Weel 14 Blog Entry

This week, the final week before thanksgiving, was an interesting week as far as the content went. In general, we covered the end of the chapter on Andrew Jackson and Industrialism, and tested on it.

On the first day, students examined and focused on interactive maps in order to work together so that students better understood US expansionism. In addition, this was for my research as well. Students responded negatively to the questions, which is valuable data for my research study. Overall, I felt that this lesson went okay, but would've benefited from having students use the laptops in order to view the interactive map presentation.

On the second day, students focused on the third section of the chapter and examined current happenings in the US. To do this, we studied an UPFRONT magazine so that students could see how the US could still expand to include more  than 50 states in the union. In this story, parts of the state of Colorado were threatening to break off into another state dude to ideological differences. Not only did students see current issues, but they were also able to relate them to the issues going on in the current chapter as a result of ideological differences (i.e. sectionalism differences). Overall, I feel that this lesson went well, and that students were able to connect the article to happenings past and present.

On the third day, students focused on the fourth and final section of the chapter while examining interactive maps which deal with the Trail of Tears and Indian removal act. I felt that this sort of interactive activity is valuable for students, and that the cultural information provided by this sort of activity is vital in developing understandings related to Native American culture. In addition, students were able to use the laptops in order to find this information, so they worked cooperatively and with technology. Overall, I felt that this lesson went decently, yet would've benefited from having more time in order to answer and analyze the questions.

On Thursday, students participated in the open book test. Despite the nature of the test, students still seemed stressed out about the test in general. I am still waiting on those results, so further analysis must be done.

On Friday, we examined a lesson and debate on cyber-bullying which was provided by the tech department. Being the last day before break, the students were not really on board with doing any actual work. Thus, today was a frustrating day in terms of classroom management. However, students were able to have a number of interesting and engaging debates throughout the class.