on the instructor. I work primarily in the role of a facilitator which is the foundation of constructivism. I only had to incorporate the discussion boards and video conferencing to accommodate the distance learning component. In addition, I had to adjust the time frame to be more flexible with students and adjust the group work. Overall, this project fully supports a distance learning unit lesson plan. References Lamb, A. (2004). WebQuests. School Library Media Activities Monthly, 2, 38-40. Retrieved April 11, 2013, from http://webquest.weebly.com/why-use-webquests.html

DISTANCE EDUCATION LESSON PLAN

Ohio State. (2013). Retrieved April 11, 2013, from http://www.cse.ohiostate.edu/~neelam/abet/DIRASSMNT/teamworkRubric.html Mindel, J. and Verma, S. (2006). Wikis for Teaching and Learning. Communication of the Association of Information Systems, 18(1). Retrieved April 9, 2013, from http://aisel.aisnet.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3072&context=cais ReadWriteThink. (2013). Retrieved April 9, 2013, from http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/lesson_images/lesson979/WikiRubric.pdf