Task A. 4 Lesson Log #3 (Inquiry Project Day 2) Length of Lesson: 90 Minutes Date: 03/27/07
Lesson Description
What content and skills did you expect students to learn from this lesson?
In this second day of the inquiry, I expected students to apply the research that they completed last class to construct a product, a Roman coin that depicted Rome’s goals and values, and then the system of government that would best achieve those goals and values, and to have the students answer questions about the activity. Students used research to determine Rome’s goals and values, and then to hypothesize which system of government would best help the Romans to meet those goals and values.
Here they are applying the research (content) that they conducted last class to make informed decisions and to justify those decisions with evidence.
What were you and your students doing during the lesson to promote learning? What materials, activities and resources did you select to promote learning, including the development and/or application of essential social studies skills?
For their homework from last class, students completed an activity where they answer questions regarding symbols on the American dollar bill. This assignment was about how designers tailored
American money to reflect our society’s goals and values, and our system of government. I started out the class with asking students, “Have you ever noticed that our money represents our goals, values and government?” Students briefly discussed this idea. We then examined images of Roman coins as a class.
Students brainstormed about connections between Roman and American money, and about what the
Roman coins showed us about their society’s goals and values. I then introduced the rest of the inquiry: that students were to create their own Roman coin that depicted they thought were Rome’s goals and values, and then what system of government would best help Rome to meet those goals. Students used their Data Collection sheets and packet of sources from yesterday’s activity to help them to complete the activity and to complete the subsequent questions about what their coins represented and the evidence they used to make those decisions. I selected the design of a Roman coin because it allowed students a different medium with which to demonstrate understanding and is a resource that many societies have used throughout history. I used an American quarter as an exemplar to enforce the idea that the idea of money representing goals, values and government are not something uniquely Roman in nature. We then
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had a class discussion about the inquiry activity where students presented what they thought to be Rome’s goals and values, what system of government they thought would best accomplish those goals and values, and then how they represented those ideas on their coins. The essential social studies skills that students are using in this lesson are again analyzing primary source documents and other evidence, and then formulating a conclusion and supporting arguments using content-based evidence.
Reflection
What did the students learn in this lesson and what evidence do you have to support your conclusions?
Cite specific examples. For discussion and inquiry lessons you may cite evidence from the videotape.
Students seemed to understand the lesson’s goals: that they were being asked to examine evidence to decide on what were Rome’s goals and values, and then what system of government would best represent those goals and values. One student said, “Both kinds of government work, a dictatorship works better!” Well another student seated near that student said, “I don’t know, it seems like more people had a say in a democracy.” To quite the first student replied, “Well, only patricians can vote anyways. The rest of the Romans didn’t have it that good anyways.” Students realized that they were able to argue either side of the argument and have an equally valid case, as long as they provided evidence to support their conclusions. Students understood the connection between the previous day’s research and the current application of that work: I witnessed students referring to their Data Collection questions and to the actual source materials when they were in the process of constructing their coins.
Students used quotes from the source materials to justify answers to questions in both the Data Collection sheets and for questions that were part of the product portion of the inquiry (see accompanying student work and Part C).
Students also had to select imagery to represent Roman goals and values, and a system of government. Students then reflected on how and why they selected that imagery to represent Roman goals and values. For Roman goals and values, many students drew trade ships, soldiers, maps, depictions of slave life, etc. These were all ideas that were represented in the source materials. From the accompanying student work, the student wrote that she chose trade based upon the “Business, Trade and
Expansion articles.” Another student wrote that she chose the military as value to represent because “one
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of their values was a strong army.” She went on to cite appropriate articles from the source materials to support her conclusion. Student A chose to represent trade as well, but seemed to have more difficulty in applying the evidence from the sources to support that choice. Student B depicted a soldier as her value and described that “one of their values was a strong army.” She went on to cite articles from the souce materials to support that conclusion (see Part C). From observation of the activity, one student asked another: “How do you know if the Romans used ballot boxes?” To quite the first student replied, “I don’t, but I know that is how some people vote today. The main idea of democracy is voting.” I was impressed that students were examining these ideas as concepts, not strictly as content. Students realized from the rubric that they were not going to be graded on artistic ability, but rather on their justification of what they drew. For those justifications, students used evidence and quotations from the sources to support their viewpoints (see accompanying student work and Part C).
What instructional adjustments did you make during the lesson and why?
During the course of the lesson, I noticed that the some groups of students were still struggling. I changed a few of the groups around, so that the students would have experience working with different students, to hear a different perspective, and to once again try to pair students that seemed to excel at the activity with those that were having some difficulty. I also focused a lot of time working with some of the students that seemed to be struggling with the reading materials. I accomplished this by pairing down the number of sources that they were using and helping them to work on critical reading skills.
What, if anything, will you do differently for the next lesson in this unit based on your analysis of student learning in this lesson?
For the next lesson, I am going to have students work again with primary and secondary sources.
Having viewed this activity and the student work, it seems as though many students have a good understanding of the materials and the use of sources in formulating a hypothesis. For the next activity, I am going to have them take these skills and transfer them to prepare the introduction to a CAPT-styled persuasive essay to allow students another opportunity to work on these skills in a different manner. Thus students have the ability to transfer these research skills in to the medium of persuasive, evidence-based writing.
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