ipts3

Standard Three | Diversity

**Knights and Samurai Unit** The artifact for this standard is a unit on Knights and Samurai, created collaboratively for a sixth grade world history classroom during my pre-student teaching experience. I chose to include the whole unit, from the introduction of both knights and samurai, to the ending project, in order to illustrate diversity over a unit. As a teacher, I try include different learning strategies for the students every day, but this may be more apparent by the variety of activities used in an entire unit.

The mini-unit on knights and samurai meets the standard because, as previously mentioned, it addresses the different ways in which students learn. The first day is about taking in auditory information from the teacher, but also requires students to organize information into Venn Diagrams. Once the initial information is given, students need to decide how the two warrior cultures are alike. Further into the unit, the students have to do a creative art and writing project using information learned in the previous lessons and extra information provided for the specific project. In this way, students have a chance to listen, write, read, and physically create an artifact that relates to the information learned.

As a teacher, it is important that I keep all of my students in mind when planning lessons and units. Each classroom is full of diverse learners and in order to address all of their needs, lessons must be broken up to adhere to the strengths of different students. Finally, I think an art project is a great way to wind down and allow the students to do something creative, which represents themselves.

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