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Change Agent Final Project

Gary Sullivan

Towson University
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Making a Change through Classroom Instruction

For the topic of my change agent project, I chose to focus on the economics unit of 9 th grade

American government. My 9th grade students are approximately 14-18 years of age. This lesson

is being taught at a Title I school and approximately 80% of my students are classified as low

income. I teach 3 regular and 3 co-taught CC Government classes. I have many students with

504’s and IEP’s, in addition to multiple behaviorally related accommodations. This redesign of

current instruction will incorporate concepts and technology I have seen throughout my master’s

program and in this course specifically and adapted to meet the needs of these specific learners.
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Current Strengths

Currently, the economics unit has several strong points including several online links to

appropriate grade level websites with useful electronic resources. The vocabulary resources are

bloated, but helpful when I prune them myself. Additionally, I find the materials provided for

personal financial literacy useful and easy to understand for students in 9th grade. Finally, I think

the information provided for teaching students opportunity cost is simple and effective. I want to

retain these strongpoints of the current unit when working on the redesign of the weaknesses.

Current Weaknesses

The current weaknesses as I see them in the economics unit are glaring. First, the vast

majority of the material for the unit is done on worksheets or in textbooks. The online materials

found in this unit are almost exclusively supplementary materials designed for additional practice

and not as a primary learning method. Additionally, the third and fourth experiences in this unit

are filled to the brim with concepts that are incredibly complicated, such as congressional fiscal

policy, Federal Reserve monetary policy, and market-operations/deregulation. These concepts

are almost never found on the High School Assessment (HSA) but are only vaguely mentioned

as incorrect answers on the unit assessment itself. A lot of bloat in this unit is concepts that my

fourteen-year-old students don’t comprehend no matter how I approach it because it’s

completely irrelevant to decisions they make in their everyday lives. These concepts and topics

feel very foreign for myself so I can’t imagine it’s any easier to learn as a student. I want to

address these issues by incorporating modern examples and relatable activities using technology

to guide students to understanding.

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Goals and Objectives for Instruction

Overall, I believe a majority of the content standards make sense in context with the rest

of the instruction throughout the year. I can see how the standards are aligned with the other

units like the three branches of government, and how the concepts are covered within the four

experiences. The curriculum for government is not particularly recent, I believe the last major

revision was made in 2013 as far as I can tell from the county curriculum website. I think the age

of the material is somewhat responsible for seemingly minimal technology inclusion found

throughout. The content standards listed DO match the formative and summative assessments

provided in the curriculum. The unit exam itself has marked concept indicators so you can see

which experience each question is coming from ahead of time as a teacher.

The Assessment

The assessment itself looks very much like what is was when I took government in high

school in 2006. It consists of 40 ABCD multiple choice questions and a writing response

question. The written response has changed between the last two years I have taught it, moving

away from a traditional BCR response and moving towards a response where students are
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provided evidence from multiple different sources, and asked to use several sources to support an

opinion argument related to a unit concept. I do believe the written response question is

appropriate and adequate for modern day learners. It functions exactly like how the written

responses on the PARCC test for government works and serves to force students to think and

support an argument with evidence to get full credit. The multiple choice is where I believe the

assessment is becoming inadequate and irrelevant the longer they don’t adapt it. Currently, the

PARCC exam for government is taken on computers. The questions you see on the PARCC are

completely different formats and ask students to do a variety of tasks impossible on current

paper-based tests, such as moving multiple answers into categories or boxes, etc.

Perhaps most importantly of all, there is very little room to implement any UDL

principles when giving students the exam. There isn’t really any way to incorporate multiple

means of action or expression when using this kind of assessment. It’s the exact same kind of test

you would have seen in schools from the 70s/80s/90s and it shows.

Adapting the test to fit modern processes of student learning is the first step towards

making this otherwise difficult and unrelatable unit palatable for my students. I believe a good

first way to begin a process like this is going to be using some SAMR principles and digitizing

the exam. Right now, technology access is somewhat of a limiting factor, but with digital based

tests and proper scheduling in the computer lab, I believe students can not only be more prepared

for the end of year exams, but also challenged in ways impossible with the current design.
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This is an example of a modern-day online test question. You can see the different

actions students are responsible for here, such as reading a passage, watching a video, gathering

information and using that information to prepare a written response. Our current use of only

multiple choice could be greatly improved by using these kinds of questions to really showcase

student learning and reward guessing and randomness less. I believe that incorporating this kind

of activity into the economics unit would be a great way to increase overall engagement with the

topic. Having for example an itsLearning page where students would be asked to explore a

concept like the Federal Reserve through a short reading, a video interview with a chairman or

other representative who works at the Fed, a quick online quiz or review game/puzzle to serve as

a formative assessment, etc. The current textbook and worksheet formats are outdated in every

way and shows on the assessments found in this unit.

The Instructional Activities

Currently, the activities listed in the unit are uninspired and boring. The following is a

typical example of how to present new concepts and ideas to students on these already

unrelatable concepts.

You can see that essentially new instruction boils down to, distribute worksheets, use

PowerPoint to take notes, complete worksheets, possibly discuss them as a class. The only use of

technology in the experience is a terrible waste of technology, essentially asking students to

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complete a webquest that ends up being a list of questions and two websites that provide

answers. It’s much less a quest and much more an online textbook, which I already get enough of

when I’m not using the computers!

One lesson I have already created and I’m incredibly proud of makes actual use of

technology to teach a concept. Since economics is often foreign to my students, we explore

financial and fiscal policy through an online game called “Spent”.

Students are asked to work their way through a variety of examples while budgeting money,

finding a job and housing, providing for a child, etc. It exposes them to real world events like the

following:
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It serves to demonstrate the importance of financial responsibility while also being engaging,

fun, and a great learning tool. I believe more activities like this could make these otherwise

unengaging concept found in economics much more accessible for 9th grade learners.

There’s a ton of things I wish I could do utilizing technology if I was able to edit the

curriculum how I chose. For instance, I’ve seen multiple college professors conduct Skype

interviews of experts or professors in specialized fields to the rapt attention of students in class. I

think having students talk to a current or former worker in these fields could be a great way to

foster this engagement. Additionally, these kinds of opportunities are exactly what the different

models for learning like UDL and SAMR suggest benefit and transform learning in positive

ways.
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I think activities like this cut right to the redefinition of tasks in the classroom. Being able to ask

questions of a qualified expert is something a textbook and worksheets can’t possibly foster, but

technology can!

Conclusion

Is every suggestion, modification, and adaptation of the current curriculum listed above

feasible or possible for the current situation of HCPS 9th grade education in government? I don’t

believe so at this time. Constraints on ballooning budgets have seen the dream of 1-1 technology

integration for 9th graders starting to fade before my eyes. Current access to technology is limited

and functions on a first come first served basis, with my school having 2 laptop carts for over 15

teachers. The resources and funding to move lessons all online and increase technology

integration in the classroom right now is not very feasible. However, I don’t think that current

limitations should discount planning for the future. Eventually there is going to come a time

where teachers aren’t restricted by what’s available, and what isn’t, and will have the freedom to

choose to create lessons they see truly help all levels of student learners.