For this lesson plan I will adress standard 6 objective 1 for highschool history students. "Students will understand how the Great Depression and the New Deal affected the United States. Investigate the impact of the Great Depression on the United States."
We will learn about the New Deal and the Depression and how both effected the US and the state of Utah. (Change state depending on where you are teaching). They will need to know why the depression happened and why the New Deal was started and who started it. However, I as the teacher won't need to teach them everything. I want them to work with a group and either create a powerpoint presentation or a movie about some aspect of the New Deal and the Depression. If they create a movie they can role play interviews and pretend that they are someone who lived through the Depression. They can relate experieces and the facts through their fictional stories. They could also do something like a news broadcast. They would be the anchors and report the lack of jobs and money. If they do a powerpoint presentation I will have them teach their presentation so they won't just be able to copy and paste information. they will need to know it so they can then teach it for the whole class. If they do a movie we will watch it in class--the movie only needs to be about 20 min long. They can use anything to gather information such as class notes, the internet, books, family members such as grandparents with personal experices as long as they cite their souces in some form or another. I will do a powerpoint presentation to give them an idea of what I am looking for. I will need to lecture for a day or two about the Great Depression: how it started, what it effected it: jobs, income, famiily structure, national debt in time of peace, the begginings of the new deal, why roosevelt believed it would help, and how it helped specifically in Utah, what were the results of the New Deal in Utah and did people support it or fight it and why.
Possible links to use in preparing your lecture notes
http://www.uen.org/utahlink/tours/tourFames.cgi?tour_id=6043
http://newdeal.feri.org/
Things that you will need to be aware of...
Do your students have access to camcorders or to Powerpoint? That's why they have the choice
If they do Powerpoint is the information in their own words or did they copy and paste without citing their source?
Do they use pictures or sound/movie clips in their presentation that would violate copy right laws?
Are you going to be able to allow your students time to work on their presentations in class. If they are doing a movie they will use the excuse that the camcorder is at home so they might waste an entire class period. Have them write out their scripts a head of time so when they record later it will go faster.
If you allow them time to gather information off the internet during class are they only going to appropriate sites and are they using their time wisely?
Do your students even know how to use powerpoint. It is a simple program. Are you going to require your students to use all of its features or is a simple presentation with mostly words and a few pictures ok?
The object of these projects isn't just to use up time. If the students have to do a project that will teach other people they will have to understand the information well in order to teach it. If they know nothing about the New Deal how can they create a movie about it with interview or news reporting. They will have to do some research on their own and that can be a very effective way to learn if it is on a low enough level that they don't get overwhelled and just give up. Make it manageable but also challenging enough so that your students need to work a little to make sure they are using accurate information in their presentations whether through a video or a powerpoint presentaion.
