Image created by author (2016). School days collection. CC 2 · students pick 3 photos to document...

Image created by author (2016). School days collection. CC 2.0

Lesson 1. What do we know about our school’s history? What do we want to know about our school’s history?• Sticky note concept mapping: Have students record on sticky notes all the words they know related to their school’s

history (1 word per sticky note).Once students have completed individual have them join their stick notes with the person next to them, categorise and place them into topics. Have the students join with a table group (6-8 students per group) sharing, comparing and adding to each other’s sticky note sections .Share back the student responses and have the teacher use the students’ ideas to form a class concept map.

• Introducing the unit Share the 3 essential questions that will be explored in the entire unit (What is the history of our school? What is our school, and school life like now? What is something about our school’s history and current school life future students should know about?) and explain and break down the inquiry approach to students (the TELSTAR model) explain each of the phases and roughly what students will be expected to do and explore in each phase. Introduce the question wall and the questioning rules from the questioning strategy Question Formulation Technique (QFT, The Right Question Institute, n.d.) which are to be used whenever questioning occurs in the unit.

• What do we want to know about our school’s history? Students create questions about what they want to know or find out about their school’s history and place them on the question wall.

• Introduce the reflective journal Students create and decorate the cover of their reflective journals (a superman booklet/ a booklet that is made without staples). The teacher explains the purpose of the journal and show and explains the first journal entry. Students complete their first journal entry.

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An exemplar of a journal entry

Lesson 2. How is local history presented and communicated in the community?

• An excursion to the Public library and a local museum Students visit the public library and explore who is interested in local history, why local history is collated and shared in public libraries how and where their school’s history is presentedand represented in physical and digital sources supplied by the public library. Students are provided with the opportunity tolearn how to locate digital resources on the library’s digital catalogue. During their visit to the local museum students complete booklets created by the teacher requiring students to observe the types of sources on display at the museum and to notice and comment on how local history is presented and displayed ( making note of modality, how information is displayed and explained (signs, plaques and brief explanations) and ways in which members of the public can interact and participate with the information and history (interactivity, trivia and sensory walls/signs). Visiting these two different sitesprovides students with information and knowledge (locating sources, source types, presenting history in different ways) that will be continually developed throughout the unit of work.

• How do I feel about local history On return to school students consider how they feel about local history, should it be preserved, recorded and shared or should we not worry, students record a short sentence response to these prompts.

• Journal entry Students complete a journal entry in their reflective journal, responding to a series of process questions (based around the explore stage of the inquiry), and prompts used in the previous entries.

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Lesson 3. Where in our school could we find interesting school history? What does our school look like?• Mapping the school out In groups of 4-5 students create a map of the school. On the group’s map they need to

highlight what they believe are the five most important places in the school, and areas, buildings and sites within the school they believe may have interesting history that is worth investigating further. Share back as a whole class and create a list of areas and zones students would like to explore further.

• Visiting buildings, areas and sites of interest Students and the teacher visit each of the areas of interest and in groups of 4 students take photos of and make notes of things that show signs of the past. Before the walk students are told that when returning to class they will be required to explain how the photos tell us something about of the past for 3 locations.

• Representing and documenting the signs of the past Once students have returned to the class in their small groups students pick 3 photos to document and annotate to share with the whole class. Students are required to show the signs of the past photos and accompany the photo with explanations answering what are the signs of the past? What makes you think they are signs of the past? What do these signs of the past tell us? The students can present their response in any way they think best communicates their understandings, the teacher provides students with possible ways they could organise this information ( an labelled photo graph, a map with explanations or descriptions of the site or in a table) the students choose to communicate with their preferred method. The signs of the past products are shared and displayed somewhere in the classroom as prompting for a method of research or inspiration for student questioning.


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Lesson 4. Where can we find information or sources about people’s past experiences at our school?

• Questioning a source Students use the 5W’s and 1 H to create 6 questions about one source presented on tables around the classroom (newspaper articles, artefacts, newsletters, yearbooks, photographs).

• Interpreting the source through the senses The teacher leads students through a series of activities created by Bowkett (2007) involving students to imagine and think about the source in the context it came from by interpreting the source through using their senses.

Notice and tell- In partners one at a time students view/read each others sources and explain to each other what they notice about the source and tell it to their partner. Students swap sources and undertake the same process with their original source picked in the questioning, students take turns to notice parts, elements or features within their source.

Now listen- Have students pick a different partner. Explain to students that they are now going to turn up the sound from their sources in their heads (if the students have an article, artefact or extract from a year book explain for them to imagine the sounds they would hear if they were reporting the article or seeing the artefact in use). Each student in the pair take in turns describing the sounds they are hearing in from their sources to each other (describing the pitch, volume, length of thesound in addition to the where the sound is coming from and describing what is the sound).

Jump in- Lastly have students find a space away from other people and explain that we are now going to imagine we are within the source (in the photo, in the article/ year book write up or in an experience with the artefact)and from going in we are going to notice something new we haven’t seen or heard before. Instruct the students to close their eyes and count to three and have students physically jump and explain that now they are in their source.

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Lesson 4. Where can we find information or sources about people’s past experiences at our school?

• Working with the source Students work individually or in a small group to create a product about their source (or a group member’s source) using their observations and the information gained from the sensory exercises. Students present their information and understanding about their source by either creating a story, news article, role play, labelled diagram, poem,soundscape, an illustration (depicting what happened before and after their source was recorded). People willing and wanting to share, share their creations with the class.


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Lesson 5. What did school life and our school look like in the past? How does it differ from our school or school life today?

• Now and then photographs Have 6 tables arranged in the classroom with past photographs showcasing the school or school life in 6 different topics: food/recess/lunch/canteen, school buildings/sites, technology, games and the playground, school subjects and classroom layout. In groups of 4 have students select one photo from one of the topics and record their observations (What do they notice?) in their history workbooks. Have students think about present time and question how is the subject (object, activity or building) within the photo their group selected represented today (what does it look like now?). With a parent helper or the teacher students locate something, someone or somewhere in the school that embodies what the activity, building or object from the past now in the present. Students take a photo of the item, building, activity or person and print it off in the classroom.

• Presenting the now and then photographs Students work individually and place the now and then photographs next to one another and respond to the question what is different in the photos and what is the same? Students choose a way to record their response in either a Venn diagram, illustrations, a table or in a PowerPoint slide.


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Lesson 6. Where to look for online sources? What types of information could we look for?

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• Graffiti Walls On the walls of the classroom have 8 sheets of A3 paper each with a question on the top (2 sheets for the same question). Students respond to the four questions quietly, anonymously and independently by wondering around the room and recording their thoughts :

1. What has interested you to date about our school’s history?2. What do you want to know about our school’s history?3. How could we find information about our school’s history?4. What types of information could we gather exploring our school’s history?

Once all students have responded to all of the four questions share the responses and discuss.

• Finding online sources and creating how-to’s Show students the Trove website, explain the features of the homepage (the search box and the types of sources that can be found), model searching for a photograph of the town or suburb the school is located in. Set student the task of finding a photograph of their school on Trove and the state library database (eg. LINC Library Tasmania) and finding a newsletter or information about the school’s history on the school’s webpage. Whilst students are finding the sources students are to record the steps they took find an image, newsletter or information either by taking screen shots oftheir computer screens and explaining what they did in steps, by illustrating what they did in a series of drawings or by explaining how they located the sources in a series of written instructions/steps.

• Creating your top 3 questions Explain to students that soon they will be exploring and investigating an element of our school’s history through a question they create. Have students individually create 3 questions about the school’s history they are dying to explore.

• Journal entry Students complete a journal entry in their reflective journal, responding to a series of process questions (based around the look stage of the inquiry), and prompts used in the previous entries.

Lesson 7. How can we assess the value and quality of sources and information that are about our school’s history?

• Explain to students why we are undertaking this lesson Explain to students that in the next couple of lessons they will be researching and collecting artefacts and information on an area of their school’s history that interests them.

• Good Egg, Bad Egg Show students the YouTube clip ‘willy wonka and the chocolate factory 1971’ (Schuchmann, 2012). Ask students to think pair share (orally discuss) their responses to the following questions, during the questioning time the teacher records students thoughts on the board:

How might this clip relate to research and finding information and artefacts?

If information, resources and artefacts were Wonka’s geese good golden eggs and bad golden eggs, what would each of the eggs contain?

In the clip what was the eggidicator? How did it work?

What could we possibly use as our eggidicator? How might work out which sources, artefacts and pieces of information are useful, valuable and helpful (good eggs) and which are unhelpful and useless for our researching purpose?

• Evaluating sources by using a critical evaluation survey For this task students individually or in pairs pick a question from the question wall that has a star sticker on it (5 questions chosen by the teacher), using a critical evaluative survey* students examine and evaluate the usefulness and value of different types of 2-3 sources.

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* The critical evaluation survey is a modified version of Kathy Schrock’s 5 W’s of website evaluation and Schrock’s critical evaluation survey (elementary)-modified to suit the needs of students’ development and to be used amongst a variety of sources.

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Lesson 7. How can we assess the value and quality of sources and information that are about our school’s history?

• Evaluating sources by using a critical evaluation survey (continued) The sources for students to use include :

- Newsletter and yearbook excerpts (selected and sourced by the teacher)

- A series of artefacts (sourced by the teacher)

- Photographs (students source online independently)

- Other relevant sources (if they can be sourced, this category of sources would depend on the availability and access-videos, textual information, maps, audio recordings)

Each of the source types are organised on a table for students to select and evaluate against the critical evaluation survey.Prior to students undertaking the task or in pairs the activity is modelled by the teacher twice (with two different source types), firstly with the teacher explaining and undertaking the task by themselves (demonstration) and secondly with teacher undertaking the task using student participation and input (shared instruction). Once students have completed the task a few volunteers share their results and experience with the class.

• Journal entry Students complete a journal entry in their reflective journal, responding to a series of process questions (based around the sort stage of the inquiry), and prompts used in the previous entries.

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Lesson 8. What is a time capsule? How can we share our school’s history with others?

• Revise and review questions from lesson 7 Students review their questions from lesson 7 and are told to choose their best/most interesting question that they will research, investigate, examine and present in their summative assessment piece.

• Introduce and explain the assessment piece Show students the YouTube clip ‘ How to make a time capsule’ (Howcast, 2010) OR have the teacher share a time capsule and its contents. Explain to students that for their summative assessment they will be creating time capsules and the contents in the time capsules for future students. Explain that the content will be completed in two parts- over the next 3 lessons (2 lessons to research and locate information and artefacts and 1 lesson to create a creative product incorporating their responses) the students will be working on producing creative products that share the school’s history in someway. Students will create their products through finding information and artefacts related to their essential question (the question chosen in the first activity) and from responding to a question about change over time. The second part of time capsule content (showcasing school life and the school currently) will be discussed and explored with the students in future lessons. In this explanation the teacher also explains the checking cup system that will be implemented in the researching process (further information about this is on the slide after the lesson 8’s activity descriptions).

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Lesson 8. What is a time capsule? How can we share our school’s history with others?

• Brainstorming presentation and ways to find information and artefacts* To prepare students for the researching and producing of products in small groups students discuss and revisit how and where they have found evidence and information about the school’s history to date. Students are also prompted to discuss how they would like to find information to their essential questions, the teacher provides further suggestions and records these ideas digitally or on paper to be displayed during the researching process. Students also brainstorm ways to present their responses to their questions with the teacher hinting for the students to reflect on how information was presented at the library and museum and how they have been presenting their ideas and information in the unit to date.

• Commence researching Students start searching for information and artefacts that will help them to create their responses.

• Journal entry Students complete a journal entry in their reflective journal, responding to a series of process questions (based around the look, sort and test stages of the inquiry), and prompts used in the previous entries.

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* If students are wanting to interview somebody or to take photographs/sketch a school site, the teacher would need to organise time/supervision for this to happen.

The checking cupsWithin the sorting, looking and testing stages of inquiry students use the three coloured cups to visually display how the students are feeling during these stages of inquiry. Each of the coloured cups signify a different level of confidence and feeling. Whilst working on researching and creating of products and artefacts students display the cup that best represents how they are feeling. The displaying of the cups helps the teacher to determine who needs assistance and how students are feeling about their work and tasks.

Cup Feelings, thoughts and confidence level

GreenI am happy and comfortable with my work. I feel like I understand what I am doing. I do not need assistance at the moment. I feel very confident

YellowI feel okay with my work. I sort of understand what I am doing. I might need help soon and would like to share or check my work to see if I am on the right track. I feel somewhat confident.

RedI am worried or upset. I feel like I am lost and I do not know what I am doing. I need help urgently. I do not feel confident.

Lesson 9. Where and how can I find information about our school’s history? How can I share and present an element of our school’s history with others?

• Searching for artefacts and information and using the sources and information to form their responses This lesson is dedicated for students to continue researching for artefacts/ information that will help them to form their creative responses (for their essential question and the teacher’s change over time question). Once students have sourced their artefacts or information students analyse, examine and make sense of the relevant information, observations and data needed to form their responses.

• Checking up on the cups The checking cups are utilised to support students with their learning, offering assistance to students displaying red cups whilst monitoring the progress of all students providing help to students with their essential questions (broadening or narrowing), research and locating artefacts, and response formulation.

• Planning how to present the responses Students create a quick draft/plan/sketch for the teacher, explaining how they are planning to showcase and present their response products in a creative way for the time capsule and what materials and resources they will need to create their products. The draft is given to the teacher to give formative feedback and to understand the scope of presentations the students are envisioning as well as an idea of what types of materials and resources will be required for the next lesson.

• Journal entry Students complete a journal entry in their reflective journal, responding to a series of process questions (based around the tune and explore stages of the inquiry), and prompts used in the previous entries.

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Lesson 10. How can I share and present an element of our school’s history with others?

• Creating and making their products for the time capsules This lesson is dedicated to students creating their responses for to accompany the artefacts in the time capsule, students choose how they will present the findings to their essential question and the change over time question. By the end of this lesson The responses (products) and artefacts are copied ( 1 copy for the student to take home, 1 copy for the teacher to assess and 1 copy for the time capsule)

• Checking up on the cups Again utilise the coloured cups (red, yellow and green) to support students with their learning, offering assistance to students displaying red cups whilst monitoring the progress of all students providing help to students with their essential questions and response formulation.

• Explaining the schedule for the last 5 lessons With the students the teacher shares the schedule for the last 5 lessons of this unit on the whiteboard:

Lesson 11. School life today ( what is school and school life like for me today?)

Lesson 12. Creating products to share and celebrate elements of school life and the school now and creating of invitations

Lesson 13. The time capsule burial and showcase

Lesson 14. Reflection on our learning in this history unit

Students are provided with the opportunity to ask questions about any of the future events and lessons.

• Journal entry Students complete a journal entry in their reflective journal, responding to a series of process questions (based around the sort and test stages of the inquiry), and prompts used in the previous entries.

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Prior to the next lesson the teacher requests for students to bring in an artefact that is significant to the individual student, representing something important to them in their current school life (from this year). To help students and parents with the selection process and understanding of what kind of artefacts could be brought in the teacher sends a note home with a few ideas and examples of possible artefacts that could be found at home or at school relating to current school life ( photos, certificates, stationary, student work, sporting equipment, popular recess/lunchtime food, a piece of uniform). For homework students with their families are to find an artefact and to create a short annotation describing the artefact, stating who the artefact belongs to and includes a story/memory about the students’ experience with the artefact.

Lesson 11: What might future students want to know about my school life and me? What does school life look like at the moment?• Artefacts from the now The annotations are handed to the teacher for safe keepings and the artefacts(without the annotations) are

arranged into a display. At the beginning of this lesson students are directed to choose an artefact from the display that is not theirs. With the artefact they are to imagine the history of this artefact. Students are given the choice to create a labelled illustration about this artefact, showcasing how it has been used or they can write a story (comic or narrative) explaining where the artefact came from, who it came from and how it got here. Along with the imagined artefact product students are asked to produce 4 questions for the owner of the artefact using a questioning framework of their choice.

• Interviewing class members, what’s your school experience? Students create the first personal item about their school life to be placed into their time capsules, an interview. To share their current experiences and the experiences of their peers at school students create interviews for each other. Firstly, individually students each create 5 questions that they could ask a peer about school life, the school or the individual student. Students form groups of 3, students share their questions with their group members and evaluate each others’ questions. From the 15 questions created between the students in their groups of 3, students choose their top 5 questions for the interview. Once the questions are chosen students in their groups take turns interviewing each other, with one person acting as the interviewer, another as the interviewee and the final group member taking on the role of camera person.

• Unveiling the artefacts and their owners The annotations for the artefacts are handed out and as a whole class students gather to share their annotations and artefacts they have brought in. Firstly the owner explains their artefact and is invited to share their story/memory about the artefact, once the truth of the artefact is revealed the student who chose this artefact in the first activity asks the owner 1 or 2 of the questions they produced in the first activity. Once the artefact owner has answered these questions students and the teacher are invited to ask further questions of the owner about their artefact.

• Journal entry Students complete a journal entry in their reflective journal, responding to a series of process questions (based around the tune and explore stages of the inquiry), and prompts used in the previous entries.

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Lesson 12: What is something about school and school life now you would like future students to know about?

• Discussion about creating a product to accompany an artefact from the current time For the second part of their time capsule students are to create a product to accompany an artefact from school and their school life now. In small groups students chose a scribe to record their ideas and discuss :

-What is important in their school and school life currently? Why it is worth sharing with a student from the future?

- What kinds of artefacts could we collect or create about something important in our school or school life at the moment?

- How could information about artefacts (around the important school life and school topics) be shared, displayed and created?

After group discussion students share their ideas back to the whole class and are visually recorded by the teacher.

• Create a product to go with an artefact showcasing something important about school or school life today Students create or locate a single artefact representing an important element about their school or school life. Along with the artefact students create a product that will help the future student understand the artefact and its significance in the school’s place and school life in the time it was collected/created.

• Invitation creating As a whole class with the teacher students create a template for invitations (inviting family/parents/carers and staff to the burial ceremony and time capsule showcase in the next history lesson). The teacher scribes the invitation elements needed to include the students suggest and recommend. Once the template is completed students create invitations following the template for their family/parents/carers and staff (grounds people, senior staff).

• Journal entry Students complete a journal entry in their reflective journal, responding to a series of process questions (based around the look, sort and test stages of the inquiry), and prompts used in the previous entries.

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The design and creation of the time capsule and the time capsule sign/plaqueBetween lessons 13 and 14 in groups of four (students’ choice):

In a science lesson students explore and experiment with differing material types to determine which material would be best for their time capsule

In an art lesson students design, create and decorate their time capsule

Lesson 13: How can I share and celebrate the past and present of our school’s history with others?

• Setting up for the showcase As a whole class students set up exhibition spaces in the classroom to share their group’s time capsule and the time capsule contents ( the contents on display are copies of what is in the capsule (due to the contents already being sealed into the capsule before the showcase).

• Gallery walk Staff members from school and parents/carers of students arrive and are welcome, students, family and staff are invited to walk around the room viewing time capsule contents, questioning the creators and discussion others learning.

• Burial Students, staff and parents/carers and family walk to the selected burial site of the time capsules to witness the burying of the time capsules, if possible each student participates in digging of the hole (one dig) and the teacher places the capsules in the earth. On top of the digging site an item to signify where the time capsule is and what it is, is placed on the surface of the ground. Parents and staff are welcomed back to the classroom for student presentations and explanations of their capsule contents.

• Capsule showcase Students orally present and explain their created products contained in the time capsules to the whole class. Students share their element of the school’s history (the student’s essential question response and the change over time response), along with their interview and their product sharing a special element of their school life today. Once each presentation is concluded students and audience members are invited to ask the presenter questions. The presentations are recorded for assessment purposes (to assess communication and evaluation)

• Journal entry Students complete a journal entry in their reflective journal, responding to a series of process questions (based around the act stage of the inquiry), and prompts used in the previous entries.

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Lesson 14: How do we feel now about our school’s history? What have we learnt? What further questions do we have?

• Feelings continuum and switch Students to stand in a horizontal line. Explain that the line they are standing on is a continuum on end of the line is positive emotions (happy, excited, confident) and the other end of the line is challenging emotions (sad, puzzled, worried). One by one share the essential questions and ask students how do you feel about this question,students move to the end of the continuum that reflects how they feel. A few volunteers are asked to share how they feel and provide possible reasons as to why they feel this way. Once students have considered how they feel students are to switch positions and move to the opposite end of the continuum (Simister, 2009). Whilst at the new end of the continuum students areasked to think about ‘Why might a person have these feelings towards the essential question’, and ‘what reasons might they have for being at this end of the continuum’? Students share their responses verbally and repeat this process for all essential questions.

• Where have we been? Have items/evidence representing the work from each lesson (sheets, charts, photographs and artefacts examined) and products created displayed on the walls around the room. In small groups have students look through their history workbooks, reflection booklets and at the evidence/products on the walls to create a summary explaining what they have done in the last 14 history lessons and what they have learnt. Students are given an A3 sheet of paper and are told they can record their responses in anyway that is meaningful or makes sense to them. Once the groups have finished their summary the groups share their findings to the whole class.

• Further questions In pairs students discuss elements of school history they are still puzzled about. Students are given the chance to contribute any new questions they have about the school’s history on sticky notes onto the question wall. Once all newquestions are added students are given 3 circle stickers (with their name on it). Students look to the question wall to observe what questions still remain unanswered and are asked to think what am I still wondering about. Independently students place their sticker on questions they would like to explore further in the future.

• Completing a final journal entry Students complete the final journal entry in their reflective journal, responding to a series of process questions (based around the reflection stage of the inquiry), and prompts used in the previous entries.

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Image created by author (2016). School days collection. CC 2 · students pick 3 photos to document...

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