Tech-Enhanced+Learning+Episode

United States history students will utilize internet resources to research and gather information dealing with the experiences of 19th and early 20th century Chinese and Japanese immigrants in the U.S. and present their findings in a powerpoint presentation and monologue/role-play format.
 * Abstract:**

-Students will be able to incorporate their research into a powerpoint presentation. -Students will take on personas of members from these two groups in a role-play format and utilize their powerpoint presentation as a means to tell the story of "their" immigrant experience.
 * Learning Targets:**
 * -**Students will gain an understanding of the historical experiences of two Asian immigrant groups, Chinese and Japanese, in the United States.

The lesson will take place in an 11th grade U.S. history class, which will have access to the school library and its internet resources ** for three consecutive days.
 * Context:

Day 1-**I will begin the class with my own powerpoint presentation, giving a brief introduction to the experiences of both Chinese and Japanese immigrants in the United States. This presentation will include images, maps, and timelines that all relate to the following questions: 1 )Who were these immigrants? 2) Why did they leave their place of origin? 3) When and where did they arrive and settle in the U.S.? 4) What were their experiences living in the U.S.? Students will be given a worksheet containing these questions and will be asked to consider how it may have been like to be a Chinese or Japanese immigrant traveling to and living in the United States during the 19th and early 20th centuries. They will be placed into groups of four and given the choice of playing the roles of members of either of these two groups. I will also inform my students to be prepared to collect further information, including images and/or video clips, from specific online resources while visiting the school library during our next class. Further, I will inform my students that the information collected will be part of a presentation that will include both powerpoint and role-play. Also, as part of the activity, students will need to keep a journal and reflect on the research material that they have collected. This may help students further absorb the information and perhaps draw connections between the experiences of these immigrants and their own familial past. Developing empathy and an understanding of immigrant experiences is the over-arching theme in this activity.
 * Project:


 * Day 2-**Class will take place in the school library. Each student group will share and perform their research on two computers. I will provide student groups with a list of internet sites that will facilitate their search. Internet sites will include the following: [|Google images], [|Asian-Nation.org] , [|Digital History] , [|PBS] , and the [|Library of Congress] . I will also instruct student groups that their focus of today's research should be on answering our first two questions: Who were these immigrants, and why did they leave their place of origin? I will monitor student progress by moving from group to group and offering input when needed. Students will also be asked to save relevant material onto flash drives made available by the school.


 * Day 3-**Work will continue in the library. Students' research will now be focused on our last two questions: When and where did they arrive and settle in the U.S., and what were their experiences living in the U.S.? For those groups that have fallen behind in their research, I will provide additional support to keep them on task. For those groups that are ahead in their work, I will model the process of transferring their research onto Microsoft Powerpoint.


 * Day 4**-This will be our last day in the library. Today I will model to the whole class how to complete a powerpoint presentation. This demonstration will be accompanied by step-by-step instructions so as to help avoid confusion. In my modeling, I will use the powerpoint that I initiated this lesson with. A reason for doing this is to demystify the process of putting together this project. This may help give my students a sense of empowerment, that they, too, can produce this type of presentation. Before class ends, I will do a check for understanding and will ask students to begin writing dialogues for those roles that they will be playing.


 * Day 5**-Students will meet in their groups today and continue working on their dialogues. I will also provide this period as a warm-up for students who may want to practice giving their presentation or become more comfortable with using Microsoft Powerpoint and the class video projector.


 * Day 6-**We will begin group presentations.


 * Connection to Learning Model:** First, this lesson touches on a few learning styles: Kinesthetic, linguistic, spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal and mathematics/logical (timelines). With this as the context, we can discern a cycle of experience, reflection, communication, and revision occurring. As students playing the role of Chinese and Japanese immigrants, they get the chance to //experience// the struggles, the sense of loss, and feeling of hope associated with leaving their homes, families and friends. Post-research journaling allows our students to //reflect// on their own thoughts as they are exposed to, perhaps for the first time, experiences of immigrants coming to the United States during an era of stark racial prejudice and discrimination. Students may ask themselves, "Did this happen to my own family as they were making their way into American society?" Our powerpoint presentations, meanwhile, will provide an opportunity for students to //communicate// these experiences to each other. Not only will they be leading and engaging in historical discourse, they will be discussing pertinent issues related to immigration, discrimination, and the creation of "the other." With historical information driving these discussions, it is this lesson's aim that students' own notions of Asian Americans will undergo a type of //revision//. Psychological in nature, this revision seeks to challenge our stereotypical notions of Asian Americans that many of us have absorbed. This revision allows for a clearer understanding of the historical experiences of Chinese and Japanese Americans and attempts to undercut the notion of the "Model Minority."

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