Lesson Plan for Implementing

NETS•S—‘Template I
(More Directed Learning Activities)
Template with guiding questions
Teacher(s)
Name Mark Thomason

Position Teacher

School/District West Hall High School

E-mail mark.thomason@hallco.org

Phone 706-892-6195

Grade Level(s) 9th-12th

Content Area US History-ELL

Timeline 3 weeks

Standards (What do you want students to know and be able to do? What knowledge, skills, and strategies do you
expect students to gain? Are there connections to other curriculum areas and subject area benchmarks?
SSUSH20 Analyze U.S. international and domestic policies including their influences on technological
advancements and social changes during the Truman and

Eisenhower administrations
SSUSH21 Analyze U.S. international and domestic policies including their influences on technological
advancements and social changes during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations
Content Standards

ISTE Standards for students:

1c
Students use technology to seek feedback that informs and improves their practice and to demonstrate their
learning in a variety of ways.
1d
Students understand the fundamental concepts of technology operations, demonstrate the ability to choose, use
and troubleshoot current technologies and are able to transfer their knowledge to explore emerging technologies.
2b
Students engage in positive, safe, legal and ethical behavior when using technology, including social
interactions online or when using networked devices.
3a
Students plan and employ effective research strategies to locate information and other resources for their
intellectual or creative pursuits.
3c

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Students curate information from digital resources using a variety of tools and methods to create collections of
artifacts that demonstrate meaningful connections or conclusions.

Overview (a short summary of the lesson or unit including assignment or expected or possible products)

Students will learn about the role the United States played during the Cold War and how its containment policy
dragged them into foreign conflicts around the world, such as the Vietnam War. Students will backtrack into the
50s and 60s to discover the social, political, and economic changes that were occurring in the U.S. during the
time period of the Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement. Students will also be introduced to the Civil Rights
Movement and learn about its goals as well as the key figures/events associated with it.

Essential Questions (What essential question or learning are you addressing? What would students care or
want to know about the topic? What are some questions to get students thinking about the topic or generate
interest about the topic? What questions can you ask students to help them focus on important aspects of the
topic? What background or prior knowledge will you expect students to bring to this topic and build on?)

How do containment and the Truman Doctrine reflect the beliefs and ideals of the US during the Cold War? • How does
Johnson's Great Society program reflect the beliefs and ideals of the US during the 1960s? • How did the beliefs and
ideals of the United States during the Cold War lead to McCarthyism? • How does the rise of the Civil Rights Movement
reflect the shifting beliefs and ideals of the United States? How did the Cold War conflict lead to US involvement in the
Korean War? • Why did the Brown v. Board of Education ruling increase racial conflict and lead to policy changes in the
US? • How did the Cold War conflict influence the complexity of US involvement in the Vietnam War? • Why did the
Cuban Missile Crisis lead to US foreign policy changes? • How did escalating racial conflict lead to Civil Rights
Legislation being passed in the United States? • How did the actions and policies of John F. Kennedy affect society
through intended and unintended consequences? • How did the actions and policies of Lyndon Johnson affect society
through intended and unintended consequences? • How did the actions of Martin Luther King Jr. affect society through
intended and unintended consequences? • How did the actions of Cesar Chavez affect society through intended and
unintended consequences? • How did the actions and policies of Robert Kennedy affect society through intended and
unintended consequences?

Assessment (What will students do or produce to illustrate their learning? What can students do to generate new
knowledge? How will you assess how students are progressing (formative assessment)? How will you assess
what they produce or do? How will you differentiate products?)

Diagnostic tool- Kahoot

Formative assessments: Students will answer the essential question on the Canvas discussion board.
Formative: Students will take part in polls and answering questions on NearPod
Summative: FlipGrid
Summative: Kahoot

Resources (How does technology support student learning? What digital tools, and resources—online student
tools, research sites, student handouts, tools, tutorials, templates, assessment rubrics, etc—help elucidate or
explain the content or allow students to interact with the content? What previous technology skills should students
have to complete this project?)

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 Technology supports learning by:
Technology is important here because it allows student engagement, students collaboration, creativity, provides a
larger audience, tears down the walls of the traditional classroom, increases motivation, and allows for various types
of assessments.

Necessary Digital Tools and Resources:

Chromebooks
Wifi
NearPod
Kahoot
Canvas
Flipgrid
Rubrics for grading Flipgrid

Technology skills necessary:

 Students will need a basic understanding of how to access the internet from a Chromebook.
 Students will need to know how Kahoot operates.
 Students will need to know how to log on and post replies on Canvas
 Students will need to know how to log on and participate in a Nearpod lesson
 Students will need to know how to log on and video themselves using the Flipgrid tool.

Instructional Plan
Preparation (What student needs, interests, and prior learning provide a foundation for this lesson? How can you
find out if students have this foundation? What difficulties might students have?)

Needs: Meet or exceed the standards

Interest: Real-world application. Relate Cold war tension to competition between the US and Russia today.
Relate the Civil Rights movement to the Southen cities in which students live.

Prior learning: Students have a working knowledge of Kahoot, students have a working knowledge of Canvas,
students have a working knowledge of Flipgrid, students have a working knowledge of NearPod, and the
Internet.

Difficulties: Working with the ELL population. Vocabulary.

Management Describe the classroom management strategies will you use to manage your students and the use
of digital tools and resources. How and where will your students work? (small groups, whole group, individuals,
classroom, lab, etc.) What strategies will you use to achieve equitable access to the Internet while completing this
lesson? Describe what technical issues might arise during the Internet lesson and explain how you will resolve or
troubleshoot them?

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 Where: My students will work in my classroom in a mixture of the whole group to a small group.
Whole group during: Nearpod notes and assessment, Kahoot, and Canvas discussion board
Small group during: Flipgrid project and Kahoot assessment.

Equitable access: Both my ELL classes are small classes and I have enough Chromebooks for each student to have
a Chromebook in class. To promote equity, I will offer more time during Flex Time (tutoring) to these classes where
they can come in and work on any assignments from class while using technology.

Troubleshooting: Always good to have a hard copy of the notes for class in case school wifi is down, as well as a hard
copy of questions that students will be answering on discussion board, Kahoot, and NearPod.

Instructional Strategies and Learning Activities – Describe the research-based instructional strategies you will
use with this lesson. How will your learning environment support these activities? What is your role? What are the
students' roles in the lesson? How can you ensure higher order thinking at the analysis, evaluation, or creativity
levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy? How can the technology support your teaching? What authentic, relevant, and
meaningful learning activities and tasks will your students complete? How will they build knowledge and skills?
How will students use digital tools and resources to communicate and collaborate with each other and others?
How will you facilitate the collaboration?

Technology was incorporated all throughout this lesson. A variety of research-based strategies were used during
this unit. Students were required to use higher order thinking for questions, skills, and tasks. Students were also
required to produce a video showing their knowledge of the civil rights movement. Since my classroom is an ELL US
History classroom, I used small grouping with Flipgrid and Kahoot assessment. For the Flipgrid, students were given
rubrics to build their knowledge through the use of rubrics. I modeled and filled in gaps of basic knowledge where
the student needed. The student became an active learner through the use of technology. The student was a
learner, teacher, and evaluator. Students engaged in group work, group discussion, online discussion, and other
meaning learning experiences.

Technology supported learning through NearPod, Kahoot, and Flipgrid. Technologies were used to assess students
and create projects. All the aspects were authentic. These were engaging and tied with our state GSE. Online
discussion boards on Canvas and Flipgrids are two specific ways that specific activities that can enhance learning
through collaboration and communication beyond the classroom walls.

Differentiation (How will you differentiate content and process to accommodate various learning styles and
abilities? How will you help students learn independently and with others? How will you provide extensions and
opportunities for enrichment? What assistive technologies will you need to provide?)

Small group for ELL students. Students will have the chance to learn independently through a self-paced
lesson on NearPod. Enrichment activities will be built in through critical thinking questions during NeatPod
Lesson. All students will also have links to Grammarly, Google Translate, and read aloud text on my Canvas
page for assistive technologies.

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Reflection (Will there be a closing event? Will students be asked to reflect upon their work? Will students be
asked to provide feedback on the assignment itself? What will be your process for answering the following
questions?
• Did students find the lesson meaningful and worth completing?
• In what ways was this lesson effective?
• What went well and why?
• What did not go well and why?
• How would you teach this lesson differently?)

My final activity for this unit I tried something different instead of giving a unit test, I gave my students a small
group Kahoot quiz to measure their knowledge. I didn’t take it for a summative grade because the Flipgrid served
as that but I had my students prepare as it was a test they were taking. Many of the students performed well in a
small group setting. When I asked them why, many pointed to the fact Kahoot was a game to them and the way
the test was presented was much more relaxed. I will definitely try this again with ELL students because these
classes tend to be smaller in numbers and I, as the teacher, can do more work with small groups.

Closure: Anything else you would like to reflect upon regarding lessons learned and/or your experience with
implementing this lesson. What advice would you give others if they were to implement the lesson?
After reflecting on this unit, I really loved it. My students got to do many different things. When working on
Nearpod they watched Youtube video clips, took VR field Trips, and answered questions/polls. While using
Kahoot, they got instant feedback on questions they knew and questions they did not. Kahoot provided me data
so I could remediate students that needed this remediation. On Canvas, students had to submit an answer to
daily discussion questions. Then they could see their peers answers after they submitted their responses.
Finally Flipgrid, students were able to watch presentations from small groups from both ELL US history classes
and learn about their Civil Rights topic. Then the students could leave feedback. Overall, I was very pleased
with this lesson.

References:
https://www.georgiastandards.org/Georgia-Standards/Documents/Social-Studies-US-History-Unit-9-Sample-
Unit.pdf

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