Crusades Rationale | historyliteracy

Crusades Teacher Page and Rationale

Introduction

This lesson will take approximately 100 minutes, with 80 minutes given to digital activities. The length of time that students are given to complete these tasks could be increased if desired. The lesson is designed to be conducted in the computer lab. This will get around problems with policies such as the BYOD (Bring Your Own Technology) policy (NSW Government Education, 2015), which is a clear equity issue for children who cannot afford such devices. The collaborative class notes, while designed to be an ICT resource, also have the added benefit that they may printed off for children without access to computer at home. A brief lesson plan is listed below.

Lesson Plan (97.5 minutes - 80 min digital)

Part 1 - Collaborative Class Notes - 65 minutes. (65 min digital)

- (35 min) Students are to be broken into groups of 2-3 and directed to the google slides document. From there, the studenst are to be directed to one of the thirteen topics (The Byzantine Empire, The Islamic Empires, The Seljuks, First Crusade (People’s Crusade), First Crusade (Princes Crusade), Second Crusade, Third Crusade, Fourth Crusade, Fifth Crusade, Sixth Crusade, Seventh Crusade, Eighth Crusade, and Ninth Crusade). and given an introduction to the content of the lesson and told that they will be using the sources given to them to complete the questions on their topic in preparation for an informal presentation later in the class. If students find words they do not understand, there is a slide for students to put these words on, from where the teacher will define them. This slide will be displayed on the data projector for at least part of the lesson.

- (25 min) The teacher will then stop the kids and start the slideshow. Groups will be invited to present their research to the rest of the class. This is not intended to be a formal presentation and the teacher may assist if needed.

- (5 min) Students will be directed to a Kahootz quiz, which is located here - https://play.kahoot.it/#/k/b52ad3f0-1aa7-4066-be3f-7ea966468ce9
(This does not appear on the student slide as it is the link for the host.)

- At the end of this lesson, the students should have a general understanding of the topic. They will also have a digital set of notes that they may refer back to during class or for their final assessment.

Part 2 - Mini Webquest - 32.5 minutes. (15 min digital)

- (2.5 minutes) Students are given a general introduction to the topic of the 1st Crusade by the teacher and pointed to the fertile question:
“Was Western Europe right to start the 1st Crusade?”

- (15 minutes) Individually or in small groups, students are instructed to investigate at least one of the three main groups involved with the 1st Crusade.

- (15 minutes) The teacher will call the students back to discuss the original question (above) drawing on their research.

Syllabus and Rationale

This lesson is designed for the NSW History K-10 Syllabus: NSW syllabus for Australian Curriculum (Board of Studies NSW [BOSNSW], 2012). The main historical content covered is that under “Topic 4b: Medieval Europe (c. AD 590 - c. 1500)” (BOSNSW, 2012, p. 68). Multiple points in this topic are covered, with the main focus being on getting students to “outline what is revealed about different perspectives on the Crusades". With regards to the historical skills to be taught, this lesson will focus on developing students “knowledge and understanding of the nature of history” and “of ideas, movements, people and events that shaped past civilisations” (BOSNSW, 2012, p. 13). The lesson will also help students learn the process of historical inquiry, communicate
their understanding of history, and see history “as reflecting different perspectives and viewpoints” (BOSNSW, 2012, p. 13). This lesson will also target multiple cross curriculum priorities including “critical and creative thinking,” “ethical understanding,” “information and communication technology capability,” “intercultural understanding,” and “literacy” (BOSNSW, 2012, p. 10).

Practically, this lesson is designed to give students a general overview of the Crusades along with the context that they will need to understand them. In the first part of the lesson, students are given the opportunity to work together to investigate one part of the Crusades or their context. A collaborative google slides presentation as opposed to a webquest has been chosen as the method for doing this. This is because webquests are typically designed for students to interact with a complex problem, while the aim of part 1 is to provide a general overview of the topic. This method also gives students the opportunity to develop their ICT literacies through using google slides to access information and contribute to the slideshow through adding text content, adding images, and manipulating the background of the slideshow. At the end of this task students will be left with a digital copy of the class notes that they can use to refer to later, as well as an extensive list of sources if they wish to investigate the issue further.

Part 2 is a small webquest that is designed to get students to engage with a complex ethical problem. It will require students to look at the website and investigate links to learn about the topic. The use of ICT in this way will enable students to find information from sources that they would normally access information from (ie, wikipedia and other websites).

Differentiation and Scaffolding

The lesson is scaffolded in two main ways. The first is the that the sources that the students will be looking at have been selected to be suitable for them and are briefly annotated. The second is through the use of the questions contained in the slides, which will help students to identify which information is important and which is not. The lesson is also designed for group work so that students who are struggling can be assisted by their peers. In the collaborative Class Notes exercise, the topics marked as easy have additional scaffolding, while those marked very hard have had some of the scaffolding removed.

The lesson is differentiated primarily through the easy medium, hard, and very hard markers found in part 1 and part 2. These markers have been placed as an estimation of the difficulty of that section of the lesson. They have been determined based on the difficulty of the sources found in them as well as the difficulty of the topic itself. Slides without sources have been provided for any GATS students who would like an additional challenge.

Consideration of multiliteracies

This lesson gives students an opportunity to develop their literacy skills in a range of areas. Students will be given the opportunity to develop skills in both traditional literacy, through reading websites and maps, as well as new literacy, through the development of online surfing and information sifting skills. Students will also develop their digital literacies through the use of google slides, websites, and online tools.

The use of Wikipedia here is intentional as it is one of the main places that students will find information. Wikipedia is mostly accurate and one of the best ways to use Wikipedia is to get a general overview of a topic, which is how students will be using it here. The use of Wikipedia and other online sources will give students the opportunity to develop the skills they need to find and analyse information off the internet in a way that reflects how they might seek information in the future.

Informal Assessment

There are multiple opportunities for the teacher to collect information digitally about how students are going throughout this lesson. The first way is the Collaborative Class Notes that the students produce. As the teacher can see all parts of their classes work, they can quickly see how the class is going throughout the lesson. At the end they will be left with a record of how each group went. A second way is the Kahoot quiz at the end of Part 1, which will quickly give the teacher an indication of how the group overall, as well as how students are doing individually.

Sources

Board of Studies NSW (2012), History K-10 syllabus. Retrieved 21 September 2015 from: http://syllabus.bos.nsw.edu.au/download/

NSW Government Education (2015), Student bring your own device policy (BYOD). Retrieved 21 September 2015 from: https://www.det.nsw.edu.au/policies/technology/computers/mobile-device/PD20130458.shtml

List of Images

Castle Image (Header)

https://pixabay.com/en/castle-medieval-lawn-turrets-336481/

Turkey Image (Double Eagle)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Divrigi02.jpg

Byzantine Image (Emperor Justinian)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Justinian.jpg

Byzantine Image (Emperor Alexius)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexios_I_Komnenos#/media/File:Alexios_I_Komnenos.jpg