Intel® Teach Program
Designing Effective Projects
My Country’s Growing PainsUnit Plan
Unit OverviewUnit Title
My Country’s Growing Pains
Unit Summary
In this simulation, students travel back in time and experience life through the eyes of people at the Victorian goldfields in different circumstances and with different perspectives. The students will be encouraged to compare and reflect on the lives of individuals during this time and to understand the impact events from this era had on the development of society as we now know it. Comparisons will also be made with life between time eras.
Curriculum Links
This unit follows on from previous units about early settlement in Australia and promotes investigation of the Gold Rush period in Australia’s history.
Year Level
Year 3 & 4
Approximate Time Needed
Integrated across the curriculum for a period of 12 weeks
Unit Foundation
Standards/Syllabus Outcomes
Strand: / Physical Personal and Social Learning
Domain: / Interpersonal Development
Dimension: / Working and Learning in teams
Syllabus link: / http://vels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/essential/personal/development/index.html
Students accept responsibility as part of a team by:
· Encouraging and supporting others
· Working co-operatively to achieve a shared purpose
· Sharing the responsibilities
· Working collaboratively to allocate tasks and develop timelines
· Providing feedback to others and valuing their input
· Reflect on their contributions and group outcomes
· Use feedback for their own improvement
Strand: / Physical Personal and Social Learning
Domain: / Civics and Citizenship
Dimension: / Civic Knowledge and Understanding
Syllabus link: / http://vels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/essential/personal/civics/index.html
· Students explore key events which contributed to the development of the Australian nation
· They can sequence and describe contributions of events in the course of Australia’s democratic history.
· They begin to understand the contribution made by various people through the years to many aspects of the Australian way of life.
Strand: / Discipline based Learning
Domain: / Humanities
Dimension: / Historical Knowledge and Understanding
Syllabus link: / http://vels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/essential/discipline/humanities/history/index.html
· Students demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of Australian History
· Use a range of resources to investigate the past
· They present their understandings in a variety of formats
Strand: / Discipline based Learning
Domain: / English
Dimension: / Writing , Speaking and listening
Syllabus link: / http://vels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/essential/discipline/english/index.html
· Students produce in print and electronic forms, a variety of texts for different purposes using structures and language appropriate to the purpose, audience and context of the writing.
· Plan, rehearse and make presentations for different purposes, adjusting their speaking as appropriate to the task.
Strand: / Discipline based Learning
Domain: / The Arts
Dimension: / Creating and Making
Syllabus link: / http://vels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/essential/discipline/arts/index.html
· Students communicate their ideas and understandings about themselves and others, incorporating influences from their own and other cultures and times.
Strand: / Interdisciplinary Learning
Domain: / Communication
Dimension: / Presenting
Syllabus link: / http://vels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/essential/interdisciplinary/communication/index.html
· Students organise and summarise ideas and information logically and clearly in a range of presentations
· Identify features of an effective presentation and adapt elements of their own presentation to reflect them
Strand: / Interdisciplinary Learning
Domain: / Thinking
Dimension: / Reasoning, Processing and Inquiry
Syllabus link: / http://vels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/essential/interdisciplinary/thinking/index.html
· Students increasingly consider texts and information that lie beyond their immediate experience
· Develop their skills in making accurate observations about people and events and record these in a variety of formats.
· Provide their own explanations for these observations
· Develop their own questions for investigation
· Collect relevant information from a range of sources and make judgement about its worth
· Order and sequence their own ideas
· Given criteria - children compare and contrast classification of concepts, objects and ideas
· Describe, compare and contrast these classifications
Strand: / Interdisciplinary Learning
Domain: / Thinking
Dimension: / Reflection, Evaluation and Meta-cognition
Syllabus link: / http://vels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/essential/interdisciplinary/thinking/index.html
· Use a variety of thinking skills and processes and tools and evaluate their effectiveness
· reflect on their thinking
ICT Capabilities
Through participation in this unit students should develop the ability to:
Use computer-based technologies to locate, access, manipulate, create, store and retrieve information
Express ideas and communicate with others using ICT (Microsoft PowerPoint*, digital camera, scanning etc
Incorporate TLF digital Learning Objects as part of their learning
Curriculum-Framing Questions
Essential Question / Growing Pains – how do they hurt?
Unit Questions / How can we learn from our history?
What has made our country special?
How was Eureka the first sign of “mateship” in Australian society?
How did people arriving from different lands affect our way of life in areas such as dress, food, religion?
What impact did our early history have on the development of this nation?
Which era in Australia’s history would you like to have been a part of? Why?
How did the gold rush impact on Victorian society?
Content Questions / What would life have been like on the goldfields?
How did the gold rush in Victoria start?
Who came to the Gold Rush?
Where did the Gold Rush occur?
What happened at the Eureka rebellion?
What would have been the advantages and disadvantages of living in Gold Rush times?
Assessment Plan
Assessment Timeline
Before learning activities begin / While students work on learning activities / After learning activities end
· Brainstorm
· Reflections on previous topic
· KWL
· Template for assigning group tasks / · Anecdotal notes
· Planning, drafting, researching notes, Graphic organisers
· Peer/teachers conferences on different tasks
· Self Assessment
· Learning Log with their reflections / · Multimedia Self Assessment
· Newsletter Rubric
· Self Assessment
· Complete their KWL
· Publishing of their work- completed work & accompanying docs (planning, drafting, etc)
· Learning Log
Assessment Summary
Students will establish a Learning Log that they will maintain throughout the Unit. They will record: their goals for each session, their achievements and their reflections on their learnings, homework tasks and their personal application to their tasks. Their Learning Logs will also reflect the specific tasks that they take on & complete within group or partnership activities. Students could be encouraged to use any of the following: a diary, calendar, chart, timeline or a Blog; alternatively they may have their own personal tool.
Unit Details
Prerequisite Skills
Students Prior Knowledge / Prior knowledge from previous history units will be required for a number of tasks so that comparisons can be made. We have studied units on Convicts, First Fleet, War Time (WW1) and Pioneers. Weekly sessions in the computer lab will be used to enhance students’ ICT skills enabling them to manipulate text, images and display survey data if necessary.
Teachers’ Professional Learning / Seek assistance from school ICT technician on how to set up sharing folders and internal email for students.
Unit Plan time, PD sessions and staff meetings will be used to help with the sharing of key findings. Also, articles could be posted on the Intranet and server for access and discussion by all.
Articles/Books of Professional reading:
Pohl, M (2000) Learning to Think, Thinking to Learn. Cheltenham, Vic: Hawker Brownlow Education.
Wilks, S (2005). Designing a Thinking Curriculum. ACER Press.
McGrath, H & Noble, T. (2005) Eight Ways At Once. Pearson Education.
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Intel® Teach Program
Designing Effective Projects
Teaching and Learning Strategies· Whole class, discussions and activities – creating class charts, reviewing and writing reports, texts, reflection cards.
· Providing scaffolding through small group work utilising: teacher assistance, peer mentoring
· Planning and research strategies will be emphasised
· Brainstorming
· Compare and contrast lives of different people in the same time era and different time eras
Higher order thinking skills
· Use of graphic organisers – time lines for events leading to the Eureka Stockade, Venn Diagrams for classification and comparing between life in different times in history
· Planning scaffolds, Thinkers keys, Blooms Taxonomy, Gardener’s Multiple Intelligences, Y Charts, PMI, KWL charts, Question Matrix
· Whole class sharing sessions to share information and research sources with the class.
· Students working in pairs and independently to research and produce independent tasks.
· Students utilising their planning strategies to produce their projects.
· Conferencing with the teacher.
· Peer and self evaluation.
· Multi media presentations
· Technology suiting the task rather than the task suiting the technology
· Embedded assessment
The unit will culminate in a camp at Sovereign Hill (http://www.sovereignhill.com.au/).
Teaching and Learning Activities
Introduction to the Unit: Without telling the children, the teacher will role-play as if teaching in the 1850’s. The content of the lesson, delivery, classroom management and discipline, materials for class work will be modelled. After a period of time the children can discuss what they experienced and come up with suggestions as to what they thought the role play was all about. Leading from here, the link to the period in time can be illustrated. Children complete a KWL chart.
1. Blooms Activities: Students work in groups or individually. They select up to three activities for each level to complete and complete a learning log as they work. For many of these activities, group wikis could be used to record student research and ideas about particular topics. The Webpage Evaluation support document will guide students in their selection and assessment of websites for research.
TAXONOMY LEVEL / FOCUS QUESTION / ACTIVITIES
REMEMBERING
(Factual Answers, Recall and recognition) / Can you describe the facts of the situation? / § Internet Scavenger Hunt: Children are given a set of questions to answer by accessing given links from the Sovereign Hill site and to selected pages and sites on the internet. Try to find as many answers as possible.
§ Construct a time line to represent the discovery of gold in Australia.
§ Explain the different methods used to search for gold.
§ How did the gold rush start?
§ Find out what a miner’s licence was and what problems it created.
§ List common crimes on the goldfields and try to find out what penalties were imposed by the police or courts. Compare this to today.
§ Find out as much as you can about the following problems that were caused by the gold rushes - transport, food supplies, labour shortage, lawlessness.
§ Make a crossword or word search about a theme related to the gold rush.
UNDERSTANDING
(Translating, Interpreting, showing Understanding) / Can you show that you understand the situation? / § Life for women and children on the goldfields was often difficult. Explain some of the problems they had to face.
§ Write a diary depicting life as one of the following - a gold digger, a child on the goldfields, a trooper, a Chinese prospector, the gold Commissioner, a bushranger.
§ Discuss the events that led to the Eureka rebellion.
§ Compare different types of mining.
§ Compare the life of a trooper to those in charge of convicts or present day police.
§ On a map of Victoria, mark where the goldfields were.
§ Make a cartoon strip depicting a day in the life of a miner or bushranger.
§ Give examples of how the discovery of gold affected the lives of Aboriginal people.
APPLYING
(Using information gained in different, familiar situations) / Can you apply this information to another situation? / § Make a diorama about a period in history of your choice.
§ Build a model of a gold mining settlement.
§ Create your own miniature setting of one of the following - bushrangers holding up a coach, convicts working in a chain gang, soldiers in WW1, the Eureka stockade, passengers on the First Fleet.
§ Design your own miner’s licence. Make it look authentic as possible.
ANALYSING
(Break into parts to examine more closely) /
Can you break this information into parts, so that you can understand the structure?
/ § Write and perform a play based on your choice of time in history. Consider period clothing and speech.
§ Look at the mining techniques up to modern day. What are some of the major changes and how have these occurred? Write your findings and draw or find pictures to support them.
§ What changes in the population and social structure of Australia can be attributed to the gold rushes? Research and graph the population changes.
§ Prepare and deliver a report on the social changes – eg influence of Chinese on the goldfields, effects of sudden wealth, separation of families etc.
§ Research a bushranger of your choice, write a biography and make a wanted poster for them.
§ Prepare, tape and deliver a news flash about one of these events – the Eureka Stockade or a rich gold strike. Explain why you think some people became bushrangers.
§ Imagine you live on the goldfields and have left your family back home. Write a letter to tell them of your experiences.
§ Make an advertisement or brochure for Sovereign Hill and explain why this is an important tourist attraction.
§ The Chinese people successfully mined gold at various locations including Ballarat. Explain why this was so.
§ Think about your school experiences and compare them with those of children on the goldfields. In what ways are they similar and different? Create a wiki to record your research and ideas.
EVALUATING
(Judge, use criteria, rank, substitute)
/ Can you form an opinion or make a judgement and give reasons for it? / § Prepare a case to present your views on the miner’s licence.
§ Debate the question that the miners at the goldfields faced greater adversity than early settlers.
§ Which time in history had the harshest conditions for families? Explain your view.
§ Do you believe Ned Kelly should have been hanged? How would you have handled his trial and punishment?
§ Rate/judge the living conditions/opportunities for Australians now and in the gold rush times (or other period in history).
§ Find some recipes from the pioneer days. Prepare a meal. Discuss whether this food was nutritious and hygienically prepared.
CREATING
(Combining information to new situations to create new products, ideas etc) / Can you create some fresh ideas or new situations? / § Using a series of key dates and events create a ‘rap’ song about the history of Australia. (or just the history of Gold in Australia).
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