I teach at a junior high school in a small, rural town. I teach a two year course of World Histor... more I teach at a junior high school in a small, rural town. I teach a two year course of World History to sixth and seventh grade students. The research for this Action Research Project was completed with the participation of a group of seventh graders in March 2010. I decided to rewrite the focus of one of my units of study in the seventh grade curriculum. I decided to pilot the unit on the Industrial Revolution as a result of the preparation I completed for the biography section of Chapter 1. I wanted to completely refocus this unit on the way the major social upheavals of this time effected the lives of ordinary people, focusing on social history rather than on the traditional, top-down examination of inventions and inventors. This approach was influenced by my own background and reading that I did by people like James Loewen The data was collected in a couple of ways. These included students filling out surveys, which are discussed in Chapter 3. I also collected some anecdotal data and some work samples completed by students. I was interested to see whether such a focus would raise student engagement with the material covered. While I think that that happened on a perhaps visceral level, and the data leads me to that conclusion, the data did not necessarily show that when I looked at work completed by students. The main thing that I learned was that this approach definitely increased my own personal and professional engagement with a topic area that I already loved. I also believe that some students made some meaningful connections with ordinary people who lived in historic times. I certainly intend to continue implementing this approach with other topic areas in future.
I teach at a junior high school in a small, rural town. I teach a two year course of World Histor... more I teach at a junior high school in a small, rural town. I teach a two year course of World History to sixth and seventh grade students. The research for this Action Research Project was completed with the participation of a group of seventh graders in March 2010. I decided to rewrite the focus of one of my units of study in the seventh grade curriculum. I decided to pilot the unit on the Industrial Revolution as a result of the preparation I completed for the biography section of Chapter 1. I wanted to completely refocus this unit on the way the major social upheavals of this time effected the lives of ordinary people, focusing on social history rather than on the traditional, top-down examination of inventions and inventors. This approach was influenced by my own background and reading that I did by people like James Loewen The data was collected in a couple of ways. These included students filling out surveys, which are discussed in Chapter 3. I also collected some anecdotal data and some work samples completed by students. I was interested to see whether such a focus would raise student engagement with the material covered. While I think that that happened on a perhaps visceral level, and the data leads me to that conclusion, the data did not necessarily show that when I looked at work completed by students. The main thing that I learned was that this approach definitely increased my own personal and professional engagement with a topic area that I already loved. I also believe that some students made some meaningful connections with ordinary people who lived in historic times. I certainly intend to continue implementing this approach with other topic areas in future.
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I decided to rewrite the focus of one of my units of study in the seventh grade curriculum. I decided to pilot the unit on the Industrial Revolution as a result of the preparation I completed for the biography section of Chapter 1. I wanted to completely refocus this unit on the way the major social upheavals of this time effected the lives of ordinary people, focusing on social history rather than on the traditional, top-down examination of inventions and inventors. This approach was influenced by my own background and reading that I did by people like James Loewen
The data was collected in a couple of ways. These included students filling out surveys, which are discussed in Chapter 3. I also collected some anecdotal data and some work samples completed by students. I was interested to see whether such a focus would raise student engagement with the material covered. While I think that that happened on a perhaps visceral level, and the data leads me to that conclusion, the data did not necessarily show that when I looked at work completed by students.
The main thing that I learned was that this approach definitely increased my own personal and professional engagement with a topic area that I already loved. I also believe that some students made some meaningful connections with ordinary people who lived in historic times. I certainly intend to continue implementing this approach with other topic areas in future.
I decided to rewrite the focus of one of my units of study in the seventh grade curriculum. I decided to pilot the unit on the Industrial Revolution as a result of the preparation I completed for the biography section of Chapter 1. I wanted to completely refocus this unit on the way the major social upheavals of this time effected the lives of ordinary people, focusing on social history rather than on the traditional, top-down examination of inventions and inventors. This approach was influenced by my own background and reading that I did by people like James Loewen
The data was collected in a couple of ways. These included students filling out surveys, which are discussed in Chapter 3. I also collected some anecdotal data and some work samples completed by students. I was interested to see whether such a focus would raise student engagement with the material covered. While I think that that happened on a perhaps visceral level, and the data leads me to that conclusion, the data did not necessarily show that when I looked at work completed by students.
The main thing that I learned was that this approach definitely increased my own personal and professional engagement with a topic area that I already loved. I also believe that some students made some meaningful connections with ordinary people who lived in historic times. I certainly intend to continue implementing this approach with other topic areas in future.