Interactivity #4

World War II is often one of the most covered topics in high school history classes. However, most of the time lectures and documentaries are used as the primary way of teaching students about it. I chose this lesson plan because it allowed students to use primary sources to learn more about World War II. The lesson plan involved students preparing interviews with their classmates and then interviewing people who had lived during and experienced World War II. I think it is very important to teach history through primary sources because it offers students with another perspective that is not offered in textbooks.

Though the lesson plan has great potential, it failed to use many technologies. Most of the project involved peer review, class discussion and one on one interviews. Students were advised to use the Library of Congress website for sources and the film Swing Shift is included in the lesson plan, but other than that the lesson plan lacks technology. I had to add the technological aspect to many of the lesson plans strategies which included PowerPoint presentations, online databases and documentary films. The lesson plan also did not meet all of the standards and I had to add additional components to the lesson plan to make it complete. For example, the lesson plan focused a lot on the perspectives of individuals but not the attitudes and decisions of entire nations. Granted, the lesson plan's primary task was to conduct interviews with people who experienced World War II.

I feel that the further integration of online resources could have made this lesson plan better. Despite the emphasis on the interview, students could have been told to compare their interview findings with data they found online. This could have been very beneficial to them as it could show them to not always depend on one source when conducting research. Online resources could have also helped students in learning about World War II in a broader sense, which could provide a different perspective that a personal interview could never do.

Link to Google Doc:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqoWUbvtDXBbdGdTeFVPOEp3UFIxT1BhUWtKS3ROS1E