Walking Through History

I decided to focus on a lesson called "A Walk Through History" on the InTime website because I teach middle school social studies (7th grade). This unit stated that it would be more appropriate for 8th grade, which makes sense because that grade focuses on American History. The unit is a historical video timelime that incorporates what students have learned in language arts, social studies, and science. Students were divided into teams to research one of three topics: school history, local history, or national history. Students were to gather information on important people, events, inventions, and fashion from colonial times to 2000 for their topic. They did this through collecting movie clips, pictures, anything that would help someone understand the important events over time. Students showed what it meant to be an American through a digital timelime and burying a time capsule.

I could use this in my social studies classes but on a scaled down version because 7th grade focuses on world geography. I would also have to scale down the collaboration because most teachers at my school don't collaborate. (That's sad but scheduling makes it impossible because teachers don't share same preps.) I could not only do it for America but other countries as well, like China. I think timelimes are a great visual to show highlighted events or material and that's what drew me to view this. Finally, the way this unit was set up held students accountable individually and collaboratively through group work. I think that is important because students need to be assessed both ways so not only one person is doing all the work.