For Efolio - Midwest For Efolio - Check Out This Slideshow Before You Visit the Southwest For Efolio - West

Throughout this unit, I was continuously impressed by the quality of student discussion around the people, places, and cultures of the Midwest, Southwest, and Western regions of the United States.  Students shared their opinions and formed personal connections with the topics of study throughout the earlier lessons and there was an almost constant stream of organic conversation revolving around the subject area.  A particular highlight of the experience was the virtual field trips.  Students were really excited to choose and participate in the field trips, and even wanted to take more than one.  It was great to see how enthusiastic students were to learn the content.  After the field trips, students were able to share their insights in a collaborate board.

Students were also eager to participate in the research portion of the unit.  Often, the first question I was asked as we started our school day was “when are we going to work on our Google Slides presentations?”  I witnessed students working together in teams and supporting each other throughout the process of making the slides.  There were several student leaders who stepped up to the plate and coached their friends!  Though the assignment came more easily to some then others, all students were able to produce original work and share their research with the class.  It was incredible how much research the students did — none of the presentations were shorter than a half an hour!  Each presentation met the majority of the qualifications, and scores ranged from 80% – 90% in accordance with the rubric.  

While overall, I felt that this unit was a success, there were some things that I definitely could have done better.  I did notice that the level of participation dropped as we moved into the second and third Nearpod.  I think I would not have experienced this if I had separated the Nearpods and intermingled them with other activities, rather than showing them one after another.  Additionally,  I think it would have benefitted students if they had more experience with Google MyMaps before beginning this project.  The platform was confusing for them, and they could not take the time to figure it out given everything else they were tasked to accomplish.  Slowing the project down and removing unnecessary components could have resolved this.  Additionally, I could have modeled and prepared students to listen and respond to peers’ projects more effectively so that the discussion following each of the presentations would have been more fruitful.

If I were to conduct this unit again, I would intermingle the Nearpods with other activities to prevent “Nearpod Exhaustion.”  I think it would be most effective if I were to conduct an activity using Google MyMaps between each of the regions.  Then, students could learn to use Google MyMaps in an environment where they have less responsibility and less work to complete.  They could even use their pre-made MyMaps for their presentations after the fact!  I think this would work much better than lining all of the Nearpods up one after the other, and then expecting students to master Google MyMaps on top of the other work that they needed to do in preparation for their presentations.

Additionally, if I were to run this unit another time, I would stop before the presentations to talk to my students about what presentations look like and what observers should be doing while their friends present.  I would model my thinking for them as I listen to a presentation and show them how I write my questions down to ask at the end.  I might even choose to give them a requirement to ask at least one question to one of the presentations, either in the chat, or out loud.  Alternatively, I could open up a Jamboard for students to share their questions and reactions to the other presentations so that it becomes necessary for everyone to be “checked in” throughout the presentation process.  This would motivate students to stay on task while their friends are presenting, and also increase the quality of the discussion that the class has in the wake of each presentation.

I am debating whether or not I would choose to use more specific prompting questions next time I do this unit.  I feel like the vague questions were better for the majority of the class because they were able to infuse their research with their personal taste and interests.  However, there were some students who I feel could have benefitted from more specific tasks to accomplish.  Perhaps I could develop a “backup” list of questions to give to struggling students along with a list of resources to go along with each question, so that if students are struggling to do research themselves, they can read preselected articles and answer specific questions about them on their slides.  However, I would not change this for the whole group because it would decrease the variety and the originality of the students’ work.