Culture Across Countries

Title of Project: Culture Across Countries

Schools and Teachers

Birch and Levy Lakeside Schools Teacher: Kristin O'Leary

ENL Proficiency Level | ENL Program | Standards | Technology

Transitioning, Expanding | Stand-Alone, Integrated ENL/ELA, Integrated ENL/SS | 3R1, 3W6, 3L6 | Zoom

Assessments

Formative & Summative:

Graphic Organizer (split into flag / location and geography/ politics, society & economy / holidays, food, dress)

Quizlet

Final Presentation: given Informational Writing Checklist and Rubric (Organization, Facts and Details, Vocabulary, Conventions) - Teacher scored

Description

Over the course of several weeks, students will look at different countries/cultures around the world. First, we will take a look at the United States to review and learn new vocabulary such as (land forms, borders, climate, industry, trade, currency, politics, society, and economy). Then, students will select one country to research. Students will be provided with several resources through Epic and Pebble Go, as well as different links in order to complete a graphic organizer and ultimately create a presentation of their own.

Content

I can research and gather relevant information. I can ask and answer questions before, during, and after reading a text.

Language

I can acquire and use content specific vocabulary. I can participate in class discussions using newly learned and content specific vocabulary.

Technology

I can us my laptop to access zoom meetings. I can use a variety of online resources to collect information.

Student work

LINK TO Merrick Birch and Levy Lakeside Work Samples:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Zx2CefNvkc1R_-Rjm8eqax90EeWuU-lv?usp=sharing

Ari Holiday.PNG
Olivia Holiday.PNG
Isfar Borders and Hemispheres.PNG

Procedure

Initially in school the word CULTURE was written on the board when students walked into the classroom. We gave students a vague definition that culture is a “way of life”, after much discussion students branched into groups and filled out a web organizer for what they thought was included in “a way of life”. We went into more discussion about how all different countries and communities around the world have their own culture.

Day One: Brief hiatus after closing

Re-initiated student engagement by looking at the American flag. “Do you know what the colors/stars represent? We had students make guesses as to what they stood for.

Students did a quick online scavenger hunt to find the answers to our question. Students shared the information they found and where they found it. We ended by asking students if the flag could be considered part of our culture and why?

Students were told they would be doing research over the next few weeks on countries all over the world.

We introduced students to their country project. We shared and went over the graphic organizer.

Review Quizlet vocabulary have students do Quizet for homework.

Read a series of books on the United States to model and fill out the graphic organizer as a class over multiple zoom sessions.

Students submitted a list of top 3 countries they would like to research. Some students chose to do their native countries, while others chose to study a new county.

Several collections were created and shared on Epic Books. Students had access to Pebble Go and a padlet with resources as well.

Students need to fill out graphic organizers and upload via Seesaw. (still in progress)

Students can present their information using any platform we have used over the year (Book Creator, Buncee, PowerPoint, etc.) or they could simply use the templates provided on Seesaw for each part of the graphic organizer. (still in progress)

Resources and Other Materials

Reflection

It’s definitely not the project that I expected to do. I felt that online learning made it a lot less collaborative and engaging, which was disappointing. I really enjoyed doing an online scavenger hunt with the classes and even through zoom it was an engaging activity and one that I will use in the future. Having the internet readily available for students/families is serving to be difficult because students have the ability to copy and paste text. When I use this next year, there will not be any out of classroom work. The original plan was for the technology teacher to teach into finding reliable resources, as it is part of the curriculum, but instead students were given collections of books and direct access to other resources. The project is streamlining well, but it’s missing the collaborative piece.