EDIM 508 Project 1
The media-infused presentation that I designed using PREZI focuses on 5 key events from the Revolutionary War.
In a 5-week unit, students learn about the major battles of the American Revolution beginning with the Battle of Bunker Hill through the surrender at Yorktown. Students learn about the advantages and disadvantages experienced by the British and the American colonists and how the colonists were able to defeat the British to gain independence.
The content Learning Goals include:
1. Students will list and describe the results of major battles and events of the Revolution, including the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the Battle of Bunker (Breed’s) Hill, the Battle of Saratoga, Valley Forge, and the Battle of Yorktown.
2. Students will explain how the Americans won the war.
Skill based Learning Goals include:
1. Students will use a map to interpret the sequence of events during a battle.
2. Students will sequence the events of the American Revolution on a timeline.
Gardner explains the 4 essential steps to achieving a disciplined mind. The steps require that “truly important topics or concepts” be identified, that a “significant amount of time” be spent on the topic or concept, that the topic be approached in a “number of ways,” and that there are “ample opportunities” for students to “perform their understandings under a variety of conditions” (Gardner, 2007, pp. 32-35).
The Massachusetts Department of Education has identified this as an important topic for 5th graders to learn in Massachusetts History and Social Science Curriculum Framework for Grade 5 Learning Standard 5.17.
Our district social studies teachers and curriculum coordinator have determined that approximately 5 weeks should be spent on the topic.
While we do have some common learning activities, overall the teacher is responsible for creating and presenting activities to help students understand the topic. It is my intention to use the Prezi that I created as a topic presentation tool. I am hoping that the audio and visual elements will engage the learners and help them better connect with this topic from history.
All 5th graders participate in a summative Common Assessment in addition to mapping and timeline projects. I am also planning to use this Prezi as a review toward the end of the unit to prepare students for the 5th grade American Revolution Common Assessment.
Gardner also suggests that, “various forms of intelligence gravitate toward different forms of synthesis ” (Gardner, 2007, pp. 66). This may mean that in order for students to take all of the pieces of information, including the people and their individual stories, the time frame, the geography, the strategies, and the outcomes, and then put them together into a meaningful context that could then be applied to other patterns of history or could be re-written into a novel of historical fiction will most likely require us to present models of different forms of synthesis to our students. A media-infused presentation, like the Prezi I developed which has several reenactments of key events from the Revolutionary War, music, and images can help me to provide examples of various forms of synthesis.
Gardner, Howard. (2007). Five minds for the future. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Massachusetts history and social science curriculum framework, August, 2003. p. 31.
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