Europe and America.mp4

Direct Instruction

The learning intention for this lesson was for the students to consider the similarities and differences between continents.

This session occured part way through our inquiry. My students had spend a few weeks looking at Europe and they had completed their own mini inquiries into a European country of their choice. Then we discussed North America as a class and the students again completed a mini inquiry into a country or state of their choice.

To encourage the students to make connections between the two continents, I then provided them with a venn diagram and we launched into discussion.

Extended plan here

Reflection

We had a fantastic time comparing the two continents and it was difficult to choose which parts of our discussion to include in the video. My hope was that the students would begin to understand the relationships between different countries/continents and to start to introduce the idea of globalisation. I was really glad at the end to see the students comparing the colonisation of the USA with that of New Zealand and to start to notice trends in the relationships between countries. I believe that this will encourage them to keep building on this line of thought as we introduce new countries and continents.

Things to note

There were quite a few interruptions in this lesson and we did have to change cameras part way through which interrupted the flow a little. We were all animated throughout the discussion so there were moments of talking on top of each other - which was against our class norms and I will need to address before hosting another discussion!