An Immigrant’s Journey by Laura Best, Joanne Roler, and Ruth Tinley
An Immigrant’s Journal is about a junior high school in Lincolnshire, Illinois that is having their students do a project regarding immigration to the U.S. in 1907. The students are assigned in groups and are required to write about a certain part of immigration and each student is required to write a journal entry. In the journal entry the student talks about a fictional person and relates that person to what they have been researching, regarding the part of immigration they were assigned. Then the students in the group edit the combined journals and are required to create an iMovie project, which will be shared with other groups/classes that are studying immigration.
The role of technology in the lesson is being used to learn how to research specific information using the internet, learn how to use technology to display information learned and “create a personalized document of a historical experience.” (Best, Roler, Tinley [from article]). Mostly in this article technology is being described as a tool students can use to get and display information.
My thoughts about the article were on the fence because I like that the school is creating a different outlet to grade students but I would think that it would get confusion on what the teachers are grading on, the information the students got using research or how they presented the information. Grading both the information and how the students displayed their information, I don’t think is a good idea because trying to have students focus on two things, in my opinion, will cause them to not grasp the full understanding of either one. I think it is good to separate the two, for example, teach the students before the project how to create iMovies and do research on the internet and when the teachers do this project they should focus on the information displayed not how well the students created the iMovie.
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Trisha, this looks like an awesome lesson! I like how you brought up the idea of grading. I agree with you in that it could be really difficult for the students to fully grasp a full understanding of one. This could get extremely confusing for those who have a hard time sticking to the typical guidelines of an assignment. Overall though, I think that it is a great lesson. Maybe to make it less intense for the students, one could have it in two completely separate parts. In the first couple months they could work on the first part and then the next couple months they could create the iMovie. That way each is graded completely separately but they are one from the information presented. Great job!
ReplyDeleteThis lesson sounds great! I think that students will really enjoy writing these journal entries because it really allows students to strectch their imagination and express their own individual creativity. I think making an imovie out of them sounds like fun. Students will then be able to share their work and learn from their students work as well. I agree that it can often be confusing to students what they are being graded on and what is required of them. However, i think that using a rubric for this particular assignment might help eliminate this confusion. Lindsey's idea about making it a two part lesson sounds like a good idea as well.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the involvement of technology in this lesson can be a little much. What is more important, the information or the quality of the movie? Or how about the Journals? Should they be more realistic (adding feelings to the characters), or should they be loaded with facts. I do agree with you that the different outlet is good for students. though it may be confusing, it allows the students to get points for several things rather than possibly failing because it was graded on one aspect. Here, I think both Asha and Lindsey's ideas could be very helpful.
ReplyDeleteThe objective does seem like it could be slightly confusing if not explained thoroughly and directions were not explicit. However, if these confusions were cleared up (perhaps by a breakdown of steps) this lesson is great for allowing the students to use their imagination and be very creative.
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