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ENT Gallery: Developing a Community of Practice
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The Packing for America classroom unit was piloted in a self-contained 4th-6th grade class from a Boston area school in May, 2002. During the pilot session, the curriculum, designed to be experienced over a three-day period, was completed in two hours in order to concisely gain feedback on all of the activities involved. At the end of the time, the 17 students who participated gave feedback orally and filled out a written survey to help the project facilitator, MaryBeth Kinkead and Plimoth educator Kim VanWormer refine their design. A copy of the survey the students completed can be found in the Teacher Resources and Student Work section.
The students' written and oral responses showed a range of understanding about the factors affecting the various colonists' decisions to come to the New World. Each student could point to at least one thing that made the colonists' lives different from those of people today. As a class, the students were able to identify most of the factors outlined in the unit's Understanding Goals as influencing which objects and supplies the colonists chose to bring to New England. However, no students identified financial agreement with the merchants as an influential factor. Most students (77%, 13 out of 17) could also specifically identify something that differentiated one colonist's life from another including social status, gender, age, occupation and geographic origins, though no students identified religion as a differentiating factor.
Finally, all of the students were able to identify a time during the lesson where they felt like an historian. While the packing exercise got the most responses (47%, 8 out of 17), the in-character presentation by VanWormer was a close second (41%, 7 out of 17). In addition, over half of the students (59%, 10 out of 17) identified VanWormer's presentation as the thing they liked best about the lesson.
The fact that the students could grasp the majority of the concepts in a two-hour version of the lesson speaks to the well-honed nature of the Packing for America unit. It also demonstrates the power of online collaboration. Though VanWormer and Kinkead had never taught this lesson or presented together before, both said they felt at ease thanks to their previous collaborative work.
VanWormer and Kinkead have since adapted the unit into a resource to complement a class's visit to the Plimoth Plantation. In doing so, they have incorporated several key elements that were missing from their pilot version-the role of the merchants and of religion in the colonists' lives. This version of the unit will be piloted in the fall of 2002.
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