CEP 800

Colonial Williamsburg Webquest Reflection:

I created a lesson on Colonial Williamsburg using a webquest meeting 5^th grade Social Studies standards. I included interactive websites for the students to follow and they all had a packet to “guide” them. The overall mission of the webquest was to write an article for a newspaper pretending that they were a kid back in the colonial days. They had to discuss an event that happened in their life or just write about what life was like for them. This lesson focused on the different social classes that existed back in colonial days and how life was different for each of these classes.

I actually created and taught this lesson at the end of the school year last year while I was student teaching. I didn’t spend much time reflecting on it because it was a crazy end of the year, so I wanted to do that now. I had 2 different 5^th grade classes that participated in this lesson. I had them complete it during a “technology” hour that I taught each of the classes 1 hour a week. It ended up taking approximately 3 weeks – or 3 hours to complete it. It did take some longer and some not as long. I think that it would have been better if they had done it in a smaller time frame. A lot happens in 3 weeks at the end of the school year, so if I were to do this again, I would plan to have students complete it in a shorter time span.

While the webquest was a great tool for this assignment, the interactive websites were a great touch to keep the students engaged. Had it just been the webquest itself, with some reading – I am afraid my students would not have been engaged. The first day I explained it to them and watched as they began. They were so excited that they were jumping out of their seats to share something they found with a friend. While it was great to see their excitement, I had to encourage them to continue working on their own. I should have built some collaboration into the project, because they all ended up doing it anyways! Which is something I think I can deal with.

For the most part, everything did go well. I received some outstanding articles and the students enjoyed having freedom to explore some of the things that interested them. An example of where they could explore – when researching social classes they had to list them and then pick two to discuss. Most students liked the “drama” part of becoming a colonial kid. They were even sent to a page where they could pick their own colonial name and practice writing it in calligraphy. It was amazing to see the creativity that some of the students were able to come up with. It completely surpassed what I expected of them.

It was a great lesson for most of the students, however some students did struggle. There was a lot of reading involved with this lesson that some kids just weren’t able to do. I did not create any accommodations for any students until we were in the middle of the lesson and I realized they were unable to do it. When I teach this again, I will create a shorter version of this assignment that meets the needs of the lower students in my class. There were only 33 students who were able to complete the whole webquest, including the article at the end, our of about 40 students total. We reached that point where we had to move on to something else. This is hard for me to do sometimes, and it tells me that I need to make changes so that all students are able to complete this next time I use it. The gifted students in this class did not need any additional needs. They put more effort into their articles and made them extraordinary on their own.

I want to share two of the articles to show the spectrum I received.

Williamsburg Kid Speaks About Brother Dying

Phoebe Maccan’s brother is suffering from a very rare disease called Diphtheria. Phoebe’s brother is named Jared Maccan. Jared’s doctor says he has at least one week left, but then again they are working on a medicine for Jared. Jared’s family really hopes that they can get the medicine very soon for their son. But if they don’t they will be in tears. Jared’s family has been by Jared’s side the whole time. Charity (Jared’s and Phoebe’s mother) says that “We don’t know how long he has had this. We think he got it from working in the fields after school. But we don’t know and we may never know.” Jared said that he hope is family doesn’t cry if he passes. Phoebe thinks that he got it from the classroom he is in for school. She says that the classroom has mold in every corner and that she wishes he could be in a different room. We all wish that Jared stays with here in Williamsburg.

hi im ezekiel and blacks just got freed exsept my papa
he works in the field i hope they let him go i sleep on hay its really ichy so have a great colonial day

As you can see, there is quite a bit of difference in the articles I received. While most were similar to the 1^st one, the second article tells me he struggled. While this happens to be a student with special needs, he was able to include a few concepts he learned throughout the webquest. Looking back, I wish I would have had more support in place for him and others who struggled throughout this lesson.

Colonial Williamsburg Webquest Lesson Plan:

Colonial Williamsburg Webquest

Subject: 5^th Grade Social Studies

Learning Standards:

5- U2.3.2 Describe the daily life of people living in the New England, Middle, and Southern colonies.

5- U2.3.3 Describe colonial life in America from the perspectives of at least three different groups of people (e.g., wealthy landowners, farmers, merchants, indentured servants, laborers, and the poor, wolmen, enslaved peolple, free Africans, and American Indians).

Essential Question:

What was life like for people living in Colonial America/Williamsburg?

Describe some of the typical events that people went through on a daily basis in Colonial America.

Why was life different for the different groups of people?

Materials Needed:

Graphic Organizer, pencil, computer station for each student with internet access, access to the following webquest http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=134374

Lesson:

1.       Hand out Colonial Webquest graphic organizer to students.

2.       Review with students what a webquest is and show them how to get to the one they will be doing: http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=134374 Explain that they have a mission and the process will help them to complete there final mission project – which is to write a newspaper article from the perspective of students.

3.       Discuss with students what they already know about Colonial Williamsburg to get their prior knowledge flowing. Encourage them to search about what they don’t already know about since they will have options within their graphic organizer.

4.       Allow students ample time to complete the assignment. It should take approximately 3 hours for students to complete with quality work.

5.       Have them follow the directions in the webquest to submit their writing via google form.

Content: I am teaching students about the different roles of people within their colony in Colonial Williamsburg. They are taking the role of a child and writing from their perspective and telling about their life. The students are guided on a journey to learn about how the different groups of people lived, worked, played, etc.

Pedagogy: Students use interactive websites to follow a graphic organizer. It is a self-lead lesson which allows for students to be in control and discover on their own. They are given choices of what to look up at times and a choice in the end as they decided what role they want to take to write their article. As the teacher, I will be conferencing with students throughout their journey and watching over their shoulder, being there for guidance. Some students may need help reading or may have the assignment cut down to accommodate their special needs.

Content & Pedagogy: I chose a self-discovery approach to teaching this content to allow for students to be creative in their final writing projects. The graphic organizer is set up to review the different groups and to explore Colonial Williamsburg. There is more information than what any one student would need to know all of. So allowing for students to choose what interests them and creating their project based on that, is what drives this assignment.    

Technology: I chose to use a webquest to teach this lesson. Along with the webquest, students are directed to various interactive websites to gather information and learn about the different groups of people living in Williamsburg. Finally, they type their article and submit via a google form. This lesson would be able to teach without using technology, however the content found on the website would be difficult to find in textbooks. The depth of learning would not be as deep without using technology. They would be able to write articles from Colonial children perspectives, however they would not be able to gather as much information as they were able to from the websites.

Technology and Pedagogy: The webquest is a great tool for students to discover Williamsburg on their own. They are able to make their own choices following the graphic organizer and the links on the webquest to gather information to help them on their final mission of the webquest. The webquest works great because it allows for directions and links of the websites to be formatted easily for elementary students to follow. The students are in the beginning stages of learning to research, however in this case they are directed to pre-approved quality sites so that more learning of the content is encouraged.

Technology and Content: The Webquest and interactive sites allow students to explore the different groups of people within Colonial Williamsburg. It is structured enough to follow the essential questions by linking to the approved sites to gather information, but it also allows students to be creative in their articles by choosing what to write about and what perspective to choose.

Assessment: I want to students to know that their were different roles for people in Colonial Days. Life was much different for each of these groups, from the types of clothes they wore, to what they ate, to how they spent their free time. By having them explore and become one of these roles in their final project, I hope that they are able to identify the different types of hardships that people went through on a regular basis in order to survive. In the final project, students complete an article for a newspaper about their life or an event that happened from the perspective of a child from one of the different groups of people. Technologies role is to allow for exploration of the different groups of people, while using interactive sites. Textbooks don’t generally spend a lot of time focusing on this topic, but this assignment is something that they will hopefully have fun doing while learning the content. I will assess students based on the rubric posted in the Webquest.

CEP 800 Audio Interview:

I recently interviewed two recent high school graduates to ask them what they knew about living and non-living things. A concept that is taught heavily in elementary school, which is what I teach. I was curious to see what these high school graduates could remember.

Click here to listen to my interview!