When I first thought to do the K-W-L chart I thought it was a simple idea that the students at Dunn Middle School would easily pick up on, I was proved wrong, however. When I first walked into the room, I made the necessary copies and prepared how I was going to introduce the KWL chart because I’m sure this would be a new instrument for the students to learn. I explained it as slow and as simple as possible explaining the “K” means to list what you (the student) already knows about the topic. I wasn’t entirely surprised that the vast majority in all three of my blocks had little-to-no background information on the original thirteen colonies. The students when listing what they “knew” had nothing to do with the colonies but rather cities and what is happening today in those locations. This didn’t entirely surprise me, but I was a little shocked they didn’t have an American History class that covered this information previously. Next I explained the “W” is what they want to learn. This also proved difficult for the students because if they didn’t already know something, and didn’t have the previous knowledge on the subject to explain what they wanted to learn. I got simple answers like “what are the 13 original colonies?” and “how did they become a colony” which was a good start, but these responses were few and far between. Afterwards, I explained that the “L” section is for what they learned and they came back to this later on and did a great job on it after I already taught the lesson. The list all blocks produced for this section were large and thought out. I tried to answer the relevant questions in the “W” section as best I could based on student responses but it was not an easy task. Overall, the lesson as a whole went really well, the map activity went smoothly and the students were engage from the start, interested in what was being taught, however the KWL chart had it’s rough patches early on, but it certainly contributed to learner development by using whatever past knowledge they had, albeit not a lot, to progress and add to that knowledge.

Age of Exploration was the longest unit I taught during my student teaching experience. I uploaded the first lesson introducing the unit for this standard because I refer back to what we already learned about a lot in the lesson plan. I try and refer back to their previous knowledge about what they already learned so the students can develop and continue to add to the knowledge they already absorbed. It was also a great way that they could understand patterns and trends in history where they can see why things unfolded the way they did but referring back to past units and lessons. I've done this throughout my student teaching experience, as well as my sophomore and junior field experiences as well.