Michael Kershaw

EDSP 411
Class: 11th grade US History
Students: 35 (25 typical & 10 with disabilities)
Standard: 8.12.8 United States and Nevada: Analyze the effects of WWII on the home front in
the United States, including: internment camps; technologies; economic developments;
propaganda; women/minority contributions; GI Bill.
Process:
Drawing on previous knowledge of the Holocaust and WWII, I will lecture on Japanese
internment camps in the United States. I will lecture using a PowerPoint presentation of images
of those Japanese Americans who were persecuted and keywords associated with these camps. I
will then ask the students to draw parallels to the Holocaust and ask them if our nation's actions
were justifiable. From here, we will take a step back and look at the larger issue. We will
examine how the war affected the United States economically. We will discuss the technology
advances as well as propaganda. This will be meaningful to them because they have just
previously learned about the world and how it was affected by the war. In the end we will draw
the conclusion that the terrible things that happened in the war not only hurt the world, but
affected our own nation at home.
The next part of the lesson would be most practical to take place in a computer lab of
some sort. I will split the students up into groups of two to work on an informal online research
project. I will then ask the students to research, in their groups, either a specific concentration
camp for the Jews or one of the internment camps for the Japanese Americans. Their homework
is to present briefly on what they have learned in class tomorrow. The presentations will be used

to assess not only how well they understood the lesson, but also to check on their internet
research skills and make sure they are proficient in finding good, reliable sources.
A great way to incorporate a special education teacher into this lesson would be to utilize
his or her skills while the students are researching in the computer lab. I would partner students
who need more individualized attention with a partner who demonstrates exceptional skill with
the computer, so that between the special education specialist and myself, we could walk around
and answer questions one on one. Even though I would be checking for comprehension during
the lecture, as a sort of informal assessment, together we could continue to see where each set of
students is at in terms of understanding.
In theory this would play out as sort of a mixture between the one teach, one observe
model and the station teaching model. The reason I feel that these two models would be
effective when used together is because of the number of students with learning disabilities in the
classroom. Having another instructor present during the computer lab time is essential because it
would be extremely difficult to give every student the attention and guidance that they need in
the ratio of 35:1. This would be difficult in a typical class setting, so adding in the computer lab
would give another possible distraction if the teachers attention is spread too thin. I would treat
the lab time as if there were three stations: working with me on historical context, working with
the specialist on information literacy, and independent time. Instead of the students rotating, the
instructors would move from pair to pair, making sure that guidance is given where needed.
During the lecture, I would prefer to have the specialist observe. This way the specialist
can give me feedback on how the students seemed to take the information as well as what parts
of the lecture could be improved upon. I believe that the data collected could be extremely

useful in future lectures. It would probably be most effective is the specialist focused the
observation on those students with learning disabilities and their body language and
participation.
Although this form of collaboration requires the least amount of planning prior to the
lesson, I believe that it can be effective. The real planning would come upon completion of the
lesson, after the data has been gathered and we can discuss how instruction might need to be
differentiated for various students. I know that it would be important to switch up the model the
next time to avoid the specialist being seen as simply an assistant.