Data Collection Assignment from Student

Teaching

Name: Joseph Smith

 Unit Lesson Plan: Native American Removal

Teacher Name: Mr. Joseph Smith

School: Sage Park Middle School (Windsor Public Schools)
Course: United States History: Beginnings through 1877
Grade(s): 8
Period:3,4,5,7
Date: 03/10/17-03/17/17
Number of students: Approx. 65 students

1. Learner Background (students’ prior knowledge or skills related to the

learning objectives)

Students will have some background knowledge about Native Americans from
previous units. Students were able to understand how Native Americans were
treated over time in the colonial period. There was a constant theme throughout
the time in which Native Americans and Americans had dealt with each other,
that being the fact that Native Americans kept getting pushed aside. This theme
of pushing Native Americans aside, goes hand in hand with this new idea of
Native American removal.

2. Learning Objectives (specific and measurable):

Content
● Students will be able to demonstrate their ability to empathize with others
in situations unlike their own.

● Students will be able to explain the physical hardships of travelling along

the Trail of Tears.

● Students will be able to discover differing perspectives on American Indian

Removal in order to gain a larger picture of this particular event.

Skill

● Students will be able to create a writing piece that will show their ability to
empathize with others in history.
 3. Assessment

Pre-Assessment: A KWL chart (slightly modified): Students are given time to

complete the first two columns of the KWL chart (What they know and What they
want to know). This will help me measure not only what students may know
about American Indian Removal but also what they may know about Native
Americans in general.

Post-Assessment: Students will be able to pick one of three assignments to work

on in which they are asked to put themselves in the shoes of someone who was
participating in this event in history. Students could write a diary as a Cherokee
person on the Trail of Tears, they could have written a letter to Andrew Jackson
telling him why Native American Removal was a bad idea, or they could have
made a two-person dialogue between Andrew Jackson and an American Indian.
(See attached assignment sheet for more details).

4. Materials and Resources:

● Powerpoints which included notes, images, vocab, quote of the day.

● KWL chart (Attached)/white board to write these down
● Samuel’s Memory Worksheet (Attached)
● Supporters of Trail of Tears (Attached)
● Assessment (Attached)

5. Learning Activities (instructional grouping used in each lesson segment

and approximate time frames for each):

Day 1

Initiation (set expectations for learning, how it will be

demonstrated):

This day is going to start by having students do a pre-Assessment. This pre-

Assessment has to do with what students “know” and “what they want to know”. I
will also start the class by writing down on the Whiteboard the different ideas that
students were able to think of and brought up. The term or word that I wanted
students to think about was “Native American Removal”. Students were given
approximately 10 minutes to write down any ideas they might have about Native
Americans or removal.

Lesson Development (what you will do to model or guide

 practice, and learning activities students will engage in to gain the
knowledge and skills identified in the Learning Objectives):

This unit started with a brief PowerPoint in which students were introduced to the
election of 1824 and 1828. The reasoning behind introducing these elections was
to make sure they were aware of who was the President and who was the person
that was making the legislation. Students actually were a bit familiar with Andrew
Jackson after having learned about him in the War of 1812. Students were not
asked to take notes on this Powerpoint, however there was also supplemental
worksheets talking about who was voting and who was allowed to vote.

In the slideshow, I briefly talk about the major milestones of Jackson’s presidency
and one of these milestones was American Indian Removal. This then
transitioned to a discussion about images of the Trail of Tears. As a way of
introducing students to the Trail of Tears I put three different images on the
Smartboard and had students analyze the images. Students are pretty used to
this image analysis so they know the questions that they should ask themselves
when viewing images. This sparked discussion about what was happening in the
image and the different emotions they may have seen in the images.

Closure (how you will help students understand the purpose of the
lesson, and interact with students to elicit evidence of student
understanding of the purposes of learning and the mastery of
objectives)

Students closed the day by making a prediction about what they thought would
happen on the Trail of Tears and how these images would relate to Native
American Removal. Students were able to deduce from the images that Native
Americans were being forcibly moved by white men from their homes.

Day 2:

Initiation:

This class period started like I start most class periods with vocabulary,
objectives and a quote of the day. The vocabulary is not only important for the
day’s lesson, but it is also important for students to be able to understand for
their final assessments on this topic. These vocab words usually lead nicely into
the main chunk of the lesson.

Lesson Development:

The main chunk of the Lesson Development includes note-taking as well as a

reading assignment. The first 15-20 minutes or so was spent going over notes
from a Powerpoint presentation. The PPT included a variety of notes, and
students were asked to write down only notes that were highlighted in Red.
These notes will be incredibly useful when completing the final post-assessment.

The second half of class was spent reading a story called “Samuel’s Memory”.
This was a primary source from a man that actually walked the Trail of Tears
when he was a young boy. He talks about the hardships of the Trail of Tears and
what it was like to walk this trail. Students spent time reading and answering the
questions, and then we finished class going over the questions that they were
expected to answer.

Closure:

Class ended with a brief reminder of what we just went over from the notes and
the reading. Students were able to see the difficulties that came with walking on
the Trail of Tears and being forcefully moved from their homes. I will also preview
the next day’s class by letting them know that they will be learning about the
other perspective in this situation, Andrew Jackson and supporters of American
Indian Removal.

Day 3

Initiation:

Class will be initiated on this day beginning with the normal daily routine. There is
no homework on this day however, we will go through the quote of the day and
objectives. Class also opens with a brief reminder of what we did in the previous
class, as there was a big gap between lessons because of snow days. I will ask
them what they remember about Samuel’s memory and how Samuel felt about
the Trail of Tears. This will set them up well for today’s lesson in which they will
be learning about the opposing point of view: supporters of the American Indian
removal.

Lesson Development:

The core of the lesson was a primary source analysis of the Trail of Tears and
the supporters of American Indian Removal. The sources included a passage
from Andrew Jackson about how the United States was actually saving the
Cherokee nation by asking them to move. Another source was from a member of
the Cherokee nation who actually supported removal. These were interesting
perspectives for students to learn about as the previous lesson showed the
horrors of the Trail of Tears, but this lesson we see how for many it was not
horrible and something that they wanted and encouraged.

Closure:

The closing activity for this day was actually a five minute introduction to the
culminating activity (post-Assessment). Students were able to take the
assignment sheet home with them and start to think about what they would like to
produce as their post-Assessment for this short unit of American Indian Removal.

Day 4 (Post-assessment day)

Initiation:

On the assessment day, I allowed students to get right to work. Students were
briefly reminded of what was expected of them and the fact that they had until the
end of the class period to finish the assignment.

Lesson Development/Closure:

Students worked the whole period on the Assessment. Once they had finished
they either shared it with me online or handed the assignment in if they chose to
write it.
Data Collection:

Pre-Assessment Data: Considering I did a KWL chart, I decided for my data collection I
would include the most common themes that I saw throughout the classes and the number
of times that particular piece of data came up.

What they know:

Top five common themes in all four Amount of times it is mentioned from all four
classes: classes combined:

1) Lewis and Clark Treatment of 26

Native Americans

2) Definition of the word Removal 25

3) American settlers treating Native 15

Americans poorly

4) Pushing Native Americans away 11

5) Native Americans not treated as 7

equal to whites

What they want to know:

Top five common themes in all four Amount of times it is mentioned from all
classes: four classes combined:

1) General: What is American Indian 48

Removal?

2) Where were Native Americans 26

removed from?

3) Why were Native Americans 23

removed?

4) What was life like for Native 14

Americans?

5) What were the major challenges of 8

Native Americans?
Post Assessment Data: This assessment asked students to consider both the physical
hardships of the Trail of Tears as well as the emotional strain that it had on the Cherokee
people. Below is a chart of the data I collected for the class as a whole on how well they
were able to meet their objectives.

75% or higher means they were able to do one of the following: empathize, explain the
hardships, or discover differing perspectives.

80% or higher means they were able to do two of the following: empathize, explain the
hardships, or discover differing perspectives.

90% or higher indicates students were able to do all of the following: empathize, explain
the hardships, and discover differing perspectives.

>90%: 43 total students

80%-90%: 9 total students

75%-80%: 4 total students

<75%: 2 total students

Individual Data:

Student #1: (Italicized items in What they want to Know show their achievement in
answering that question through the post-Assessment)

Pre-Assessment:
What they Know What they want to Know

1) 90% of Native tribes that lived in the Louisiana 1) What challenges came before,
Territory died of disease when the whites came while, and after removal?

2) What motives did they have

against Natives?

Post-Assessment: This student received a 100% on her post-assessment. She was able to
meet all of the objectives by showing great empathy towards the Cherokee, a perspective
that she may not have been aware before. She also showed great strength in historical
knowledge of what it was like to walk the Trail of Tears.

Student #2:

What they Know What they want to

Know

1) Native Americans were called Indians and savages by 1) About their history.
white men.
2) How they lived?
2) They were also called Red men.

3) They had a feast with pilgrims known as Thanksgiving

Post-Assessment: This student received an 82% on her post-assessment. She

demonstrated an ability to show content knowledge as well as some empathetic notes.
With that being said, she did not take the next step of the assignment by asking for a
solution to Native American Removal. By displaying a solution she would have been able
to show complete understanding of differing perspectives.
Student #3:

What they Know What they want to Know

1) Lewis and Clark explored and were kind of rude to 1) What is Native American
natives on the expedition. Removal?

2) They were here before U.S. people 2) When and Why did it
happen.
3) Treated unfairly

Post-Assessment: Student 3 also achieved a 100% as a grade on this assignment.Through

this assignment, student #3 was actually able to answer her own questions about what the
Native American removal was as well as when and why it happened. She displayed great
knowledge of both the emotional and physical effects of the Trail of Tears and met all
three objectives of this mini-unit.

The chart that follows is a comparison of student knowledge before and after this
assignment. Since I did a K and W chart, it was difficult to measure knowledge. I
decided to measure the pre-Assessment by checking which of the three content
objectives they were able to answer or partially answer as it relates to the Native
American Removal Act.

For example: Knowledge of all three objectives=100%

.
Joseph Smith
EGEN 4110
04/07/17
Analysis of Impact on Student Learning Reflection

During the week of March 10th to March 17th, I had my students complete a three

day learning segment which started with a pre-assessment and ended with a culminating

activity that showed the student’s growth. The lesson segment had to be abbreviated a bit

because of snow days as well days in which students had school-wide testing

assignments, however I was able to provide students with adequate assignments and

resources to be able to show growth in their studies of this particular unit. The unit that I

built my lessons around was Native American Removal during the 1830s. The reasoning

for why I would like students to understand this topic in history can be found in my

learning objectives for this unit. My intended learning objectives for students include for

them to be able to demonstrate their ability to empathize with others in situations unlike

their own. I also wanted students to be able to explain the physical hardships of travelling

along the Trail of Tears. Lastly, I wanted students to be able to discover differing

perspectives on American Indian Removal in order to gain a larger picture of this

particular event. This last objective was intended so students would be able to understand

both the American government’s perspective as well as the American Indian’s

perspective.

In order to help my student’s reach these goals, I had my student’s participate in a

number of different activities. On Day 1 student’s completed their pre-assessment which

was the first two columns in a KWL chart, telling me what they know and what they want

to know about this subject. We then shared our results on the whiteboard to have a
display for students to get a bigger view of what the whole class knows or wants to know

about this subject. This assessment was certainly valid and reliable, as students were

simply telling me what they knew about the subject. Rather than a test, which might show

some expected results for middle school students, I decided that a stress-free form of

assessment in which they are only telling me what they know and what they will want to

know would suit this group better. Following this pre-assessment, I had a couple of slides

in which students were asked to do a guided notes session. The guided notes were used so

students could understand a bit more about who Andrew Jackson was and where he stood

on various issues. The slides then transitioned to some painting analysis of different

paintings depicting the Trail of Tears. This was utilized as a way to prepare students for

what they would learn about the following day, the Trail of Tears and American Indian

Removal. The next day’s class started once again with guided notes about the Trail of

Tears and American Indian Removal. The rest of the period was spent reading from a

primary source of a Cherokee man who walked the Trail of Tears as a boy. This was an

excellent way for students to begin to begin to show understanding of the Cherokee

perspective and understand the struggles of what the Cherokee went through on this trail.

The next day students did another primary source analysis, this time from a speech by

Andrew Jackson, as well as a Cherokee man’s speech who actually supported the

American Indian Removal Act. Having seen the opposition’s point of view the day prior,

these documents were utilized so students will see the other perspective of the American

Indian Removal, supporters. The lesson segment ended with the culminating activity or

the post-assessment. In this post-assessment, students were asked to pick one of three

different writing assignments, in which they would put themselves in the shoes of a
Cherokee, an American or Andrew Jackson and then make a letter, diary or dialogue

about the Trail of Tears and American Indian Removal. I felt that this was both valid and

reliable as students are asked to put themselves in the shoes of another person in history,

which really hits the points of empathy and recognizing different perspectives. In terms

of fairness, students were asked to choose from three different written assignments.

Allowing student choice really puts the hones on them, and also allows them to feel

comfortable with their choice of assessment. All of these assignments and activities were

utilized in order to reach the intended learning objectives, and I believe that these

assignments and lessons set them up for success in attempting to meet these goals.

The pre-assessment and data-charting were both able to tell me a lot about my

students and what they had known prior to the lesson segment. After reviewing the

student data, I realized that these middle school students really did not know much about

Native Americans or their removal in the 1830s. I also recognized that students had little

prior knowledge about the lives of Native Americans. Students were able to identify what

the word removal meant, and also brought in some knowledge from what I taught them

about Native Americans in the past couple of months. Based on this assessment, as well

as the data that I was able to chart about common themes, I recognized that I would need

to spend more time with guided notes than I expected. I also recognized that students

were really curious about how Native Americans had lived, so I decided that I would

want students to learn more about how even within the Cherokee nation there were

different perspectives. I also saw the need for more guided notes so students would feel

comfortable with background information. When taking formative data on the pre-

assessment I realized how difficult it was to make charts or create a statistical

representation of the KWL columns that I asked students to complete. What I decided to

do, because of this difficulty, was to try to look for common themes that I saw amongst

the students. For individual data collection, I decided to compare these students’ pre-

assessment with the objectives I had set to see if there was any crossover. This data

collection was able to inform me on what direction I should take this learning segment.

With this information I was able to realize that students wanted to learn more about the

Native American experience, where they were removed from as well as reasons why they

were removed. This really shaped my lesson and reiterated my want to show students

about different perspectives and empathize with those in different situations. The

information gained from the pre-assessment was definitely difficult to put into concrete

data, however it was beneficial in finding out what the students knew or did not know

going into the other lesson activities.

While doing this culminating activity, I found that there was certainly some room

for improvement in order to gain a better understanding of how well students were able to

reach or meet the objectives. Of the content objectives that were in place for students, I

feel that students met the first two, which were being able to understand the physical

hardships of the Trail of Tears, as well as being able to empathize with those in dissimilar

situations from their own. The one objective that they may have struggled with was

probably the “perspectives” objective; however this struggle may not be a fault of their

own. I believe I afforded the students the opportunity to meet this objective through my

activities, and innately when one is looking to empathize with others they are considering

different perspectives, but besides the dialogue choice of post-assessment, the other

assignments did not ask students to necessarily display this knowledge of more than one
perspective of the past. This is something that I definitely need to consider and possibly

fix in the future when making assessments. While I enjoyed giving students various

options to choose from as a post-assessment, I need to make sure that these options all

give the opportunity for students to show that they are meeting my intended objectives

equally.

Students were able to display many different pieces of knowledge and

understanding from this culminating activity assignment. The main objective that I

wanted students to meet was this idea of empathy and being able to put themselves in

other’s shoes. This objective was successfully met by all three students’ individual work,

which I was really glad to see. It actually appeared that a majority of students throughout

the four classes met this goal of empathizing with others in situations not similar to their

own. The student work is certainly indicative of this and it would be fair to say that

students who chose the diary were able to show even greater ways of being able to

empathize with the Cherokee nation. I would say that one of the misunderstandings that

students may have faced was this idea of being creative with this assignment. Students

really struggled to be creative and tell a historical fiction piece, and wanted to submit an

assignment that was an actual story of a Cherokee. In the future I would make sure to

make it clear that students are creating a historical fiction piece. I think this would help

students to be able to understand that they are using their content knowledge to create a

piece that is open for creativity. One of the patterns that I saw was that students seemed

to really be able to grasp the destruction that this Trail of Tears brought to Cherokee

families, something that aligns with multiple objectives.

Upon reviewing the data, as well looking at each student’s writing assignment, I
can see that my teaching supported some areas and some objectives more than others.

One area in which students really succeeded was being able to empathize with those who

were in situations that were dissimilar from their own. Students also were able to clearly

show content understanding of this topic. This indicates to me that students had enough

activities, whether it is the primary source analysis or the guided note sheet in order to

grasp a full understanding of the content objectives. The data revealed to me that

assessing student learning requires careful examination between activities and objectives

in order to make sure those assessments are successfully measuring student’s ability to

meet their intended goals.