Caroline Talbot

Dawn Mallette
EDUC 450-001
5 October 2015
Setting and Context
The School Community:
After spending a few weeks now at Poudre High school I have come to learn more about
the school, the students, and the staff who make the school such a diverse and inspirational
community. The mission of the school is to educate every child every day, with rigor, relevance,
and relationships. At Poudre High School there are 1,900 students, an 18:1 student ratio, and
the teachers have an average of twelve years of teaching experience (psdschools.org). The
climate of the school is very academically driven and consists of an enthusiastic school pride.
Most of the administrators and staff members I have met so far are very energetic and have a
great amount of passion for the students at Poudre. The staff is also very professional and from
many of them I have heard how important it is to build positive relationships with the students.
There are over 250 classes, and programs such as
ELL/ESL and special education, available at the Poudre that
are designed to encourage student success in their education
(psdschools.org). College preparation and readiness
programs are also available, such as Advancement Via
Individual Determination (AVID), the Advanced Placement
School Demographics
1http://www.movoto.com/schools/fort-collins-co/poudre-highschool-080399000541/

(AP) courses, the International Baccalaureate (IB), and

several others. Parents are actively involved in their childs

academics and activities. They can also stay in tune with school updates through the parent
newsletter, and social media, such as twitter.
Students and Classroom:
At Poudre High School I have been placed with a twelfth grade IB class in a
Contemporary World Politics course taught by Mr. Brown. Students in this class have worked
tremendously hard to get to this point in the IB program and are required to hold to many
expectations in the classroom. Many of the students come from different cultural backgrounds
from many parts of the world. IB students are also heavily involved in outside school activities
such clubs, sports, and volunteering for the community. The classroom is located in a temp
building and, conveniently, there is an empty classroom next door that can be used if Mr. Brown
wants to spit up the class and have me work on an activity with some of the students. Since I
come for the first class of the day the room can be cold at first, but within a few minutes the
room reaches a comfortable temperature. In many ways, the temp building is the closest I have
ever been to teaching in a one room school house (and because Im a history nerd I love just the
idea).
Topic and Rationale:
The class, since I have been observing, has already learned about the ideas that have
shaped events leading into the 20th century, such as Karl Marxs Communist Manifesto. Then
they learned about totalitarianism and significant leaders in 20th century world history, like
Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. Toward the end of October, students were being taught about the
leadership of Adolf Hitler and I taught my first lesson on his domestic policy toward Jews.
Students already know a lot about the rise of his power and his leadership, but in my lesson I will
be focusing on his role as a leader of Germany and his influence on the 20th century.

The instructional strategy I am planning from Making Things Visible is the I used to
thinkNow It think strategy. This method asks for students to take their prior knowledge on a
topic, and then transfer their prior knowledge to what they have learned from the lesson. For my
first lesson I used this strategy on Hitlers domestic policies towards Jews during the 1936
Olympics held in Berlin, Germany. For my second lesson students were learning about the events
and causes that led to WWII. I taught my lesson on the Rape of Nanking, which occurred in
China during the end of 1937. The instructional strategy I chose for this lesson was the 4 Cs.
This strategy asks for students to identify connections, challenges, concepts, and changes from
material used in the lesson. For my lesson I choose primary and secondary source accounts of the
Rape of Nanking, and then asked students to find the 4 Cs in their groups.