Brief Lesson Description:
My lesson plan involved teaching a 4th grade class
about the Lewis and Clarks expedition using Google Lit Trips. Students would be responsible for a chapter
of a book about Lewis and Clark. What
this means is that they were required to summarize the chapter, note the
location and find images that would go along with this part. The students would then take this information
that they summarized and the pictures they gathered and plot them on a Google
Lit Trip. Once the whole class had
posted their different locations, summaries and pictures, we would have a
complete Google Lit Trip of Lewis and Clarks adventure. This Google Lit Trip would allow us to see
their entire journey that Lewis and Clark took using Google Earth. We can see where they started, how far they
went and all of the different places and things they encountered along the way.
Implementing the Lesson:
The students were a 4th grade class. Everything went very well with this
lesson. Students were excited to use
Google Lit Trip once they saw the demo at the beginning of the lesson. Some students did try to rush through just so
they could play with the Google Lit Trip however.
Lesson Question Set:
Students learned about the expedition of Lewis and Clark and about
the struggles and challenges faced by early settlers that moved west. In general this lesson focused on constructivism. Students came up with their own observations
and conclusions using the Google Lit Trip as a tool.
The benefits of this lesson are that students work in pairs which
allow the teacher to provide support to students who struggle with reading by
pairing them with a strong reader. That
way they can still be a part of the lesson even with weaker reading
skills. The nature of the lesson is also
very open with a few guidelines focusing student effort. In this way students that want to strive to
go above and beyond or include more information are free to do so.
This lesson was intended to supplement existing curriculum. According to the curriculum students are
required to learn this information. The goal
of this lesson was to use technology to give them a better understanding
through visual representation of the adventures of Lewis and Clark and westward
expansion, specifically settlers that moved west which is a big focus of the
Michigan curriculum. Through the use of
Google Lit Trip students were not only able to achieve this goal, but they were
also able to acquire background knowledge that will greatly help them in the
future when talking about other parts of the United States and events such as
the gold rush. Having an idea of what
the map of the United States looks like along with images of different areas is
a resource for students.
Differences amongst learners are taken into account in this lesson
through the flexibility of some options students have. Students are required to read a chapter,
provide information from that chapter and plot it on the map but as far as
which information to provide, the image and other important information they
want to present and how they want to present it is where there is some flexibility
which allows students to show their unique talents and learning styles.
This lesson requires the teacher to do some work to become proficient
in Google Lit Trip. This takes a little
time learning how to plot points and add information like a summary and images
at each of these points. It is a bit
challenging at first however once a teacher uses Google Lit Trips, I can almost
guarantee they will be using it more than once.
The assessment comes from their demonstration of their knowledge
when they present the Google Lit Trip at the end. The Google Lit Trip is an amazing tool that
allows students to have a clear and interactive visual of journeys in
literature, it is only a tool. The
assessment needs to be of what the students learned about the information
itself or it’s like a hammer with no nails.
The hammers really cool and fun to swing around but you need those nails
to build something permanent. Students
are held accountable for the work they did by being responsible for one chapter
and placing a point on the Google Lit Trip.
Technologies Role:
Technology plays a large role in my lesson. It is the overall product that students are
creating. The advantage of this
technology is that it gives students an interactive visual to follow the
adventures of Lewis and Clark. The
reason that this is different from just plotting a point on a map is that
students can add images and summaries to each point. They can also go through the journey
virtually showing them the distance, time, geography and several other
features. It also can be easily saved
and stored for viewing later. The
challenge of using this technology is just that, using it. Google Lit Trips is something that takes
extra time to learn and to teach but it is well worth this extra time.
Students loved using this technology. The demo at the beginning of the lesson to
show them how a Google Lit Trip looks as a finished product was a big motivator
because it looks really impressive when it’s complete. Students biggest question, once we got into
the lesson, was how to know where they needed to plot their point on the
map. The book doesn’t come out and tell
you longitude and latitude so I told them to look for clues and write down what
they though could be used as locations.
I told them to look for names of states, cities, mountains, rivers,
forests, and anything else that might be used to help us plot their point on
the map.
Most of the time students focus on the challenges that Lewis and
Clark faced or the obstacles and difficulties of the settlers. They know they had a hard time but I’ve never
really seen students understand the distance of the journeys. When reading a book and trying to imagine it
on a map or even with a map to use as a resource, this can still be a difficult
abstract concept. However seeing all of
the points that we plotted on our map and going through the expedition
virtually really gave the students a good idea of the distance that Lewis and
Clark traveled.
