"California Missions" Powerful Social Studies

1. Meaningful:The assignment is meaningful for the students because when they graduate in the 8th grade they must do an exhibition project. This assignment helps prepare them for their future academic endeavors.

1.1. New node

2. Value Based:The students break up the assignment amongst themselves in a democratic way. Students also take initiative to help each other when they finish their assigned component.

3. Active:The learning process at Sherman Oaks is all about collaborative and interactive learning. The school stresses the importance of students working together and the teacher successfully integrates this concept into his classroom.

4. Meaningful: Students are connected to the assignment because it relates to their culture and heritage. Students are encouraged to speak in Spanish and English while working on the assignment. Students differences in the class are appreciated and integrated into the study. Students in the class directly relate to the missions and strive to find out more about the topic through active engagement

5. Integrative: Students use multiple forms of technology in their California Missions assignment. Students use Imovie to communicate information to their fellow students. The use of technology will help prepare them for more progressive assignments in their following years.

6. Challenging: The assignment demonstrates a key component of challenging. Students are expected to work with each other and engage in thoughtful dialogue with the teacher and amongst themselves.The teacher also asks the students probing questions to make sure they stretch their learning.

7. Integrative: The assignment integrates art and computers. The students are required to use geography skills when locating the longitude and latitude, computers when editing the Imovie and art when drawing/ making the model.