Lesson Plan for Implementing

NETS•S—Template I
(More Directed Learning Activities)
Template with guiding questions
Teacher(s)
Name Katie Hamilton

Position Teacher

School/District South Central Middle School/Bartow County School System

E-mail Katie.Hamilton@bartow.k12.ga.us

Phone 7706065865
Grade
Level(s) 7th grade

Content Area Social Studies

Timeline 2 weeks

Standards (What do you want students to know and be able to do? What knowledge, skills, and strategies do you
expect students to gain? Are there connections to other curriculum areas and subject area benchmarks? ) Please
put a summary of the standards you will be addressing rather than abbreviations and numbers that indicate which
standards were addressed.
SS7H1 Analyze continuity and change in Africa.
a. Explain how the European partitioning across Africa contributed to conflict, civil war, and
artificial political boundaries in Africa today.
b. Explain how the Pan-African movement and nationalism led to independence in Kenya
and Nigeria.
c. Explain the creation and end of apartheid in South Africa and the roles of Nelson
Content Standards Mandela and F.W.de Klerk.
3. Knowledge Constructor
Students critically curate a variety of resources using digital tools to construct knowledge,
produce creative artifacts and make meaningful learning experiences for themselves and
others. Students:
a. plan and employ effective research strategies to locate information and other resources
for their intellectual or creative pursuits.
b. evaluate the accuracy, perspective, credibility and relevance of information, media, data
or other resources.
c. curate information from digital resources using a variety of tools and methods to create
collections of artifacts that demonstrate meaningful connections or conclusions.
d. build knowledge by actively exploring real-world issues and problems, developing ideas
and theories and pursuing answers and solutions.

6. Creative Communicator
Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes
using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals.
Students:
a. choose the appropriate platforms and tools for meeting the desired objectives of their
ISTE Standards: creation or communication.

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 b. create original works or responsibly repurpose or remix digital resources into new
creations.
c. communicate complex ideas clearly and effectively by creating or using a variety of
digital objects such as visualizations, models or simulations.
d. publish or present content that customizes the message and medium for their intended
audiences.

7. Global Collaborator
Students use digital tools to broaden their perspectives and enrich their learning by
collaborating with others and working effectively in teams locally and globally. Students:
a. use digital tools to connect with learners from a variety of backgrounds and cultures,
engaging with them in ways that broaden mutual understanding and learning.
b. use collaborative technologies to work with others, including peers, experts or
community members, to examine issues and problems from multiple viewpoints

Overview (a short summary of the lesson or unit including assignment or expected or possible products)

The lesson will be used to deliver information on South Africa’s apartheid and the roles of Nelson Mandela and
F.W. de Klerk. Students will learn about diversity and discrimination and “Change Agents” around the world. The
lesson will highlight Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk and their work in South Africa specifically. Students will
take notes on Apartheid, then work to create a StoryMap to detail the life of either Mandela or de Klerk.

Students will then connect with pen pals from across the world to collaborate on a topic: Walking to Freedom.
Students will research and discuss diversity, the history of discrimination, and civil rights leaders from around the
world. Students will then create an original project: a Change Agent Hall of Fame, highlighting Nelson Mandela
and others in history who have promoted equity and social justice. Students will be using videos, aminations, and
graphics to create their project. Students will then present their projects in a “virtual” Hall of Fame.

Essential Questions (What essential question or learning are you addressing? What would students care or
want to know about the topic? What are some questions to get students thinking about the topic or generate
interest about the topic? Additionally, what questions can you ask students to help them focus on important
aspects of the topic? (Guiding questions) What background or prior knowledge will you expect students to bring
to this topic and build on?) Remember, essential questions are meant to guide the lesson by provoking inquiry.
They should not be answered with a simple “yes” or “no” and should have many acceptable answers.

How did the Scramble of Africa impact the creation of apartheid in South Africa?
How did apartheid affect the development of South Africa and its people?
What roles did Nelson Mandela and F. W. de Klerk play in the ending of apartheid?
How do people and groups around the world promote tolerance and racial equality?

Assessment (What will students do or produce to illustrate their learning? What can students do to generate new
knowledge? How will you assess how students are progressing (formative assessment)? How will you assess
what they produce or do? How will you differentiate products?) You must attach copies of your assessment and/or
rubrics. Include these in your presentation as well.

Formative assessments will be used throughout this unit to ensure comprehension of vocabulary and big ideas.
GimKit, an interactive game where students can earn in-game money, will be used to make quick assessments of
student understanding. Students will need to know basics like “diversity” and “discrimination”, as well as recall
information from previous units, like “Scramble for Africa” to continue to build their knowledge.
The “Ticket out the Door” strategy will also be used for quick formative assessments. Students will answer 1-2
questions about the day’s topics or overarching ideas as they leave class.

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The StoryMap will also be used as an assessment to ensure student understand of Mandela or de Klerk and their
impact in South Africa. Students will build off of this knowledge to understand how change agents have worked to
fight discrimination all over the world. The rubric for this StoryMap assignment is below:

The summative assessment for this lesson is the final project within PenPal Schools, the Hall of Fame project.
Students will demonstrate their learning of diversity and discrimination by profiling one change agent who has
worked to help the world.
The rubric for this project is below:

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 The rubrics were created with Schoology, the Learning Management System used for the school. Students use
Schoology to turn in assignments and receive grades so they are very familiar with rubrics and how they work on
there. Schoology also provides an easy way to grade assignments by clicking on the rubric boxes and the
program will tally the grade for you.

Resources (How does technology support student learning? What digital tools, and resources—online student
tools, research sites, student handouts, tools, tutorials, templates, assessment rubrics, etc—help elucidate or
explain the content or allow students to interact with the content? What previous technology skills should students
have to complete this project?)

Technology will provide resources and content throughout this entire unit. The students are 1-to-1 with laptops, so
they will be using their laptops each day to access resources, content, and tools.

Students will choose to use either an online mapping tool or online timeline tool to visualize their notes on
Apartheid. If students want to create a timeline or a mind map, they can use SmartDraw
(https://cloud.smartdraw.com/) or they can use the Paint app on their laptop. Students are already very familiar
with the Paint app from previous years of use.

Students will use StoryMap (https://storymap.knightlab.com/) to create an interactive map of Nelson Mandela or
F.W. de Klerk’s life. Students have previously use this website at the beginning of the year. They need to know
how to find images and videos on the internet, which students already have the skills to do.

PenPal Schools (https://www.penpalschools.com/index.html) will be used as the facilitator for collaboration on

topics such as diversity and discrimination. The site will give content and host discussions on the topics. The final
project, the Hall of Fame, will also be done through the site.

Within PenPal Schools, there is a toolkit of various resources students can use for the Hall of Fame project.
Students and use and embed items from any of these websites into their project. Students will choose the
resources that best fit their abilities and needs to use for their project. The toolkit is shown below:

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Instructional Plan
Preparation (What student needs, interests, and prior learning provide a foundation for this lesson? How can
you find out if students have this foundation? What difficulties might students have?)

The foundation for this lesson has been built by the previous lessons in the larger Africa unit. Students have spent
time the previous week learning about how the Scramble for Africa caused conflict, civil war, and artificial political
boundaries. Building this foundation for students helps them understand how discrimination like Apartheid could
take place in South Africa. Class discussions about discrimination and their prior knowledge (most likely about
Martin Luther King Jr) can so help build connections and a foundation for this unit.
Students may have difficulties understanding discrimination at this large of a scale, when it comes to Apartheid
happening on the other side of the world. Students can make connections back to smaller scale events, such as
times they felt discriminated against or things that have happened in the United Stated, such as the Civil Rights
movement of the 1960s.

Management Describe the classroom management strategies will you use to manage your students and the use
of digital tools and resources. How and where will your students work? (Small groups, whole group, individuals,
classroom, lab, etc.) What strategies will you use to achieve equitable access to the Internet while completing this
lesson? Describe what technical issues might arise during the Internet lesson and explain how you will resolve or
trouble-shoot them? Please note: Trouble-shooting should occur prior to implementing the lesson as well as
throughout the process. Be sure to indicate how you prepared for problems and work through the issues that
occurred as you implemented and even after the lesson was completed.

At SCMS, there is a house system as part of the PBIS program. Students were sorted into one of 4 houses
randomly and earn points for their house throughout the year. In the classroom, students can earn points for their
house and a leaderboard is posted on the board. Students can earn points for being on task, helping others,
performing well at tasks, and more. This will serve as the primary strategy for classroom management. Students
will be working individually and with partners. Expectations have already been in place since the beginning of the
year to ensure proper student behavior while working.

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 Students will work with their 1-to-1 technology throughout the lesson. Students have been working with the 1-to-1
technology for 3 years now. Students are familiar with common technical issues and how to fix them. Student
laptops can also be turned in for a work order if problems they cannot fix arise. Loaner laptops are then issues to
students if their laptop needs time to be fixed. The library also houses 7 desktop computers than can be used for
any students if needed.
If the Internet becomes an issue, students can work offline to discuss and answer discussion questions with each
other. Students can also work offline to design and brainstorm ideas for their project. PenPal Schools also offers
support for mobile devices, so students would be able to continue work with their personal devices, such as cell
phones, using data.

Instructional Strategies and Learning Activities – Describe the research-based instructional strategies you will
use with this lesson. How will your learning environment support these activities? What is your role? What are the
students' roles in the lesson? How can you ensure higher order thinking at the analysis, evaluation, or
creativity levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy? How can the technology support your teaching? What authentic,
relevant, and meaningful learning activities and tasks will your students complete? How will they build knowledge
and skills? How will students use digital tools and resources to communicate and collaborate with each other
and others? How will you facilitate the collaboration?

Day 1 - Students take notes on apartheid individually using a graphic organizer and their personal laptop. The
content will be delivered through Google Slides. The teacher will review the notes at the end of class to ensure
basic comprehension.

Day 2- Students use a digital mind map or online timeline websites from their notes. Students will have a choice
on how they want to “visualize” their notes. Student visuals will be posted on Schoology for others to see.

Day 3 & 4- Students will use StoryMap to create a map detailing important events and locations in either Nelson
Mandela or F.W. de Klerk’s life. Students will be split into two groups, so half the class will complete a Storymap
on Mandela and the other class will complete a Storymap on F.W. de Klerk. Students will create their Storymap
with images, videos, and information detailing the person’s life. They will have to research the person then
determine which 10 events are the most important to include on the timeline map. The teacher's role during this
assignment will be to monitor student work and provide guidance when necessary.

Day 5- Students will partner with a student who did the other figure and share their StoryMap. Students will teach
the other student about the Civil Rights leader’s life by presenting their StoryMap.

Day 6- Students will participate in collaboration on PenPal Schools discussing diversity and discrimination.
PenPal Schools gives students prompts and students will respond to those prompts using the content provided.

Day 7- Students will check on responses from their discussion posts on PenPal Schools. Students will respond to
others’ posts- of those of other students in our classroom and of those students from other schools worldwide.
The website will facilitate collaboration between students in a discussion board format.

Day 8- Students will use their StoryMap, their partners StoryMap, and content from their PenPal Schools
discussion to decide who they want to put into the “Change Agent” Hall of Fame on PenPal Schools. Students will
do further research on Mandela, de Klerk, or another civil rights activist they learned about.

Day 9 & 10- Students will work on their Hall of Fame project, highlighting civil rights leaders from around the
world. Students will use visual aids, such as images, videos, and other media to detail the life of a leader.
Students will share their projects within PenPal Schools to the “showcase” feature. Students will be able to see
everyone’s projects and learn about change agents that have impacted the world.

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Differentiation (How will you differentiate content and process to accommodate various learning styles and
abilities? How will you help students learn independently and with others? How will you provide extensions and
opportunities for enrichment? What assistive technologies will you need to provide?)

Technology will serve as a tool for differentiation. Tools within the computer, such as text-to-speech and speech-
to-text features, will serve as a way to differentiate for different learners. When researching and finding content
online, students can use these features if needed. Choice will also play a role in differentiation. Students have
many choices throughout the entire unit when it comes to process for showing their learning. Students have the
opportunity to show their learning though many different processes.

Extension activities will be provided to students. This activity will include students researching and presenting
information about to face diversity and fight discrimination in our school and community. Students can choose to
create a flyer, video, infographic, or other pieces of information to share with our school counselor. Our counselor
can then use these as resources for all students.

Reflection (Will there be a closing event? Will students be asked to reflect upon their work? Will students be
asked to provide feedback on the assignment itself? What will be your process for answering the following
questions?
• Did students find the lesson meaningful and worth completing?
• In what ways was this lesson effective?
• What went well and why?
• What did not go well and why?
• How would you teach this lesson differently?)

Student sharing out presentations will serve as a closing event for this unit. Students will be able to see others’
work in the Hall of Fame to see how their work compares and can build off of others. This also can serve as
another learning opportunity for students.
Grading work using rubrics will help determine if students learned the desired objectives and if the lesson was
effective. Viewing the StoryMap and Hall of Fame projects will help determine if the unit was beneficial to both the
teacher and students.

Closure: Anything else you would like to reflect upon regarding lessons learned and/or your experience with
implementing this lesson. What advice would you give others if they were to implement the lesson? Please
provide a quality reflection on your experience with this lesson and its implementation.
The lesson gives a broader scope of Africa’s Apartheid and civil rights movements as they tie into other
movements around the world. For others implementing this lesson, it would be difficult to do completely without 1-
to-1 technology. Students will rely on technology throughout the lesson for resources and assessments.
While implementing this lesson, it ran very smooth. It was a good idea to use tools the students were familiar with
first then introducing the new tool, PenPal Schools. Students knew how to use Paint and StoryMap, but had not
used PenPal Schools before. I think a lesson with too many new resources and tools would overwhelm students.
My students also benefited from the content delivery (the notes at the beginning of the lesson) being provided in a
way that they are very familiar with- Google slides. This provided a good foundation for the rest of the unit.
There could have been a lot more time spent within PenPal Schools with the many different topics and
discussions, but we did not have time for that. It was a decision made within the lesson to have students answer
two specific topics, not all 9 they have the option to do. Students could have spent over two week simply posting
and replying to others. Also, I learned that conversations about meaningful discussion replies was necessary. For
example, short replies such as “cool” and “good” are not meaningful and necessary. I directed students to have
more meaningful conversations with their classmates and peers from all over the world.
Overall, I thought the unit was meaningful and beneficial to my students.

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