Frank Booth ELED 3223 11/3/13

Lesson Observation Social Studies

The lesson that I observed actually was a lesson that carried over three days. The first day the teacher introduced that they would be researching some important people during the colonial period. The teacher told them that they would be studying five people and that only five people were allowed to do each person. There was a biography of each person and they would be allowed to read each and they would decide who they wanted to research. I thought that this was an interesting idea, allowing the students to read a short bio of a person and picking which interested them. Usually the teacher picks the research topic for the student and they have no say. The second day, the students received a longer biography sheet about their person and they were instructed to create a trading card for their person. They needed to record 5-10 facts about their person and create the card. They were allowed to draw their person on the front and place facts on the back. This was a good way to research a person, without it seeming like a research project. The students who could draw, had an opportunity to display their skill and those who liked to write created a short paragraph instead of bullet notes. On the third day, students finished with facts on their cards and then they were broken into groups, with each key figure present. They were given a sheet that had the people on it and they needed to record three facts from the other members presentation. The key figures where Anne Hutchinson, William Penn, George Washington, Pocahontas and John Smith. This was a simple way to make sure that the students were listening to each other and spread

Frank Booth ELED 3223 11/3/13

information. At the end the teacher collected their worksheets as part of their assessment, then picked one person from each of the key figures to read the back of their card and present their facts. This was a good idea to work on presentations skills and building confidence in their work. This activity took some planning of course but was simple and the students worked on skills and were presented with information from their peers instead of from the teacher reading form a text book about these people.