The Great Depression -

A Family’s Choices
Instructions and Modifications for Virtual Delivery

This document provides specific instructions for conducting this activity virtually. Please see the
complete lesson guide for key concepts, background info, debriefing guides, etc.

This shared folder contains all the slides and resources you will need to run this activity virtually.

IMPORTANT: This activity uses Zoom breakout rooms and Pear Deck, but the Pear Deck
“Teacher Dashboard” is optional. Follow the instructions in the Pear Deck and Screen Sharing
Guide to launch your slides with Pear Deck.

1. Before the class starts, set up 6 breakout rooms and if possible, rename the breakout
rooms with the 6 family names: McFadden, Taylor, Jacinski, Johnson, Anderson,
Svensgaard. If you have more than 30 students, make an additional breakout room for
each additional 5 students. These will be duplicate families (Taylor 2, Anderson 2, etc.)
2. Assign the students to the families/breakout rooms (4-5 per room)
3. Launch the presentation with Pear Deck so students can see your slides when they are
in breakout rooms.
4. Use slides 1-5 to set up the activity like you normally would.
5. On slide 6, share this link with students in the chat: https://bit.ly/L6Families. Explain
that when they get to their breakout rooms the name or number of their room will
correspond to their family. Explain that every student should open their family’s packet.
One student should make a copy of the document (so they can edit it) and screen share
the document with their family. That student will keep the record for the family.
6. Use slide 7 to review the directions. Open the breakout rooms and stay on slide 7 so
students can see the instructions via Pear Deck.
7. Give students 20 minutes to work in groups. Visit each breakout room to answer
questions and make sure students are on task.
8. Call the students back and give each family a chance to briefly introduce their family and
share some of the struggles they faced and decisions they made. Let them screen
share and show their budgets.
9. Use slide 8 to conduct a large group debrief discussion.
10. After introducing the Ripple Effect, re-open the breakout rooms and return students to
their same family groups to create their own ripple diagram. Leave slide 10 displayed so
they have the example and instructions to refer to via Pear Deck.
 11. Give students at least 5 minutes to work on their ripple diagrams. Visit each room to
make sure students have figured out how to screen share a whiteboard and annotate.
12. Broadcast a message to the breakout rooms to give groups a 2 minute warning. Remind
them to save their white board so they can share it with the whole class. Tell ALL
students to save it (the save button is on their annotate toolbar) so at least one will be
able to find and share it. (If they don’t save the whiteboard, it will be lost after they leave
the breakout room).
13. Close the breakout rooms and let each family (or a couple families, depending on time)
share their families ripple diagram.
14. Use slides 11-14 to finish debriefing the activity.

Virtual Tool Tips

Breakout Rooms

● Zoom: Create the breakout rooms randomly and then they will “resume” the breakouts
each time so students return to the same group. Broadcast a message to the breakout
rooms to call the students back each round when the time is up.
● Other Web Conference Platforms: If you are using a web conference platform that
does not yet have breakout rooms, use a workaround like channels in Microsoft Teams
(put a new team meeting link in each channel), or set up a Google Meet for each
breakout room. With a workaround, you will need to rely on your Pear Deck slides to
notify students when to return to the main meeting and when to submit answers.

Whiteboard
Instead of the poster paper in the classroom, students can work together on a shared
whiteboard to create their ripple diagrams.
● Zoom, WebEx, Microsoft Teams: Students can all annotate and contribute to the
whiteboard. Advise all students to save the whiteboard if possible but make sure at least
one student saves it so it can be shared with the whole class if necessary.
● Google Meet: Use Jamboard as an interactive whiteboard.
● Chromebooks: Students on chromebooks will not be able to annotate in Zoom. They
can, however screen share a blank google doc in the Zoom breakout room. They can
annotate/draw/type on that document and the other non-chromebook users can then
annotate on their shared screen via zoom.
Pear Deck
Presenting this lecture through Pear Deck will allow the students to see the question slides even
when they are in the breakout rooms. You can also use the slides to notify students when it’s
time to return to the main meeting room.

Google Documents
Because students will be accessing the “handouts” via shared google docs, remind them to
make a copy so they can edit the file and record the family’s budget changes.