Power to the People

A few weeks ago I decided to try a brand new project in my social studies class.  I was in the mood for change, ya know?  A fresh idea, the excitement of something different, the risk of not knowing exactly how it’ll turn out.  Yeah.  You need a little of that every now and then.

So this idea actually began as a result of the Bio Body project.  I’ve always felt that the kids learn so much from that project but their research is limited to people of African descent.  And yeah, I know Hispanics have a whole 30 days set aside too, but honestly half of one month and half of another is just so anticlimactic.  And what about white people and Asians?  heh.  I’d been letting this concern sort of roll around in my head for the past couple of years, but this year several factors came into play which caused my idea to finally come to life.

First, we had a really good student teacher come help out with science at the beginning of the school year.  She was smart and sweet and oh-so-full of idealism.  I love the enthusiasm of teachers just starting out.  It’s so sad that most of them lose it within the first few years.  Anyway, so this teacher had her students (the same students I get for language and social studies) make short videos about a science topic of their choosing.  Some chose the water cycle, some chose the rotation and revolution of the sun, earth, and moon… stuff like that.  They performed little skits, made up songs and cheers, added text–it was really impressive!  They had a blast making the videos as well as watching everybody else’s.  Best of all, they actually learned in the process (both by creating their own and by watching their peers’).

Secondly, I had a parent express to me the exact same concerns that I was feeling: she and her son had loved the Bio Body project and wanted to do it all over again with people of every ethnicity!  Well, I promised that mother an awesome end-of-year project, and then I got to work trying to plan it all out on paper.  Here’s what I came up with:

Instead of a research paper, the kids (either individually or in groups) would create a PowerPoint presentation.  And instead of focusing on a particular person, they would research the history of a particular invention.  This way they would be forced to work backward without knowing the ethnicity of the person or people who had hatched the invention’s original idea.

The first step in the project was to brainstorm.  I told the kids that the most common “inventions” were objects or tools–products used in our daily lives today.  I told them to imagine standing in their living rooms or kitchens and to make a mental note of all the man-made devices they saw.  I also told them that they could think bigger.  Large inventions, powerful ones, important ones.  And that an invention didn’t have to be a physical object at all–it could be an organization, an idea or a tradition, etc.  I encouraged them, as I always do, to think outside the box.  And I reminded them that every single presentation had to be different from the others.

When each kid had at least ten things written down, I had them choose their group members (no more than three students per group).  Some chose to work alone, and that was fine.  I told the singletons that from now on I would be referring to them as “groups” as well, to avoid confusion.  Once in their groups, the goal was to agree on ONE invention for the group to research.  I gave them a good fifteen minutes for this, and the conversations I overheard while walking around were fantastic!!  Here are all the topics they finally came up with:

From this point, they were able to get to the meat of their project: the research and presentation.  I reminded the students at various stages throughout the process that they were my guinea pigs so I wasn’t sure how everything would turn out, but that I expected them to try their best.  I also participated in the activity myself just to show them a clear example of every step.  The topic I chose for my invention was the paperclip.

Before setting them loose on the Internet to do their research, I gave them tips on finding information (enter “history of ___” in the search bar) and cross-referencing to check their facts.  I also gave them clear instructions about what to do if (and when!) they came across something inappropriate (exit the Internet immediately and raise your hand to tell the teacher how you got to that particular page).  They were also not allowed to print anything–instead they had to find the main facts and write them down on notebook paper.  This helped to cut back on plagiarism, but one thing I might add next year is a bibliography just to make it more official.

Then I spent one full hour in each class going over the basics of creating a PowerPoint presentation.  I knew that some of them were familiar with (and even experts at using) the program, but I explained that I would be going slow for those who weren’t.  And it turns out that even the experts learned a few things.

We went over creating new slides and adding text boxes first.  I told them that was really all they had to do, and that the only thing I was going to grade was their content.  They were to have at least four slides:

1.  Title and Name(s)

2.  The Problem:  They had to think about what problem their invention had been attempting to solve.

3.  The History:  They had to go over people’s first attempts to solve the problem, tell who came up with the idea(s) that resulted in the invention (if applicable), and what the circumstances behind its invention had been.

4.  The Invention:  They were to describe it, give details, and tell if there were variations of it in existence.

Then we got into the “everything else,” the stuff they could do just for fun that would NOT be graded.  I showed them how to add images (including a lecture about copyright laws), how to change font sizes and colors, how to add arrows, and their absolute favorite: how to add animation.  Oh man, they got such a big kick out of that.  :o)  By the end of their one-hour instructional lecture, they couldn’t WAIT to get started.

And holy hay, the results were wonderful.  I had expected soooo many questions, soooo many confused kids, soooo many crappy attempts at a real PowerPoint presentation.  But they did great!  I did make “cheat sheets” with step-by-step instructions, but honestly I don’t think half the kids even used them.  They’re just so awesome with technology!

The last step in the whole process was for each group to come up and present their slideshow to the class.  I was the clicker for each, and they basically just took turns reading each slide, and at the end we would discuss their topic.  Fascinating conversations!  Once I started clicking the first PowerPoint, I realized how successful the projects had turned out to be.  They weren’t all perfect, sure, but especially for those students who’d never even heard of the program, I was amazed at the results.  And you know what else?  I actually learned.

Did you know that football (soccer) was invented in China?  That the ancient Egyptians had a calendar of 12 months and 365 days?  That a man named Thomas Crapper played a significant role in the development of the flush toilet?  That there is such a thing as a “marshmallow plant”?  That all refrigerators were white until the 1950s?  That Thomas Edison did not invent the first light bulb?

Yeah.  Learning is good.