Relevant Description

Asian Civilizations Lesson Part 2
Feudal Japan Lesson Part 1

SS.9.H.CL4.3 summarize the functions of feudalism and manorialism in Europe, China and Japan (including the creation of nation-states) as feudal institutions helped monarchies to centralize power.

SS.9-10.L.15 use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish and update individual or shared writing products, taking advantage of technology’s capacity to link to other information and to display information flexibly and dynamically.

Objectives: After reading the assigned chapter, the learner will be able to create an online presentation of the information.

For this standard I also want to use the Japan Presentation lesson.

 

As described in Standard I, the students were given a geographic basis for Japan and shown a connection between the new society (the Japanese) and two societies already studied (the Mayan and the ancient Egyptians). After watching the short video clip, which can be found in Standard I, as a class, we informally discussed the differences and similarities between the civilizations they already knew and Japan with questions I put on the board.  I used this discussion as an formative assessment by gauging through an involved class discussion. I continued on this question/answer portion of the lesson until I had no more questions and we getting reasonable and logical answers to the "Connecting to Prior Knowledge" questions. As long as the students had a firm grasp of the fundamental aspects of Japanese development and geography, I felt they knew enough to move on to the self-directed instruction portion of the lesson. After giving the students the guided reading, we reconvened at the start of the next class period to discuses the outline. I answered any simple questions they had (such as due date, note length etc) but let them work through the content questions during their self guided research. I gave a more formal formative assessment in the form of their digital presentations using Google Docs (a student example can be found in Standard I). I gauged their understanding of the information on how well they organized the information and whether or not they could correctly define the important terms in the section. When I gave them feedback through Google Docs, I identified any areas that needed improving and and cleared up any misconceptions or inaccuracies. The summative assessment came in the form of a chapter exam. Along with questions dealing with other topics covered from the preceding chapter, they were ask a number of questions dealing with Japan (feudalism activity) and the Mongols (StudyStack activity from Standard II).

When the lesson was completed and the Japan presentations were all turned in, I interviewed a struggling student and a high performing student. I asked them questions about whether or not they liked the activity, if they found it helpful and whether or not they found it to be challenging. The following is my recorded conversation with the struggling student.

 

 

For the presentations, both students received a 38/40 for a grade based on the rubric handed out. Following the presentations, the students were given a chapter test by the host teacher that included information about the Asian countries, along with the English rulers. When analyzing the data the breakdown in scores were as follows:


 

After watching the video and comparing the positive comments the struggling student had made about the lesson with the test results, it is clear through the summative (chapter test) and formative (GoogleDoc Presenations) assessments that the student had a clear understanding of the material.