Powerful Social Studies

1. Value-Based

1.1. Engages students in decision making: Before beginning the project, as a group the members must decide who will take on what role. The teacher specifically allowed the students this opportunity so that they could have control over what task they would do.

2. Active

2.1. Hands-on and minds-on: Students have to choose the roles that they want to do in the project. This gives each student a responsibility in contributing within the classroom.

3. Meaningful

3.1. Centers on powerful ideas: At the beginning of the lesson the students all brainstormed questions that they would be researching for their project. The teacher continued to probe questions that would get the students to understand why the questions they were asking are important to the missions. This is a scaffolding type of learning.

4. Integrative

4.1. Across time and space: This activity exists incorporates time and space. The students must discover the history about the mission and how life was like back then, but also distinguish how it has changed.

5. Meaningful

5.1. Not trivial: The goal of the lesson was to develop understanding of the different mission's across California. This is an authentic task where the students learn more about their community and state.

6. Integrative

6.1. Involves new technologies: The students are using a variety of methods to represent what they have discovered about their mission (drawing, maps, technology).

7. Challenging

7.1. Work productively with others: Collaboration is key in this lesson. Each student is required to interact with the other people in their group in order to finish the project.