TED 633 Assignment 3A-Field Experience: Pre-assessment (revised)

The group of students that I was able to practice my pre-assessment from Assignment 2A/2B are my Confirmation class students.  This group of students are high school freshman.  My lesson plan is modeled for a 10^th grade World History class.  I explained they would discuss the question with their partner and then we would have a short discussion and write on the white board their responses.  This was the pre-assessment prompt:

Nazi policy – racial purity against European Jews

Ask students if they have every gone along with something even if they knew it was wrong.  This will build on from yesterday’s lesson on how the Nazi party used propaganda materials to change people’s point of view and blame Jews. Idea that Germans were a superior race.

Here is the video in which I explain the discussion prompt to the students and then allow them to discuss the question.

When I went back and looked at the video, I realized that I did not walk around the room to listen in on the partner discussions and provide feedback and prompt them in their answers and questions so they could look at the bigger question and how this would eventually tie into their knowledge regarding Germany and the Jews. 

What I did like was that all students were having discussions with their partners and were then sharing the information with the class.  As the discussion was progressing, I had to ask why several times to get them to look beyond the incident they were discussing.  It surprised me that no one mentioned being bullied or an incident where they witnessed someone being bullied.  (This might be due to the fact that this group of students attended Catholic school from K-8 grade and where now in a Confirmation class).  I was hoping the conversation would lead to a time when they witnessed someone being bullied and they failed to act and the reason why. I might have to rethink this pre-assessment discussion topic or students might be able to have more meaningful discussions when we have been discussing World War II and totalitarian regimes. IF I was in a regular classroom, I think I would have adjusted the question so that the discussion could lead into the lesson on how Germany decided to scapegoat and persecute an entire race.  I noticed that as I asked why did you do go along with the incident that was wrong, the more prompting I provided the deeper the students had to think about  why they went along.  As one student stated they went along with it because of peer pressure or fear of retaliation.  I wanted to be able to tie those same fears into why many citizens in Germany during World War II failed to help or stop Hitler from executing over 6 million Jews.  I wanted to show the similarities between past events and present events and how the two are inner connected. 

Effectiveness of pre-assessment:

This assignment would not generate a letter grade, but students would earn points for participating in the partner discussion and classroom discussion.  I don’t want to assign a grade to every assignment, especially warm-ups or pre-assessments.  Pre-assessments should allow me to gauge what the students know and then I will be able to see what I have to change or add to the assignment to improve it. I think this particular exercise if I assigned a grade, would penalize students who are shy or have difficulty with the English Language.  This pre-assessment was not as effective as I would have liked.  I did notice that my volunteers were all involved in the partner discussion; they knew they were not being graded so maybe they didn’t take the topic as serious or put as much effort.  The results I was looking for was to engage students and getting them thinking about how our actions or failing to act have consequences.  I wanted students to look at why the world did not act in time to save the Jews during World War II. 

Changes I can make to be more effective.

Since students were not correlating their personal incident with how we all at times may fail to act.  I think the discussion question needs to be reworded or this “practice pre-assessment” was not as effective because students had not been immersed in the subject.  I think that rephrasing the question may help get better results, ensuring that I walk around the classroom; listening to discussions and helping students answer the question.  I think as the day progresses and this lesson is taught I will be able to have a better assessment of its effectiveness.  This pre-assessment definitely needs to be taught later in the unit lesson when students are aware of the consequences of the war, how propaganda was used to convince people to go along with certain aspects of the war.