Ed Tech Lesson Plan

8th Grade US History:

Standards:

New York State Social Studies Standards

o Standard 1: Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their
understanding of major ideas, eras, themes, developments, and turning points in

the history of the United States and New York.

o Taken from: http://www.p12.nysed.gov/ciai/socst/
Technology Standards
o Standard 2: Communication and Collaboration: digital media and environments to
communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support
individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.
Interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing

a variety of digital environments and media.

Communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences

using a variety of media and formats.

Develop cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with

learners of other cultures.

Contribute to project teams to produce original works or solve problems
o Standard 3: Research and Information Fluency: Students apply digital tools to
gather, evaluate, and use information.
Plan strategies to guide inquiry.
Locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use

information from a variety of sources and media.

Evaluate and select information sources and digital tools based on

appropriateness to specific tasks.

Process data and report results.
o Taken from: http://www.iste.org/standards/standards/standards-for-students

Objectives:

Content Area Objectives:

o Students will further their knowledge on the American Revolution. They will
analyze the beginning of the American Revolution using the websites being
provided.
o Students will analyze the facts given, interpret them, and share them with their
partner.
o Students will sharpen their teamwork skills by creating a study guide which will

be shared to the rest of the class.

Technology Objectives:
o Students will effectively interact with an online interactive activity. They will use
the website on the American Revolution to go through specific battles and
skirmishes.
o Students will take notes on the research they find and share them on google docs
with their partners. Those notes will then be shared with the teacher so the
teacher can develop a small quiz based off their notes.
o Students will learn how to cite their sources using an online citation website. This
online citation resource will be found on my website under the resources tab

Introduce Learning Activity

To introduce the lesson, I will attempt to activate their prior knowledge by asking
students if they know the first battle to have taken place in the American Revolution. I
will have students partner up and find anything they think is interesting and have them do
very simple research on that topic. They will then upload that information on google
docs. To motivate the students and make sure participation is high, I will tell the students
that based off the information they gather, a quiz will be given. That quiz will be worth a
few extra points on their larger assessment at the end of the American Revolution unit.

Provide Information

I will give the students a quick overview of what will be done in class. Students will be

logging in to their computers at this point.

Students will be directed to my website:

http://student.plattsburgh.edu/aherr012/index.html
Once on my website, students will be directed to the resource tab and follow the link to
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/static/neh/interactives/americanrevolution/ once at this
page, students will follow the steps and find something they want to research.

o Students will stay under the 1775-1778 tab, where they will stick to the state of
Massachusetts and conduct their research using the variety of sources that the
website itself provides.
o I will be walking around the room to make sure students are on task and be there
to answer any questions they might have. Whether it is questions about the

website or the assignment of uploading it to google docs.

The second half of the lesson will happen after the students have collected enough
information to upload to google docs.
o Here students will be taught how to share a document with their partner and will
be explained how it works so they can work on it outside of the classroom if they
need to.
o Students will have a lot of freedom with this assignment as it is meant to
introduce them to different methods of note taking and group work, which will
then be extra credit to their exams.

Provide Practice

Students will practice using google docs by adding their classmates to the group after

they have finished their research.

Students will have to work out which partner wants to look up certain things, work on it
by themselves and then put it together in their shared google doc.

Provide Knowledge of Results

I will ask for verbal feedback, both at the end of class and while walking around and
asking them questions about the assignment. While walking around I will be providing
different methods of encouragement so they feel comfortable if this is something they are

not used to.

The written feedback will be taken into account once they are done with the research and
have uploaded it to google docs. I have to approve of what they have written before
providing allowing it to be a study guide for the rest of the class. I will place this grade
under class participation and will only deduct points if the students are clearly disengaged
and show little effort in their research.

Review the Activity

To review students will talk about what topic they found interesting and why they want to
research that topic. This will only take a minute or two at the end of class due to the fact

that the research done at that point is minimal.

However I will have them face the front of the class and not just find a random name or
fact on the screen. This will help them retain some of what they have already read.

Methods of Assessment

Students will be assessed in two ways, one informal and one further down the road will
be more formal.
o The informal assessment will be by observing how they work individually and as
a group.
o The formal assessment will be a small quiz that I will develop based off the
research the students have conducted. The quiz will not hurt their grade but will
only add a few extra points to their unit test on The American Revolution.