Paperless Classroom Lesson Plan Example

Here is my example of a paperless 7th grade Citizenship class for one unit.
Unit: Types of Governmental Systems:
Compare the government of the United States with other governmental systems.
Examples: monarchy, limited monarchy, oligarchy, dictatorship, theocracy, pure democracy

Paperless—Week One

Day One:
Student Research:
Divide class into groups. Each group must locate definitions of and examples of each type of Government (Definitions and examples should be placed on the group’s wikispace).

Student Observation:
Each student should record an entry into their blog about which type of government they think is the best and which they think is the worst and why for each. The students will need three supporting facts for each viewpoint. Locations of supporting facts should be included within the blog posting.

Day Two:
Facts Presentation
Groups should prepare a Google Presentation about the forms of government they discussed in their blogs. The presentation should use images, illustrations and text. Each presentation should identify possible changes to American culture if each type of government was in place.

Alternative: Some students may choose to create a Podcast rather than a presentation or in addition.

In-Depth Research
Assign each group a type of government. The students must identify countries that have been or are currently under this type of government. Identify the country, its population, leadership, current stature in the world, economics facts, population, the political system, others…Findings should be placed on the groups wiki or a Google Document and then linked to the Wiki.


Day Three:
Formal Presentation
Students must make a full-on presentation of their country…including a presentation, video footage, images, soundtracks, online documentation. This presentation should last a minimum of 15 minutes. They must pitch their government style as if they were recruiting new citizens or pitching a new product.

Peer Assessment
Each group must also have a poll developed to follow their presentation. Each participant of the presentation can complete the poll. Questions should focus on clearness of topic being presented, was it informative, some general knowledge questions should be asked to gauge effectiveness of presentation and then an overall performance grade for the presentation.

Day Four:
Communication
The class as a whole should make a (pre-arranged) Skype contact with school in another country (that is governed by one of the governments presented this week). The students should be prepared to ask questions relevant to the form of government of the nation and as well be prepared to answer questions about America’s government and civilization. Blog addresses should be shared to encourage communication among other cultures and enhance reading and writing skills.

Peer Communication
Once the broadcast is over each student should make an entry into their blog about the discussion.

Day Five:
Review
Each student, in the class, must prepare three questions about each form of government and add it to the (unit 1) Wiki (questions can come from research, Skype cast, or other forms of learning). No question can be the same or similar…this can be done as a group to facilitate a review of subject matter. Teacher should ensure the student’s level of questioning is on target and not too surface level or too abstract.

When finished, a listing of questions about all forms of government will be posted on the wiki for the students to view and study.

Day Six: (Homework)
Writing Evaluation
On each student’s wikispace, each student must write an essay about the different forms of government based on their fact finding efforts. The essay should contain no less than 3000 characters and should include citations from where data was obtained (websites, books, videos, etc…).

Each student must view the essays of other students in the class and make comments, recommendations, and/or critiques to each.

Day Seven:
Assessment
Students must complete an online assessment developed by the teacher and scored automatically.

Students must create a blog entry comparing and contrasting the U.S. Government with one of the other forms of government discussed in this unit.


Unit Scoring:
Graded Assignments:
Student Research 20%
Blog Postings 15%
Presentations 10%
Class Communication/Participation 10%
Writing Evaluation 20%
Unit Evaluation 25%
Total 100%

I do make assumptions that there are sufficient computers to complete this task that preliminary instructions have been given for creating wikis, online presentations, podcasts, etc…

I do understand there are many prohibiting factors that could pose challenges but it is intended to be a demonstration.

I did not include the teacher’s role in the lesson but do be sure the teacher would very much be involved with the entire process. He/she would take the role of introducing the subject matter, initiating class conversations about findings, ensuring groups were on task and not going off on a tangent and class moderator. The teacher would actually get to teach the class to teach themselves.