Group Project: Martin Luther's 95 Theses
Project Description
This semester, I focused on teaching about how Europe underwent a series of change and progress from the Renaissance through the Enlightenment. During this time, we spent several weeks learning about the Protestant Reformation. In this unit, the students completed a group project about Martin Luther’s 95 Theses. Students were broken up into groups of four or five. Each group was given an excerpt from Luther’s 95 Theses in its original, translated form that related to a different topic. You can see all of the excerpts here. In my opinion, the language was generally difficult and contained words to which the students have probably not been exposed. Therefore, I wanted the students to work in groups so that they could use their peers to help them understand the concepts. Each group had to read through their excerpts, understand the meaning, take notes on the text, and come up with a way to present and teach the information to the class. Students were given 3 days to work on their projects and I floated around the room to assist them. On the 4th day, each group presented their work to the class.
This project combined the suggestions of group work and student as teacher. Since my inquiry project is about student autonomy, I decided that this activity was a good opportunity to give the students the chance to be creative and take charge of their learning. Students were allowed to choose their own groups, which they had not done in my classroom mentor’s class. (The next section of this paper will focus on how students reacted to working in groups.) I also told the students that they could use any method that they wished to teach the class about their topic to give them as much autonomy as possible.
It is important to note that although I tried to give the students complete autonomy, I inherently still had some control over their work. For example, I told the students that they had to work in a group and did not give them the option to work alone. Moreover, I assigned the excerpts to the groups based on their varying skill levels, instead of letting them choose the material. Finally, I also wanted the students to complete an oral presentation, as opposed to just submitting a paper. Despite these restrictions, I thought that this was still a good start to giving the students more of a say in classroom activities. I plan on using this experience as a way to prepare for future lessons. I will now discuss how two specific groups responded to this project.
This project combined the suggestions of group work and student as teacher. Since my inquiry project is about student autonomy, I decided that this activity was a good opportunity to give the students the chance to be creative and take charge of their learning. Students were allowed to choose their own groups, which they had not done in my classroom mentor’s class. (The next section of this paper will focus on how students reacted to working in groups.) I also told the students that they could use any method that they wished to teach the class about their topic to give them as much autonomy as possible.
It is important to note that although I tried to give the students complete autonomy, I inherently still had some control over their work. For example, I told the students that they had to work in a group and did not give them the option to work alone. Moreover, I assigned the excerpts to the groups based on their varying skill levels, instead of letting them choose the material. Finally, I also wanted the students to complete an oral presentation, as opposed to just submitting a paper. Despite these restrictions, I thought that this was still a good start to giving the students more of a say in classroom activities. I plan on using this experience as a way to prepare for future lessons. I will now discuss how two specific groups responded to this project.