As a pre-service teacher, soon to enter teaching in secondary schools I feel obligated and responsible for the best possible

education of the adults of the future. This responsibility of educating 21st century students involves not only of developing their discipline knowledge but also of fostering this knowledge so they would be able to use it in complex environments embodying society, personal and professional life. They need to gain skills that will allow them to face a word that continually changes. In order to do so the students need to develop their critical thinking skills and ability of making inferences. Most of the times this could be very challenging, especially for the graduate teachers. The reason of why this happens is because usually teachers having lack of confidence about the teaching methods are trying to teach their students using only the textbook. But why is this wrong? Textbooks turn the student to a passive learner and the teacher just to a repetitive machine of what the book says. As a result the students do not practice any critical thinking or reflective skills, nor have the ability to make any inferences from the past. As a result the student loses any interest or enjoyment of historical study for lifelong learning and work including the capacity and willingness to be informed and be active cizitizens (Australian Curriculum, 2014). I have chosen to plan a unit around Year 10 class and more specifically abound the end of the World War II. It is a subject that according the AusVels it covers different standards of crosscurriculum strands. According to AusVels, (2014) the history content at this level involves two strands: Historical Knowledge and Understanding and Historical Skills. These strands are interrelated and should be taught in an integrated way, and in ways that are appropriate to specific local contexts. A framework for developing students historical knowledge, understanding and skills is provided by inquiry questions through the use and interpretation of sources. In the following unit plan I have tried to build my lessons with methods that value the needs of the students and where in the centre of teaching would be again the students. More specifically before I designed the lesson plan I had to take into

consideration my values as a teacher, my students needs and the way I am going to achieve this. In other words, I had to ask myself what I am going to teach them, why I should teach them that and how I am going to do it. I had to think about the Curriculum and Assessment. Both of the terms play an integral role in teaching and learning, having also a strong effect in the lives and careers of the students. It doesnt not only develop their historical skills but also it is important in order to understand their identity and find a place in this world. They need to gain understanding of history and not just memorize it. For that purpose I have avoid it to use the traditional methods of teaching instead all my lessons are based in Inquiry learning. As a teacher I am there to direct them to the right way so they develop their reflective skills and learn to decide independently. Most of the assessments are very different from a test at the end of every unit. Instead I have decided the summative assessment will be in the form of a role play. I believe that the students would be more engaged to learn historical skills rather than just have to revise from some workbook. However I am not implying that a role model has to do with singing and dancing. A role play can take a variety of forms such as consolidator of knowledge, as fun teaching historical skills or as assessment. Even if you replace the traditional test-open ended questions with a role play sounds awkward, it is not. It offers a far more imaginative and enjoyable way to assess students understanding of a historical unit. In that way the students getting prepared for the Big Revision without complaining and most importantly without getting stressed. Another reason I have chosen this type of summative assessment is that not only me can I assess the students but it becomes easier for peer assessment. In that way the all the students have the chance to experience both sides (the one of the marker and the one to be assessed) and it is a way to feel more engaged to participate in the process of learning. Another way of assessment that I found really interesting and innovative and that is definitely in accordance with the technological boom of this era, is the establishment of a Facebook group private to the public but open for all the

students and their parents. In this way, you include parents in their children learning and you also encourage them to participate actively in their children journey of learning. It is true th at Networks like Facebook or Twitter could help to close the gap between miscommunication between schools and parents. The students also feel familiar to use these networks so again they feel less stressed to complete an assignment.

In terms of teaching and learning strategies, I firmly believe in collaborative environments. This is the reason that almost all the methods included collaborative learning. More specifically, all the tasks need to be done in groups. In order to earn some time during the teaching each student was allocated to a group since the beginning of the semester. Then, in order to assure that each member will contribute to the group equally I asked that each group should have one Reporter that thinks about speaking and talks on behalf of the group, Narrator, a Time Keeper, a Researcher etc. Working in groups while still searching for new information makes the students feel more engaged in the process of learning because they are becoming part of the process and active members of a group. Most important is that the students decide themselves of what information is necessary for their learning and in that way they develop their critical thinking while they becoming able to make inferences with the past. They learnt to use critically primary and secondary sources, and begin to evaluate historical sources for meaning, completeness; point of view and attitudes. They also learnt to be open-minded and always examine both sides of an issue. For example about the dropping of the Atomic bomb they had to reflect in both against it and in favor it. It is important that the students learnt about the circumstances leading to their use and understand the controversy that surrounds those events. It was also important for students to understand the magnitude and significant destruction caused by atomic weapons so that they can be informed participants in todays world. The purpose of this lesson was to present students

with arguments from both sides of the debate so that they may draw their own conclusions regarding the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It is very important for both my students and me as a teacher that before start planning the lesson there has been already set a target of what is the lessons big idea. After I finished my lesson plans I have realized that I was working backwards. More specifically, according to AusVels (2014) I had to main questions to answer in order to cover them; How did the nature of global conflict change during the twentieth century? What were the consequences of World War II? How did these consequences shape the modern world? Starting from the end, I realized it was more convenient to plan the whole unit lesson plan. The same method I followed in each lesson with my students. I was starting my lesson with a different hook each time that was an introduction of the lesson to follow. I wasnt releasing new information but in the contrary I was establish a learning platform, a basic starting position and then I was organizing a logical development making some questions in order to guide them to achieve the learning goal. Thought it was very methodological to work backwards sometimes I had one problem: of going out of topic or do not have time to cover everything. For example when I had to cover in one lesson the Atomic bomb and the J-V Day I realized that I could have done these in two separate lessons as both of them were very important. Another problem was the fact it was very time consuming but I found the more I was doing the easier it was. All in all I feel more comfortable in using the AusVels and I want to believe by the time I will improve. I feel it was as very rewarding and useful experience especially during the first years of my teaching career.