California Missions

A Telecollaboration Lesson for
4th Grade (California Missions)

Designed by Melissa Dickey, Debby Ealdama, and Judy Morais 


 California Missions
Introduction | Learners | Standards | Partners | Process | Resources | Evaluation | Conclusion | Credits

Introduction

This lesson was developed as part of the requirements for EDTEC 570, Advanced Teaching with Technology. In this lesson, students will participate in a collaborative learning project where they will study the California Missions.  They will interact with other 4th grade students in California to enable them to learn first hand about missions in other areas of California.  Each class will become experts in the mission around their area and then teach and learn from other students in different areas of California.  

This is a unit of study on the California missions. The students will learn about them as a whole class, through PowerPoint presentations, collaborative e-mails, and as individuals. The students will need to answer questions about California missions, their effect on the Native Americans, and life in the missions, by reading information from websites provided on the list of resources. The students will then compile their information and make a PowerPoint presentation with a partner or group.


Learners

As part of the 4th grade Social Studies Standards, the students will interact with other California students, as well as the Internet, and various other resources in order to gather a wide range of perspectives on the subject. They will understand who built the California missions, where they were built, when and why they were built, what mission life was like, and how the missions affected the Native Americans. They will show their understanding through PowerPoint presentations, timelines, concept maps, and e-mail exchanges with ePALS throughout the unit.

You will need to look through all of the websites before the students begin in order to make sure they are at an appropriate reading level for your students. You may need to scaffold depending on your students abilities. You will also need to do a minilesson, before you start the unit, on how to do research, so that the students understand how to compile the information they gather so they do not become overwhelmed from all the information. You will also need to do a minilesson on ePALS. This should include how to e-mail, appropriate netiquette, and a checklist of necessary information they should send to and request from their ePALS through their interactions. 


Curriculum Standards

Social Studies Standards Addressed

  • 4.2.3   Students describe the social, political, cultural, and economic life and interactions among people of California from the pre-Columbian societies to the Spanish mission and Mexican rancho periods. Describe the Spanish exploration and colonization of California, including the relationships among soldiers, missionaries, and Indians (e.g., Juan Crespi, Junipero Serra, Gaspar de Portola).
  • 4.2.5   Students describe the social, political, cultural, and economic life and interactions among people of California from the pre-Columbian societies to the Spanish mission and Mexican rancho periods. Describe the daily lives of the people, native and nonnative, who occupied the presidios, missions, ranchos, and pueblos.

Through these lessons, the students will be using critical thinking, teamwork, comparision, inferring, observation and categorization, and creative production. They will need to read, write, and communicate using these strategies described above throughout the unit.


Partners

It is imperative that the collaborative exchange takes place with other California 4th grade students across regions; Southern California, Central California, and Northern California, particularly those students located in close proximity to missions who may have a better understanding from field trips and local information, i.e. San Diego de Alcala, San Rafael, and San Antonio. The partners will be located through ePALS. Each class may decide and locate what city they want to exchange information with through the ePALS website. 


Process

This lesson is based on the Activity Structure and Action Sequence as described by Judi Harris.

This unit will require at least 7 class periods, but you may wish to add or delete days depending on how involved you want your students to be, how many students you have, how many computers are available, how much time you have each day to work on it, etc.

Pre-Lesson Preparation
  • Minilesson on how to do research.
  • Minilesson on how to use ePALS.
  • Minilesson on how to use the Internet, as well as making sure the websites are appropriate and effective for your students' learning abilities.
  • Go on a fieldtrip to the mission closest to your school, if possible.
Day 1
  •  Sign up and search for appropriate partner schools through ePALS. 
  • KWL chart to activate prior knowledge and discuss vocabulary words such as, Spaniards, missions, colonists, Native Americans and Padres. This will also help guide your instruction, as well as guide their interactions with their ePALS.
Day 2
  •  Introduce themselves to their ePALS.
  • Use the first PowerPoint presentation provided in resources, Missions, to introduce the California missions and give the students an overview. 
Day 3
  •  Check in with their ePALs every day to see if there is new information or they have more questions.
  • Depending on how many computers you have, have the students begin to search through the websites provided in order to begin gathering information.
  • This can be one of your centers during guided reading, or whatever works in your schedule.  
Day 4
  • Continue researching and communicating with their partners.
Day 5
  • Continue researching and communicating with their partners.
  • If appropriate, use other PowerPoint presentations that have been provided. 
Day 6
  • Continue researching and communicating with their partners.
  • After students have complied their research, have them work with their groups to put together their PowerPoint presentations, timelines, and concept maps.
Day 7-?
  • Have the students work with groups to put together PowerPoint presentations, timelines, and concept maps. Do this until everyone is done.
  • Have them present their findings. 
Post Lesson Wrapup
  • It is important to model everything you want your students to do so they understand your expectations. 
  • You can also implement this unit into Writers Workshop. You can work on non-fiction writing and have the students write pieces from the points of view of the soldiers, Native Americans, and the Padres in diary or journal form, or as a narrative. 
  • At the end of the whole unit, you might want to do a Socrates debate, dividing the students into three groups: soldiers, Native Americans, and Padres. You pose questions to the group and they debate the questions, answering from the point of view of the group they have been assigned (Padre, soldier, or Native American). That is a good conclusion to the unit. 
  • When the unit is concluded, the students should write thank you notes to their partners. They should include all the things they learned from them and how they helped them throughout the unit. They could even send their PowerPoint presentations to their partners. 

 

Group students based on heterogeneous reading levels.  

Each group needs to make a timeline, (when the first mission was built, the next one, etc.) a PowerPoint presentation and a concept map. Do a lesson on how to make a PowerPoint presentation and a concept map. Finally, you will jigsaw what the students learned about the missions by assigning each group a question. They will answer it in their presentation and make their concept map about it. For example, one pair will get "Why were the missions built?" and another will get "How were the Native Americans impacted by the building of the missions?" Every group will then present their PowerPoint in front of the class.

Important: If class is cancelled at the cooperating school make sure you have a back-up plan.  You can either find another class to participate with or just have the students do work with another 4th grade class in the area.  You may also just cancel that part of the unit, but still continue with the rest. If a student leaves the school during the project, you may have another student interact and communicate with their ePAL buddy. You shouldn't have to redo the groups because you should have at least 5 students in a group.  The groups can function with 4 if one leaves.

In order to participate and teach this unit, you will need to know how PowerPoint works, how to make a concept map through Inspiration, and how to use the Internet.  You should also be familiar with ePALs and e-mailing.  As a novice teacher, you should be able to teach this unit if you understand the above programs. Below are a list of websites that will help you become more familiar on these subjects. 

Variations

This unit is nice because you can really be creative.  You may have the students present their findings any way you want.  You can do as much or as little of it as you want.  It is really flexible and can be done in many different ways.  For example, you don't have to use PowerPoint, you can simply have the students make a poster of what they learned and present that to the class.  You can also add the Socrates debate to really assess what the students learned.  You can also incorporate Writer's Workshop and the whole Literacy Block into this unit.  Be creative and this will be a successful and fun unit for you and your students!


Resources Needed

What you need:

  • Class sets of books (You may use your Social Studies books to help your students with research.)
  • E-mail accounts for all students
  • Inspiration for all the computers
  • PowerPoint for all the computers
  • Internet for all the computers

Important Websites

Here are some PowerPoint Presentations you may use: Here is a Concept Map:

You really only need one teacher to carry out this unit.  If aides or parents are available, they could help the students with their e-mailing or gathering research.  It would be nice to have help, but this unit can be done with only one teacher.


Evaluation

Assessment Type(s): Writing Samples, Demonstrations, Observations, Projects, E-mails, Cooperation with others

Assessment Plan: The students will be assessed through observation during the unit, paying close attention to how well the students work together, how fast they work through the material, and if they are on task or not. They will also be assessed on the accuracy of their timeline and concept map, as well as their PowerPoint presentations. These assessments will concentrate on organization, creativity, and the quality of information they gather.  They will be assessed according to how well they follow directions and if they fulfill the standards stated above.  They will be assessed according to these 


Credits & References

We would like to thank the following websites for providing information for our unit. 

"We all benefit by being generous with our work. Permission is hereby granted for other educators to copy this lesson, update or otherwise modify it, and post it elsewhere provided that the original author's name is retained along with a link back to the original URL of this lesson. On the line after the original author's name, you may add Modified by (your name) on (date). If you do modify it, please let me know and provide the new URL."


Last updated on (6/17/03). Based on a template from EDTEC 570 at SDSU