PBI-GLOBAL US-MX

WRITTEN REPORT
Laura Anderson
Laquita Covington

LESSON RATIONALE

The “content” or “what” of this unit was based on the idea of desegregation and how

culture has affected it over time. The “pedagogy” or “how” of this project was having

students evaluate and analyze cause and effect relationships in ​Separate Never Equal​ and

The Story of Ruby Bridges​. This was done through inquiry-based discussions with

think-pair-shares, graphic organizers, sketchnotes, and cooperatively learning groups. The

main “technology” tool used in this project was SeeSaw (a new social media used for

educational purposes). Using SeeSaw helped make the content more accessible as well as

helped each class understand the other culture better, since students could literally see and

hear from the videos and pictures posted online.

Our PBI-Global was completed with first and third grade classes in mind, so we used

lots of visuals and concrete graphic organizers to help our students with organizing their

thought processes and thinking. Literacy theories include Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy and

Jean Piaget’s Cognitive Development. Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy - as students used

think-pair-shares, sketchnotes, and discussion to pilot analytical and evaluative thinking

about real life situations based on two shared read alouds. Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive

Development also connects as activities included graphic organizers, venn diagrams,

thinking maps, flow maps, etc.

LESSON IMPLEMENTATION OVERVIEW

Our compelling question: how have different cultures affected desegregation efforts

in the past, present, and future? Students had two shared read alouds: ​Separate is Never

Equal​ and ​The Story of Ruby Bridges​. Classes participated in a think-pair-shares about

culture to initiate student-led inquiry before and after reading these memoirs. Students

also responded to these read alouds with analytical discussion and thinking maps to

compare and contrast similar and different characteristics of culture before and after

reading each story. After hearing ​Ruby Bridges​, classes reflected on how these memoirs had

shared characteristics of real people who made real life choices to stand up for

desegregation rights in schools. To make this unit even more authentic, classes compared

and contrasted culture in the United States and Mexico halfway through the project. For the

culminating final project, students drew portraits about what segregation-desegregation

looks like in schools in the past, present, and future, and shared these with each other’s

classes over SeeSaw. Using SeeSaw made cross-cultural collaboration a lot easier for

students and allowed them to ​experience,​ not just read about our topic for this project.

In terms of technology-use and making this lesson more accessible and multimodal

for learners, including struggling readers, Ms. Covington’s class used the Activboard for

thinking maps and listened to Ruby Bridges on RAZ kids. This was an easy way to

accommodate for struggling readers without changing the content. Ms. McDonald’s class

has little to no technology. However, she was able to use her iPad and laptop for video

responses, accommodating for her struggling readers, as well as used these for showing her

students SeeSaw posts. She also used her iPad for downloading the read alouds for this
unit. This made accessing materials a lot easier as well as lessons more authentic and

engaging for her students. Though, there is nothing like having a real book.

Kristin McDonald’s 3rd Grade Class in Mexico

Day 1: We started by making a bubble map on culture and I was so surprised at how

little they needed my help coming up with ideas! They reflected back to our event

“International Cultures Night” where we celebrate the 16 countries represented in our

school. Next we read Separate Never Equal, and it was a little uncomfortable for me to read

to them about Mexicans not being allowed in a school, especially since the recent political

conflict between Mexico and United States. It was hard for them to grasp that this was a

historical fiction book set in the past and not a current reality and mindset of people in the

United States. In the end though, they applauded that Sylvia finally got to go to the “good

school.”

Day 2: We reviewed ​Separate Never Equal ​and then read ​Ruby Bridges​. Before I read,

I had them make observations and predictions based on the cover and they already began

to make connections between the two books! They had lots of questions about the book

and why people didn’t like Ruby—I shared with them that like the previous book, this was

also based on a true story and a sad part of the United States history.

Day 3: We focused on segregation-desegregation and making connections to the two

books. These were very foreign concepts to them. It was also very cool to see their zeal for

justice and to recognize how wrong segregation is. The students worked together to fill in
the rest of the double bubble map with information from the two texts; the double bubble

map really helped them to process the information and to visually see the similarities.

Day 4: We created a venn diagram about culture in the United States and Mexico. It

was fun to see their ideas of what the United States was like based on what they knew of

the teachers from the US and movies that they’ve seen—which can paint a somewhat

unrealistic picture of the US, but also a lot that was accurate.

Day 5-6: Students worked on creating their portraits with their groups of the past,

present, and future schools.

Day 7: Students peer evaluated each other’s class projects. Student responses were

insightful.

Laquita Covington’s 1st Grade Class in the United States

Day 1: In order to open the lesson for my class, the first day during morning work I

had my students draw a picture using the prompt “How would you feel if you were not able

to go to school with your friends because someone did not like how you looked?” To help

students better connect with what emotions they could use to express their feelings, I

displayed emoji picture cards. After having students share their pictures I told them that

we would be using their work to help us understand how two different little girls felt when

they were told they could not go to the school they wanted to because of their looks. We

would get to see how the girls felt, and what they did to overcome the problem that they

had. Next, we discussed the definition of culture. Using our background knowledge about
holidays, we created a circle map brainstorming what culture is and how it looks for

different people.

Day 2: To help the lesson flow better for students, I broke this day up into two

separate parts. The first half of the lesson took place during our whole group reading block.

I opened the lesson by having students watch a video called ​Scenes From Schools Around the

World​. We do not have a diverse population at my school, and I wanted my students to have

a visual of what schools look like in different countries as well as in cities in the United

States. This video also allowed them to see how different cultures impact schools. Next, I

read the first half of ​Separate is Never Equal​. During and after the reading we discussed

Sylvia’s feelings and the challenges she faced. We also began working on our circle map for

the story, adding details about the events that occurred. The second half of the lesson took

place during our Social Studies block. We completed a quick review of the ​Separate is Never

Equal​, and then continued reading the rest of the story and adding more details to our

circle map.

Day 3: We completed a quick retell of ​Separate is Never Equal​ and reviewed our

circle map. I used this to help introduce the story of ​Ruby Bridges​. During centers, students

listened to ​Ruby Bridges ​using the reading app Raz Kids. After listening to the story I

conferenced with the students in small groups, and they created their own circle maps

about ​Ruby Bridges​. We used our model from ​Separate is Never Equal ​to help us determine

important story details.

Day 4: As a whole class we reviewed both stories. Using our circle maps, we looked

at the experiences of Sylvia and Ruby and discussed how their experiences were the same
and how they were different. The details from the maps helped us create a double bubble

map comparing and contrasting their stories.

Day 5: I shared with the students that we would continue discussing culture. Using

the Activboard, I displayed our SeeSaw pictures and videos to compare what our class

looks like, with the class in Mexico. Afterwards, we discussed some similarities and

differences. I was really impressed that the first thing one of my students noticed was one

of the students said that Mexico does not get snow like we do in the United States. We also

watched ​Mexico: Town – Travel Kids in North America. ​We used the information we learned,

previous background knowledge, and our circle map about culture, to create a double

bubble map for comparing and contrasting the United States and Mexico.

Days 6 and 7: I closed the lesson by reviewing culture and how different cultures

impact the schools students attend. Next, students drew pictures of what schools looked

like in the past using the book ​Separate is Never Equal, ​what schools look like today using

our classroom as inspiration, and what they think schools will look like in the future.

During our center rotations, I called the students one on one to have them answer the

survey questions. I really loved the answers they gave and at the last minute decided to

record some of the last few students responding to some of the questions.

CHALLENGES & SUCCESSES

Kristin McDonald’s 3rd Grade Class in Mexico

There weren’t as many challenges as I anticipated. It was hard to read a

discriminatory story to the people group who were being discriminated against. Also, being
an English immersion school, the language was difficult for some students. Our third

graders had little to no prior knowledge-concept about Mexicans being discriminated

against in the United States, or that segregation even existed. Technology was also a

drawback, but being able to see posts from the other class did give us good ideas of how we

could do it better should we decided to do something like this again.

In terms of successes, I found it really interesting to see how this project has

changed the views and thoughts and opened our students’ minds. Living in a small, isolated

town doesn't expose them to much and this helped a lot. Making the final portraits exposed

deeper concepts of what they learned and took away from the project, I was so encouraged

by their work. The awareness that this project brought to students was another huge and

would definitely want to do something like this again.

Overall, I think It built cooperation - students loved the discussion and overall

elements of doing something ​different​ than their usual day-to-day lessons​.

Ms. Covington’s 1st Grade Class in the United States:

I enjoyed being able to collaborate with Ms. McDonald’s class. When we first began

the lesson I was not sure if my students would be able to grasp the concepts of culture and

diversity impacting schools, due to their age, but was highly impressed with the responses

they gave. Even though we live in the present day of desegregation, the majority of my

students have not had the exposure of being able to attend a more diverse school.

To help them better understand and make the connection of desegregation, I had to

do a lot of frontloading. I believe what really helped my students to understand more about
different cultures is the fact that we had a student in another class that recently came to

America from Afghanistan. She did not speak English and would join our class during our

phonics lessons. The students were able to connect her experience to our lesson about

culture. I also think seeing the updates on SeeSaw helped drive the lesson even more.

During our discussions about desegregation most of my students connected to ​Ruby

Bridges ​the most. I was impressed with the range of emotions that they felt about both

stories. For ​Separate is Never Equal,​ a lot of my students told me they felt angry and sad for

Sylvia because of how she was treated but responded by feeling happy for Ruby because

she had a nice teacher that made school fun for her.

We also did a survey to close out the project. Two responses to the survey questions

really stuck out to me. The first response was for the question “What was your favorite part

of our cross-cultural classroom project?” One of my student’s favorite part of the whole

project was reading about how hard Sylvia’s dad fought for her to attend school in ​Separate

is Never Equal​. He was able to relate to this story because he is currently being raised by his

father and he loved how Sylvia’s dad takes care of her. He said that Sylvia is like him even

though she looks different. Another one of my favorite responses was for the question

“What is desegregation and why is it important?” One of my girls responded by saying

adults shouldn’t want things to be a certain way because God made everyone different. Her

answer displayed her understanding of everyone’s differences and how they make them

unique and they shouldn’t be judged. This answer really blew me away because I was able

to see no matter how young kids are, they know how their world is being impacted by how

we treat others.
 Overall completing this project allowed me to reflect on myself as a teacher and the

limits I placed on my students. I also was excited to collaborate with Ms. McDonald’s class

because this opportunity allowed for my students to see how there is more to life outside of

their current area. I have hope that the students we are teaching today will have a positive

impact on society in the future.

Laura Anderson

As one who did not work directly with students on this project, I found there were

more successes than challenges. Sarah, my contact, was very on top of things and did

everything she could to support and help Kristin with her class throughout the course of

this project. I also found the lack of technology was not as much of an issue as I thought.

Though it may have made some aspects easier, it wasn’t a game changer. Using SeeSaw as

our technology piece to blog about daily lessons, really helped overcome this particular

challenge. Teacher iPads made accessing the books Kristin’s class needed easier, since she

could download them in ebook format. Thus, the technology piece of TPACK was what

made​ this unit for everyone involved.

COLLABORATION

Laquita Covington

Being able to collaborate with the school in Mexico was a wonderful opportunity.

With the use of technology, the experience went very smoothly. Using Seesaw allowed for

everyone to experience the lessons taught in the classroom because we were able to upload
videos and pictures. If my students were older I would have loved to extend the lesson over

a longer course of time to dig deeper. I would break the lesson into two separate parts. This

would allow the students to have more time to learn more about culture and then lead into

teaching desegregation. I would also include an opportunity for the classes to have a video

questioning and answer session.

Laura Anderson

As the connector between the two classes and colleagues, I anticipated more “red

tape” and “wait time” when communicating with the class in Mexico and there really

wasn’t. SeeSaw was new to me, but I loved it. It made communicating with all teachers a lot

easier and enabled me to see what was going on between the two classes while they were

collaborating overseas. I loved looking forward to the live updates and seeing the student

input and interviews throughout the course of this project. One of Kristin’s student’s

projects really stuck out to me in particular - he involved ISIS as part of his final portrait of

what segregation-desegregation looks like in the present. I loved this because ISIS is real

and affecting educational efforts for children in the Middle East. This showed that he really

understood the material. Overall, I think everyone worked really well together and enjoyed

the cross-cultural communication and collaboration between classes.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Coles, R., & Ford, G. (2010). ​The story of Ruby Bridges​.

Harris, M., & Westermann, G. (2014). ​A student's guide to developmental psychology​.

Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Johnson, D. (2014). ​Reading, writing, and literacy 2.0: Teaching with online texts, tools,
and resources, K-8​.

Tonatiuh, D., Sananes, A., & Dreamscape Media. (2014). ​Separate is never equal:
Sylvia Mendez & her family's fight for desegregation​.