Kodiak Island School Possible Closure (Padlet)
An article about the possible closure of a school on Kodiak Island, Alaska really peaked my interest. The reason why this would be a grand challenges article is because there are only 3 students the school needs extra or they will be forced to be shut down. After finishing up the first part of the formative assessment and evaluating the knowledge of the students, read the article with the students and explain the complexities of this funding issue. After the quick discussion, have the students take out a piece of paper and have them write down a page long essay on what they might do if they had to deal with a school in this position. After the students have finished up, give back the formative assessment and have an open discussion of what they thought about and learned as they are filling it out.
Formative Assessment
The best formative assessment for this would be to have them do a KWL chart and ask them the starting question of what they know and want to know about what it takes to close down a school. After they fill in the first two parts, take the sheets and look through them all to see if some, all, or none of the students have an understanding of the situation. After the lesson is taught, you can give the sheets back to the students to see what they’ve learned from your lesson to see how effective you taught them.
Standards
For this lesson, Montana Standards for Social Studies is used
Content Standard 1 is to be applied. It states students access, synthesize, and evaluate information to communicate and apply social studies knowledge to real world situations
Students should be able to ask questions about what could they do with this situation and be able to apply what they know and build upon it throughout the lesson.
Grades 9–12
