Artifact Bag Minilesson

Mount Saint Mary College

Mini Lesson Plan

Social Studies Methods

Dr. Smirnova

Candidate Name: Amanda Almodovar
Course: ED 3120 Grade Level: 5th grade                                                   Date: 11.13.2017 Content Area: Social Studies

Lesson Plan Title: Findings of New Spain

Instructional Approach: Inquiry Lesson Plan

Overview: This lesson is designed to have students inquisitively work to come to a conclusion on the artifact bag items that they are presented with. The students to use both their textbook and the internet to research and discover what the artifact bag items are, why they are in the bag, and how they are related to one another as well as the content area of social studies.

Standards:

SS.5.3: EUROPEAN EXPLORATION AND ITS EFFECTS: Various European powers explored and eventually colonized the Western Hemisphere. This had a profound impact on Native Americans and led to the transatlantic slave trade.

-5.3a: Europeans traveled to the Americas in search of new trade routes, a northwest passage, and resources. They hoped to gain wealth, power, and glory.

-5.3b: Europeans encountered and interacted with Native Americans in a variety of ways.

-5.3d: Africans were captured, brought to the Americas, and sold as slaves. Their transport across the Atlantic was known as the Middle Passage.

Central Focus: The students will be able to make inferences and come to a conclusion based on the artifacts in the bag and based off of their knowledge on life in New Spain and Spanish explorers and their research conducted on the artifacts given.

Academic Vocabulary:

New Spain, Hispaniola, Hernando de Soto, Esteban, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, Juan Ponce de Leon, Bartolome de Las Casas, Society, Plantation, Encomienda, Missionary, Mission.

Performance Objectives:

Academic Skills: Given a task and artifact bag, the students will identify and describe each item in the artifact bag that fulfills at least an accuracy of description and purpose and a 3 out of 4 on the artifact bag rubric given.

Materials and Resources:

• Artifact 1: Piece of Spanish Explorer gold
• Artifact 2: Map of the Journeys that the Spanish Explorers took to find gold in New Spain
• Artifact 3: Scroll of the drawing/outline of a missionary
• Self Assessment Rubrics
• iPad (to research information)
• Magnifying glass
• Note graphic organizer (5 W's) 

Use of Technology:

• iPads
• Google Search Engine

Introduction:

I will introduce the lesson by asking the students, “what is an artifact?” Students should respond along the lines of: an object made by a human being, typically an item of cultural or historical interest.” After the students answer my question and display their previous knowledge about life in New Spain and the Spanish Conquistadors, I will present the artifact bag along with the powerpoint presentation.

Development:

During this part of the lesson I will open up the artifact bag powerpoint presentation and show the larger picture of the artifact that they pulled out from the bag. As it is on the board and in their hands, the students will work to come to a conclusion on what the artifact is. Once the students have an idea of where these artifacts came from or what they might be, I will prompt understanding questions such as "How does this relate to what we are learning in our social studies unit?” “Why would someone need a map of New Spain?” “What is a church and how is that related to one of the pictures that you found?” Once the students have understood and made connections to the lessons prior, I will reveal that the artifact bag is in fact a representation of three different important aspects of life in New Spain; religion, explorers, and the gold expedition.

Closure:

In order to end the lesson I will discuss the importance of the aspects of religion, the routes of the explorers, and the gold expedition on the importance of the wealth and prosperity balance in New Spain. To tie the lesson altogether, I will read a portion of the book A Conquest of New Spain by Bernil Diaz del Castillo. This book will be a perfect opportunity for the students to tie in all of their findings and their previous knowledge together. After reading the book and asking follow up questions, I will have the students visit the website link to learn and discover more about the different explorers throughout Spain and the world!

Evaluation

Diagnostic: We will pre-assess the students by asking them questions about the previous lesson.

Formative: We will assess the students through the hands up/hands down technique in order to view their agreement or disagreement with the choices and content given.

Summative: The students will report on the facts they pull from the book and the website to explain how their findings relate to what we have learned in class.

Higher Leverage Practices

Students with readings needs: We will print out the slideshows and provide the worksheets in a bigger font. Teacher will also read aloud the important directions and problems.  

Students with writing needs: There will be a note taker for that particular student so they do not have to worry about writing and processing the information at the same time.

Students with behavior problems: We will eliminate all distractions as much as possible and give extra assignments.

ESL Learners: I will give bilingual printouts of the text to aid in the learning process.

Ask the Expert! Final Questions of the Semester

• Do ed TPA first
• Finish Unit Plans with group members-(overview, rationale, what the unit plan is about, topic, concepts you are going to introduce, misconceptions the students might have, and the standards you are going to address in the unit plan) replace what she has on her eFolio with the content with your own unit plan (central focus, goals, and objectives)- provide the lesson plans in one single document (lessons 1-5 in same paper)-3 full lessons, 2 mini lessons
• Blog- reflect on what you learned about cooperative learning as a method of teaching social studies (describe how the aspects were played out in the project in class) Explain the stages and what happened. Provide the link to Jigsaw.org. How did you create a positive environment in your classroom? How did you apply the approach of the social interaction model to teaching geography?
• Subject matter outline (or graphic organizer) webspiration, bubbleus graphic organizer to create topics on the topic, then key concepts under, then skills to develop, and generalizations- Outline of what you will teach (Main topic and Subtopics)- Life in New Spain (Subtopics- social classes, Spanish explorers, missions (religion), slavery). Concepts taught, what do you expect students to know, generalizations & big deals.

P1: Introduction to what cooperative learning is

P2: 1st Jigsaw Presentation to small groups and how you brought that into fieldwork

P3: 2nd Jigsaw Presentation to full class, what were you responsible for

P4: Reflection on how that helped you to learn from one another and what you learned from working together

P5: Conclusion & provide resource links at the bottom

*Rubric on eClass

• Assessment, Section 5- Provide 3 types of assessment( Diagnostic-word cloud, provide screenshot and how you pre-assessed students prior knowledge)- all screenshots of things that you used for evaluating 
• edTPA Task c - materials , handouts, whatever we designed as materials for them and D-assessment materials)
• Formative- Explorer Page Organizer
• Summative- students wrote a paragraph or letter