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Kathie
Chaffee
NHD Project
Summary
Falconer Central School
Kathie Chaffee
Fenner Elementary School
Falconer Central School
Grade 5, Social Studies and ELA
On Tuesday April 29th our Fenner 5th
grade presented their National History Day projects. We made
several changes from last year and this helped things. For the
first time we had 100% of our students participate. We limited the
papers to 4 typed pages, got the gym so we had more time, and had
formal judging of the displays. We made sure all students knew
their papers had to be done on the 22nd and got the
papers to the 3 judges a full week ahead of time. We had prizes for
the papers, presentations, student choices and one for each
individual classroom. We gave each student a checklist of what we
required and our teachers presented lessons on work cited pages and
citations. We felt we were fully prepared.
My students enjoyed the experience and feel
that they really learned from it. They liked doing their own papers
and learning about something new. They also thought they learned a
lot about things from the presentations of their fellow students.
Even though presenting in public was stressful they felt that it was
worth the effort and they are pleased with themselves for being able
to do it. They also feel that next time they will know better how
to do formal research and will not worry about it as much. Many of
them want to participate in the real National History Day next year.
As the primary organizer for this event and
the grade level chairperson I had a dual role. I felt it went well,
better than last year, but we still have a ways to go with this.
For one thing it took way too long. I feel it was important to have
the kids share their work and we met many standards by doing it.
However, we need to shorten the time. One of the judges suggested
that we have the kids summarize what they learned about the theme
and read it from 3x5 cards. I liked that idea and will implement it
next year. We also don’t need the judges to hear the
presentations. We could have them come at the end and present the
prizes to the winners. It was also suggested that we have the
librarian teach the work cited and citation lessons in order to have
them uniformly prepared. That was an excellent idea too, and I have
already talked to the librarian about it. The students in some
classes seemed to be unclear as to what “conflict’’ was and how to
present a theme.
In my role as chairperson I need to make sure
all teachers are on the same page on that as well. I have already
addressed the research issues that came up and will remind everyone
of our school policy on that again next year.
In our school we are required to do a research
paper each year. At 5th grade we are the first step on
the road to a senior thesis required from all students before
graduating. I feel that doing it in conjunction with National
History Day is very valuable. It allows for time to share their
work with all our 5th graders and gives a uniform theme
and format for our papers. I was so impressed and pleased with our
kids as they listened to each other. They
really learned from each other and instead of
only learning about one subject they gained knowledge from 93
different reports. I am confident that they will be much better
writers and historians as a result of this experience. I think this
was a wonderful learning experience for our entire 5th
grade.
Kathie Chaffee
Reflection in Word
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