Integrated Unit - Unit Completion

At this point, at the end of November, I have finished teaching my Now vs. Then unit. My overall experience has been a positive one. My teaching strategies and lessons were effective and my students demonstrated a mastery of the Social Studies content taught.

I was able to incorporate every learning style during the unit. I also was able to help my students use a variety of technology tools to further their learning of the Social Studies content that was being taught. The class used the SMART Board to better understand timelines. We used Pixie to draw pictures of life then vs. now, which we then turned into a slide show. The class utilized the internet to search for pictures of life now and then. We used Kidspiration to create a web covering jobs, transportation, family life and school. Each student had the opportunity to use a digital camera to take pictures of what school was like today. Students worked in pairs to create imovies to demonstrate how life was different in the 1800’s when compared to today. They incorporated recordings they had made from Garageband into the movies.

After completing the unit, I have discovered that there are some items to consider the next time that I teach the unit. I need to create a few additional assessments or alter a couple of my current ones so that they do not all rely on writing as much. I need to find ways to increase student interest at the beginning of the unit. Students also need to be given more opportunities to share their projects. One big area of consideration is all of the technology components. What alternatives are there if the technology breaks down or is unavailable? One stumbling block during the unit was the unreliability of the technology available.


During the unit, I was able to collaborate with another third grade colleague from my school. I shared with her my entire unit plan. She and I sat down before the school year began to decide which pieces she was interested in trying with her class. She had informed me ahead of time that she did not want to do the entire unit as created. There was a lot of ‘give and take‘ throughout the unit.

We agreed to start by teaching the timelines lessons at the beginning of the unit together. One of the things that she was impressed by was the SMART Board lesson on timelines that I had created. She tried it with her class and it went really well. She was very excited to use the SMART Board because she did not have much experience with it. It was great that I was able to teach her how to use that technology with her class! After the lessons, she encouraged me to pass the lesson on to the other third grade teachers. At the end of the series of lessons, we compared our timeline assessments to determine which students had achieved mastery. I really enjoyed being able to compare my assessment results with her to get some feedback.

I was also able to convince my colleague to try out using Pixie and Kidspiration with her class. She was a bit hesitant because she was not really comfortable with technology. I spent some time after school showing her how to use the technology and answering her questions. By the time I was done, she had a pretty good handle on how to use both programs. She was then able to successfully use both programs with her students to a certain degree. Unfortunately due to unreliable technology half of the projects did not save correctly. She was very frustrated by this and I had to reassure her that she had done things correctly. It took a lot of coaxing to get her to not give up on technology use completely.

After this experience, she was not ready to tackle creating imovies with her class. Especially since I had never made them before! She did agree to have my students present their movies to her class which we have scheduled for the first week of December. My class is excited to share their projects and her class is eager to see the finished results.

It was a great experience collaborating with another colleague on this unit. I would have liked it if my partner had been willing to try everything, but I’m grateful for the time and effort she put into the project. It was beneficial to have someone to discuss teaching strategies with and to compare and analyze assessment information. I was able to guide the entire process through encouragement and teamwork. Our working relationship has grown stronger through this collaboration. My entire third grade team is now in the process of getting all of our units aligned. Hopefully more collaborative efforts will be possible in the future.