I measured students learning in several ways.

The first way was through a

map they created, and the second way was through questions they were asked to
answer with their group, mostly describing their process of map making. This
lesson relied on some background knowledge of gerrymandering and redistricting,
so the warm-up gave me a good preview of how much students knew before we
started the main portion of the lesson plan. During the warm-up, a few students
were very outspoken and knowledgeable on gerrymandering and redistricting. I
had every student write one word or phrase on the board to express any ideas they
had from the warm-up activity. What I gathered from this portion of the warm-up
was that students had some background knowledge, but it could definitely be built
upon and become more concrete for them.
The purpose of my lesson plan was for students to experience the
redistricting process and to think about all the complex and necessary steps of
drawing district lines and avoiding gerrymandering. I would know if students
learned if they created a map that followed all the instructions of redistricting,
avoided gerrymandering, and were able to express through writing their process of
doing so. Between the two classes I taught, I had 16 maps and 16 written
explanations to assess the learning. Of the 16 maps, only two maps were drawn that
appeared to be somewhat gerrymandered. However, these two maps were also
drawn out to equally distribute the high school population throughout Fort Collins,
so I believe these two groups still did a very good job. Most of the maps that the
students created were free of gerrymandering, drawn out to equally distribute all
high school students throughout the schools in Fort Collins, used natural boundaries

to create lines, and overall made sense. Based on just the data I collected from the
maps the students created, I believe the students learned as a result of my teaching.
Students were also assessed on writing their process of creating the maps. I
was looking for students to hit all of the points I asked them to, along with writing
any of the ideas they had along the way. For the most part, students provided
thoughtful answers. I wanted students to use all of the materials I had given them to
draw their maps and reach their conclusions and based on the writing portion of the
assignment all of them did this. One thing I emphasized about redistricting before
we began this activity was that each district must have a similar population
number, and that the geographic size of the district is not what is important. I was
impressed that almost every single group focused on this in their written portion of
the activity. Students wrote things like, our school boundaries were drawn to
create equal as possible populations based on population density throughout Fort
Collins, or we used the number of students in each school and the population
density to make sure we werent taking too many students from any schools and
that we would have enough students living near each school. I was very pleased to
see that students were taking this into account to redistrict the high school
boundaries and avoid gerrymandering these boundaries.
Aforementioned, one of the purposes of my lesson plan was for students to
gain an understanding of the complex steps of redistricting. One of the questions I
asked the students to answer was to think about all the people or organizations that
would be involved in redrawing the high school boundaries in Fort Collins. Several
of the groups thought of things I hadnt even considered, which affirmed to me the

complexity of the process and the students ability to engaged in critical thinking.
Several responses included creating a committee or board to help, involving parents
and students, and having local representatives be a part of the process. This
signaled to me that students were beginning to understand redistricting and all the
steps involved in it.
Near the end of the class period I had several groups show their map to the
class and talk us through their process. Unlike the warm-up portion of the lesson
plan, students were far more talkative and willing to share. I could tell that they had
learned from this activity and understood redistricting and gerrymandering more
than they had before we began the lesson. Based off this class discussion at the end,
coupled with the maps and written portion of the activity, I can tell that students did
learned as a result of my teaching.