Standard 4
Critical Thinking
The teacher candidate uses a variety of instructional strategies and resources to encourage students’ critical thinking, problem-solving, and performance skills.
American Revolution Perspectives: People of African descent
Alignment Statement
In this lesson, students completed a WebQuest where they followed the story of one person of African descent during the American Revolution. They were asked to complete a graphic organizer on their person and then they were put into groups to teach their peers about their person. In this jigsaw activity, each group of students then had to answer an overarching question together. After finding information on a specific person and learning from their peers each student then had to answer the question “What did you learn about people of African descent during the American Revolution?”. This required them to not only use their knowledge that they had but also their critical thinking and make connections to the lived experiences of others.
Narrative Statement
This activity required students to think critically about the lived experiences of a marginalized group in the 1700s. They were instructed to think of questions that they would like to ask people during this time and discuss why learning about different perspectives is important. One of my values as an educator is to expose students to different perspectives and think about their place in society. They showed a clear understanding and interest in this topic and would continue to ask questions and make connections throughout other lessons that followed this one.