The U.S. Constitution

Integrating the Past with the Future

Dave OhrtmanKadoka High School

Main Concepts of Unit

Reasons the Articles of Confederation failed

Lessons learned from the failures that contributed to creation of Constitution

Discussion of creation of three branches of government

Analysis of the Bill of Rights and remaining amendments

ACTIVITIES

FAILURE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION

o Opening discussion and presentation: types of government (communist, monarchy

o Key point: all successful governments have a set process for governing their people

ACTIVITIES(cont’d.)

o Discuss and present Articles of Confederation

o What was it?

o What were its main points?

o How did it govern the people?

o Why did it fail?

THE U.S. CONSTITUTION

• Group analysis of types of governments, schools of thought that contributed to the three branches of governments

• Three group activity: the three government branches (legislative, executive, judicial)

• Describe duties of each, culminating with individual group presentations

The bill of rights

• Establish need for further clarification, declaration of rights in the Constitution

• Group analysis of Bill of Rights and amendments 11-27 of Constitution

• Let students realize importance of the amendments in their everyday life

How will you get the content into your Tablet so you can use the power of digital ink and

other Tablet tools?Students will use OneNote and Journal to

take notes on each of the lesson’s concepts

Students will utilize copies of the Constitution to write their own notes on each section of the document (OneNote and Journal)

How will the students receive their portion of the assignment?

• WebCT postings of assignments

• Teacher’s website postings

• Electronic assignment board on WebCT by each class

What will the students be doing during the lesson presentation? (Student

Engagement)

• Taking notes using program of their choice (Journal or OneNote)

• Following each of the different documents (Articles of Confederation, Constitution, Bill of Rights) with copies of their own on the computer

How will the student portion be submitted to you for evaluation?

• Posting to WebCT

How will the student portion be submitted to you for evaluation?

• Teacher will correct assignments submitted on WebCT

What will be the strategy to return completed assignment to your

student?

• Personal notes, marks made on student papers with stylus and returned to students via WebCT

Will there time when the lids will be down on the student computers?

• Quite a bit at first

• As teacher and students become more familiar with WebCT, there will be less paper used and Tablet will become the central tool used for instruction

Describe what challenges you see you may have in managing your classroom and

what your thoughts would be for handling those.

• Keeping students on task during class (solution: Synchroneyes program, close teacher monitoring, “lids down” time, etc.)

How repeatable is this lesson strategy for lessons you will be teaching?

• As in all new forms of instruction, lesson strategy will become better with repetition

• Repetition and familiarity will be the key

Other considerations?

• Patience by everyone involved

• Open mindedness

• Time to allow the new instruction tools to become familiar to all

• Patience by everyone involved

• Did I mention patience by everyone involved?

THANK YOU!!!

Dave Ohrtman

HS Sociology and Economics, 7-8 Social Studies and English

E-mail: dave.ohrtman@k12.sd.us