Dec. 2011

Overview

This interactive lesson focuses on the student reading about the Battle Of Gettysburg, Pa.. Student will have an information sheet on the Battle to use as a resource. While discussing the Battle of Gettysburg some information will be provided on a blog on the internet as a teaching tool. Secondly, as a form of assessment students will participate in an educational interactive game of question and answer and checkers.

Objectives

The main objective of this five-minute teaching demonstration is to show how to use interactive and student engagement techniques in a classroom using the Civil War and The Battle of Gettysburg as the topic.

• 1-To learn some facts about the Battle of Gettysburg and it’s importance in the Civil war.
• 2- To become familiar with General Lee and General Meade and their role in the battle.
• 3- To establish the time line of the Battle of Gettysburg.
• 4-To assess what the student have learned or are learning using the resource sheets on the Civil War and the Battle of Gettysburg by using a unique question and answer approach to an interactive game of checkers in Powerpoint.
• 5-To demonstrate briefly another interactive assessment educational game called Decisions Cards for Civil War Generals.

Activities

A quick review of part of the Battle of Gettysburg

• Game of Checkers, assessment activity (question and answer) recalling what was read and what is on the resource sheet given out.
• Decisions –Generals Cards, another interactive essay or discussion game.

Adaptations

An electronic bulletin board would better provide for interactive checkers to be moved around the checkerboard using powerpoint.

A class can be divided in half and one side can challenge the other side with questions from the notes and readings about General Lee, and the Battle of Gettysburg in the Civil War.

Evaluation

The game of Checkers act as an assessment tool without seeming to be a test of knowledge

The Decision Cards of Generals gives students an opportunity to express themselves with real life decisions about the Battle of Gettysburg and “what if scenarios afterward.

Presented by Dr. Pelham K. Mead III, Columbia Univ. Ed.D. 1992

Materials

¡  Preprinted information sheets will be handed out.

¡  Documents posted to Blackboard

¡  Documents posted to www.wordpress.com/skyking119

¡  Decision Cards for Generals printed up and handed out at the correct time.

Other Resources

www.history.com web site for information on the Civil War and for the Battle of Gettysburg.

General Lee’s Army “From Victory to Collapse,” author: Joseph T. Glatthaar, Free Press, 2008

Engaging Students

Engaging students it to motivate them, involve them in the presentation, lecture or discussion rather than being “sea slugs” absorbing whatever floats by.