The other day we did an amazing project on campus. We were to persuade out peers that the decade we chose, researched, and demonstrated- was the best to live in. This activity included students learning how to and completing research for a specific reason, had them using technology and creating other presentation media, and had them working with their persuasive talents trying to spark interest in their decade. For our presentations we were trying to persuade our peers to vote for our decade. Our professor was in charge of collecting votes. Overall, the experiences was fun and educational! I really did learn a lot of about the different decades in history.
The decade my partner and I chose was the 1940's. This was a difficult era to persuade our peers about (considering it was a decade of war, the Holocaust etc.) But, in researching I found out so much more about this era. This was an era of amazing inventions, ones which have a direct impact upon our lives. During this era inventions include: the microwave oven, cake mix, the cellular phone, ballpoint pen, and tupperware. This era is also responsible for more amusing inventions such as scrabble, the slinky, the Frisbee and the Bikini.
Other things we found out about this era was the fashion, important events, popular music/dance/movie, popular books, people, inventions and even the scandals and disasters of the era. Now in our class we were given guidelines and left to create our projects, but remember in a classroom you should demonstrate how students should break their research up into more manageable pieces. For example, give them rubrics! Students needs guidelines for their projects, and need to be aware of what they will be graded on. So decide before hand what you want them to gain from this experience. Secondly, give them graphic organizers. A simple chart for them to record their findings so that they can have it all in one place when they start creating their presentation. Our professor created a requirements sheet and a Research graphic organizer which I based my two documents off of. Here they are:
Also, above are some of the pictures from our own "Decades Project Presentations." We showed a powerpoint while playing three songs via iTunes. Our three songs were "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy: by The Andrew's Sister, "I'll be Seeing You" by Billie Holliday and "I've Got a Gal in Kalamazoo" by Glenn Miller.
Enjoy! It is an amazing project that I feel would prompt a lot of response from students.
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