Jeopardy+Africa

**Rationale**: It is important to learn about the evolution and development of Africa to understand the difficulties it encounters today.
 * __Jeopardy Africa Lesson Plan__**


 * Content**: The overall information on Africa spanning from 2000 BC- 1897 AD - Chapter 11 (Civilizations of Africa)

6.W.1.5. Students are able to explain the development of the African empires. 6.W.2.5. Students are able to identify the cultural contributions of the African empires. **Goals**: To review for the upcoming test on Africa
 * SD K-12 Standards**:


 * Instructional Objectives**: The students will understand and be able to locate Africa and discuss its people, its culture, and its geography.


 * Materials**: SmartBoard


 * Procedures**: There will be a Jeopardy game on the SmartBoard, which was made from using Microsoft Excel. There will be five categories on Africa, detailing the five sections of the test. The class will be split up into two groups (i.e. girls/boys). In order to avoid singling out particular students, one group will select a question and try to answer it as a group. Then, the next group will get its turn. This will go on back and forth until the questions are done.


 * Evaluation**: By doing the game, the students will be interested in the topic while reviewing for the test material about Africa.


 * Assessment:** Depending on the time of the activity, the students will then be handed a study guide that has all of the questions used on the game. This worksheet will require the students to work alone to discover all the answers

**Lesson Plan Analysis: Jeopardy!** Since the lesson was a review game, the learning that took place should have been done before this lesson. I seem to have struggled with writing the questions for the game. The students were able to get almost every question right. However, there were a couple students who got their question wrong and seemed that they knew the right answer after I had said it. When making this lesson, I kept in close contact with Mrs. Dumke. She had specific topics that she wanted me to ask. The last lesson I did was with Senior Government students, so it was harder to know what difficulty the Jeopardy questions should be for 6th grade students. Therefore, I thought about the questions that the students had been asked in previous class periods. I believe the most effective part of the lesson was when the easy topics were gone from the game. The students were forced to pick areas that they might not have usually picked. These topics proved to be a little more difficult, and I believe the students learned more from this. I followed my lesson plan pretty closely. I had to deviate from it a little when I realized there was no way to keep track of what questions were being asked. Luckily, Mrs. Dumke had saved me and made a small sheet for me to keep track of the questions asked. This was one of my first times using the Smart Board, so I found it to be very beneficial. Along with the Jeopardy Excel template, I believe this game flowed much easier than just doing it on a white board. I would definitely try to make it more challenging for the students. Getting students interested and having fun while learning Making questions that are suitable for the middle school intelligence level
 * 1.What did the students learn from your lesson? How do you know they learned from your lesson? **
 * 2. What did you think about or consider when planning the lesson? (Be specific.) **
 * 3. What do you think was the most effective part of the lesson? Why? **
 * 4. How closely did you follow your lesson plan? If you deviated from the lesson plan, what decisions did you make during the lesson and why? **
 * 5. Were the activities/materials/visuals/aids appropriate? Why? Why not? **
 * 6. What part or parts of your plan would you consider changing before teaching this lesson again? **
 * 7. What do you see as your teaching strengths? **
 * 8 **
 * . Identify a goal you would like to have your field-based supervisor assist you in achieving. **

As stated earlier, the learning that took place during this lesson is hard to judge. A worksheet was given out after the review by Mrs. Dumke, but this was a study guide. Therefore, it is hard to know how much students knew before the lesson and how much they knew after the lesson. I could tell some kids learned, but those students were the ones that got their question wrong during the game. It seemed to bother the students when they got a question wrong and a person could tell that the question was going to stick with them. Looking back on it now, I wish I would have been able to remember what questions the students got wrong and then looked at their tests to see if they got those questions right on the test.
 * Documented Impact on Learning**