Title: Who Wants To Be a President?
Authors:
Subject Area: Social Studies, topic may also lend itself to instruction in other content areas.
Intended Grade Level: This project will work for 3rd or 4th grade. Older grades can modify as needed.
Detailed Description: Students will review concepts and vocabulary dealing with the election process, current presidential canidates, as well as, current events being debated among the candidates by participating in a game formatted like "Who Wants to Be A Millionaire".
Learner Outcomes: Teachers will decide how many questions as well as topics discussed and share with students. Teacher will group students into 4-5 students per group meeting the needs of modification and mixed ability groups. The students will create questions and dollar amounts values to each question. The template used will be Who Wants to be a Millionaire game template ("millionaire.ppt"). The 15 questions will be divided equally among the groups. The questions should meet the state level TEKS as well as provide higher level BloomSs Taxonomy terms. Students will type their questions into a word processing document, save and print for teacher approval. Once approved, students will copy and paste their final answers into the millionaire.ppt presentation.
(The purpose of using two types of software is to cover important TA TEKS.) Once both classes create their presentation the teachers can set up a time to video conference and play their game.
Time: The video conference will last between 45 - 60 minutes. The actual game part will last only 30-40 minutes. In the beginning you will introduce the teams (or players). The leader will explain the rules to the whole group. The leader will read the questions to the people who are participating in the game. In the end the leader will review and summarize the lesson. Ask the other people who were not involved what they learned today.
Preparation: Each participating school will develop sets of questions on specific predetermined categories dealing with current presidential election issues. Facilitators will determine the format and rules that will be followed. Questions will need to be submitted to host school by a set deadline so that the Power Point can be created.
Materials:
"Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" Power Point with submitted questions added
Scorecard
Teacher to Teacher Notes:
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It is recommended during the game roles are identified. Assuming there will be multiple opportunities throughout the school year, students can rotate through these positions. Suggested roles: Group Facilitator, Camera Operator, Time Keeper, Computer Engineer, Wildcard (jack of all trades)
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Teachers may want to create a google doc account to share documents with the other class such as reflections from students, etc.
Video conference Agenda:
3-5 minutes - Brief introduction by each class
10 minutes - Students introduced themselves to competitors
30 minutes - Play Game
10-15 minutes - Questions/comments from each class
Post Activities:
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Verbal Skills
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Writing Skills
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Students could write an inauguration speech from their favorite candidate's perspective.
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Students could write a campaign ad in support of their favorite candidate.
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Students could create a flowchart illustrating the election process.
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Creativity
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Students could create a campaign poster supporting their favorite candidate.
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Students could act out a campaign commercial, video tape it, and present it.
Assessment & Evaluation: Social Studies Rubric on questions and presentation rubrics. Each teacher will create their rubric to fit the learning needs of the students and TEKS being mastered. Students will also write a reflection paragraph to share with class.
Adaptations: For the writing exercise (4th grade students) they could write a letter to the president or what they would do if they were president of the US. For Language Arts the students can use vocabulary words in sentences. For Social Studies each student could choose a president for research and presenting to the class (this could also be another topic for a videoconference). For art related activities students could draw or make 3D models of their favorite president.
Implementation Plans: Our 3rd or 4th grade students will identify characters of good citizenship and their responsibilities as citizens of the United States. Students will also gain knowledge about the presidential candidates and the basic structure of their government.