The Decades

For the grand finale of our semester, our social studies methods class worked together in teams to present a Decades Project. Each group had selected a different decade, so that when we were done we had one group presenting the 1920's, the 1940's, the 1950's, the 1960's, and the 1970's.

 Groups researched their decades and were responsible for creating a PowerPoint, a poster, timeline or tri-fold, gathering artifacts that represented culture and history, and using authentic sound, video, and costume. Groups also created an activity and an assessment related to their decade.

One of the benefits of this project was that we were not only researching a time in history, but we were immersing ourselves in it. Another benefit was that were were able to learn from the presentations of our peers, and in the end discover much about the 20th century.

The Seventies and Student vs. Teacher Basketball

 During my field observation, I had the chance to be a part of the student vs. faculty basketball game, which is apparently quite an institution at the school. As a fun twist, the teachers and staff who play in the game dress up in the craziest seventies attire - and are sure to beat the students by just a little - although they have fun with it in finest Harlem Globetrotter style.

Coincidentally, around the same time that this game took place, in my college classes I was preparing a Decades Project with several classmates. This got me think about how a
teacher might be able to use even a basketball game, such as this one, as an extension of social studies learning.

So - here are some fabulous pictures of the game, with thoughts that after preparing a Decades Project (which will be a part of my next blog), that students could participate in games from their decade with the opportunity to rotate around and play the games of other decades, or perhaps all participate in a currently common game - such as basketball - with several teams made up from folks dressed from all different decades just for fun.