A Rationale And Reflection On History Lesson Plan

Published: 2019-12-28
Views: 733
Author: jordan96
Published in: Reference & Education

DfE (2013) specified “pupils should be taught about the lives of significant individuals in the past who have contributed to national and international achievements” in regards to learning history in the national curriculum (DfE, 2013).

In the United Kingdom, during the month of October Black History is recognised and celebrated in selected schools. As an educator it is important to display diversity within race, gender and religion so that children are open to various backgrounds they may come across in school as well as in their community. This is supported by Walters (2015, p95) “A high-quality history education will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. It should inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past...History helps pupils’ understand the complexity of change, the diversities of societies and the relationships between different groups” (Walters, 2015, p. 95). In this important analysis, Walters (2015) is encouraging the importance of learning history and how it can benefit young students to learn from the past, to help shape their present and future. The resource created was to help children start to think about the influential black figures who have changed society internationally, and what they know about them.

Creativity can be commonly defined as; using your imagination, thinking outside the box and being fun. However the meaning of ‘creativity’ has varied over time. Desailly (2012) describes “creativity is still most often seen as being allied to the arts, but there is also a belief that creativity is a ‘thinking skill’ and that it has its place right across the wider curriculum” (Desailly, 2012). Similarly, a further definition of creativity is given by Craft (2010) who describes “extraordinary creativity involves, then, the production of new knowledge which has a major impact on an existing area of knowledge, the boundaries of which are monitored by experts within that field” (Craft, 2010). In this detailed analysis of creativity from (Craft, 2010), she is explaining that prior knowledge in the subject will help in the development of the current topic, as long as the educators have good subject knowledge within the topic to help guide and assist in teaching. Creativity within the curriculum is important to engage the children, it is not just about how the children learn creatively, but what they are learning in terms of creativity. Creativity can be mistakenly limited to the arts subjects, where as it is universal amongst all subjects.

The resource involves the children watching a series of YouTube videos about influential Black History figures. The video features a young child talking about the several key figures and explaining their impact on society and the world. Wilson (2015) described ‘creative teaching’ as “making learning more interesting and effective and using imaginative approaches in the classroom” (Wilson, 2015). The use of the resource provided allows children to learn not only from a teacher’s point of view, but from someone of a similar age to them. Prior to the video, the children will sit down in their talk/learning partners and discuss what Black History month is and the significant people involved in it. For educators talk/learning partners encourage children –who tend to be quieter in class – to voice their opinion. It also promotes children learning from their peers and developing their answers (The School Run, 2018).  Likewise, psychologist Lev Vygotsky had the idea of peer collaboration and sharing ideas between one another “Have more knowledgeable learners work alongside less knowledgeable colleagues” (Bates, 2016), having mixed ability talk/learning partners encourages the children to learn from each other.

The second part of the resource will involve the children studying A3 sized poster versions of a person profile on; Nelson Mandela, Rose Park, Martin Luther King, Mary Seacole and Barack Obama. The children will be split into teams of four or five – mixed ability – and will create their own person profile for the different powerful figures.  In the person profile the students will include the birth and death of the person, and what they are known for. Educators should be able to provide both the educational resources as well the physical materials to aid learning. They should be delivering the background knowledge in order for children to develop and build on what they have learnt. Cremin, et al (2006) points out “Physical environment: creative professionals provide children with a range of resources and the time and space to experiment with these purposefully” (Cremin, et al., 2006).

The resource designed will enhance the students learning about Black History Month and the influential people of the 19^th and 20^th century. They will understand how society and the world have changed over the last two centuries, and what impact this had on the current society they are living in. The students will have the chance to display their cross curricular skills by using art and English within their activity making. Within the art element they will use different materials to build their person profiles, and in English they will use their writing skills to write informed posters about the key person.

Reflection (954 words)

The activity was catered for a class of year two students; it involved the children watching a YouTube video about key historical figures from Black History Month from a young child’s perspective, alongside designing a person profile on each figure they had learnt about. The outcomes for the lesson that I wanted the children to achieve were; all children must be able to identify a significant figure from the 19^th or 20^th century for Black History month, most children should be able to describe the key events a famous individual was part of, some children could be able to recognise what the significant individual did, and why they did it. The activity supplied should guide the students to successfully achieve the National Curriculum aim of; learning about significant figures who have nationally or internationally impacted history (DfE, 2013). During the peer review, children were able to identify clearly what the outcomes and aims for the lesson were. The use of the child friendly video clearly outlined which figures they would be learning and writing about in that lesson.

However the resource created could have had a more physical approach for the students of a year two class, as sitting down for a few minutes at a time and watching the video – some children struggled with this task. To rectify to this resource to teach to another year two class, I would design my own time capsule containing elements from different periods of Black History. I.e. a letter written from Nelson Mandela whilst he was in prison, a toy stethoscope from Mary Seacole during the Crimean War, a bus ticket signifying Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat and a poster from Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. The purpose of these resources is to help children explore and think widely what the sources mean without being told what they are from the teacher, this is supported by Cooper (2012) who points out “questions in history are concerned with the past, what past societies were like, similarities and differences between them, how and why changes occurred over time, and the effect of those changes” (Cooper, 2012).

The Plowden Report 1967 recommended; “learning from discovery, learning through first-hand experience” (Wilson, 2015). A key problem with this explanation is that the children will not have learnt through first-hand experience as they are too young. However as an educator I will make sure I can provide the materials so the students can experience a second-hand perspective of history, whether it be through; educational trips to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London or the Imperial War Museum, or having workshops based in the school for children to get involved in – as not all children will be able to attend school trips. Furthermore, to guide with the students learning, I would split the topic over the course of two or three lessons, and have the first session based on the 19^th century Black History and the remaining sessions based on 20^th and 21^st century history. Over the course of the next lessons, children will recall back on their previous knowledge of what they have learnt before in order to aid them for the current lesson (Cooper, 2012).

NACCCE (1999) define creativity as “producing something original”, this works alongside the four features of creativity; using imagination, pursuing purpose, being original and judging value, furthermore they describe imaginative activities as “the process of generating something original” however looking back on the activity that I ran, my resource lacked imagination and because of this a small handful of children found it difficult to sit still and watch the resource video (NACCCE, 1999). Similarly, the 1999 report divides originality into three categories; individual, relative and historic. The resource I used does not fit into the three categories as, firstly I did not create it myself, however it does fit into the category of relativeness as the students will be able to relate to the Youtuber who features in the video as he is of similar age to the students. Furthermore, the resource is historically original in terms of there not being many child centred videos on history.

Reflecting on one’s performance is an example of good practice that teacher’s should be demonstrating, working out what went well and what could be improved on. Evaluating the lesson I ran, the children understood their learning aims and outcomes for the session, as well as why they were learning about this specific period of time. Furthermore, I used a range of historical figures that most of the children would have heard of previously, I ensured that the activities planned for the session were cross-curricular and finally the resource chosen was easily accessible and the children were able to understand it. On the hand, as a teacher I must understand there are improvements to be made within my lesson plan and resource, for example; changing or adapting my resource, giving myself more planning time, having a longer and more detailed discussion prior to the main body of the lesson about the student’s previous knowledge of the key figures and ensuring all children were on task with their activity.

This essay has discussed to what extent was my resource successful and how it aided the children as well as reflecting on my teaching within the lesson. To conclude, I think my session ran successfully, the students enjoyed their session and enjoyed creating their posters and person profiles. In addition, majority of the class achieved the learning aims and objectives which they have written down in their history books. As a teacher, I have reflected on how I think the lesson went and I have learnt creativity is not just arts based nor arts focused, but about how everyone interprets a subject or topic differently.