UDL Model Lesson Plan

Title:
Education and the Government
Content Area: ESL/Social Studies
Grade: 5th
Standards and
Evidence Outcomes:

Objectives:

Resources,
Materials, and
Key Vocabulary:

Duration: 1 hour/day for 5

days
Students will understand that there is a federal and state level of
government. They will learn about the Colorado Department of Education
and the national Department of Education and the power the two entities
hold in making decisions about the educational rights and privileges of
adults (specifically immigrants).
CDE 5th Grade State Standard: Civics Students will learn about the
origins, structure, and functions of the United States government.
Students will understand that there is a federal and state level of
government. They will learn about the Colorado Department of Education
and the national Department of Education and the power the two entities
hold in making decisions about the educational rights and privileges of
adults (specifically immigrants).
Resources/Materials
Guest speakers Possibly state and local politicians (i.e. the city
mayor, a congress representative, a school board member, someone
from the department of education, etc.)This resource will most likely
take place after the initial discussion when students have already
activated their background knowledge and learned some
introductory information in to the topic.
-If they visit, I will ask them to make an outline for students to
fill in electronically, or by hand
- Sign language will be provided for those who are deaf, and for
those unable to write or type, the outline will be filled in for them, and the
guest will be videotaped for students who miss their presentation.

Government Games. Retrieved from: http://kids.usa.gov/playgames/government/index.shtml

- this web site has some pages explaining the difference
between state and federal governments and the history behind this
distinction),
Citizenship (2000). Retrieved from: http://bensguide.gpo.gov/35/citizenship/index.html
- this site talks about citizenship, which will be key to the big
picture of the challenge-based learning project.
-Screen readers will be put in place for those who are blind, any
quadriplegics will be given the assistive technology they need such
as a mouth controller, and those who are deaf will receive
captioning on the computers for when they are researching the
levels of government
Local and national news (newspapers, magazines, radio and

broadcast news) to provide real-world examples of how the two

levels of government operate
-Because of the internet, these news sources can be accessed with
assistive technology that will help students with disabilities access
the same information as everyone else.
Visuals such as the one below that can help with distinction between
federal and state governments

Image Citation:
ST9 Federal System. Retrieved from:
http://go.hrw.com/ndNSAPI.nd/gohrw_rls1/pKeywordResults?
ST9%20Federal%20System
A map of the United States, and a map of Colorado, maybe election
maps
-In providing this visual, the blind naturally will have trouble
gaining information. Perhaps the state and national maps we
provide could be offered in a way that allows students to feel the
boundaries and state lines so they can make the distinction. Same
with visuals such as the one above. If Braille is not accessible,
perhaps the student could start at the right and work his way to the
left while listening to the responsibilities under each branch of
government.
Field Trips City Council, State Capitol, observing a local court (or
viewing a video of a court session)
Families send questions home with students to talk about with
their families about government decisions, elections, local, state,
and national issues.
-For families who are not as familiar with the United States
government, perhaps their parents could offer insights in to the
countries where they grew up for their children to share with the
class.
Clickers for students to vote electronically at the end of the final
project.
Key Vocabulary
Federal Government
State Government
Congress/ Congressman and Congresswoman
Senate/ Senator
Supreme Court/ Supreme Court Justice
President/Vice President
Government Branches (Judicial, Legislative, and Executive)

Differentiation
(Adaptive and/or
Extension
Activities):

Preparing Students
for the Lesson:
Transitions
Expected
Behaviors

Laws
Elections
Vote/ Voter
Democracy
Mayor
Jurisdiction
Politics/Politician/Political
Citizen
Civic Participation
Citizen Rights
School Board
Secretary of Education
*Since much of the lesson is based on collaboration and teamwork among
peers, the opening and closing of the lesson are areas where we can offer the
most differentiation.
-With the opening activities, the word search could be easily
differentiated. Lower performing students could search for the most basic of
vocabulary, average performing students could search for every work in the
vocabulary list, and the advanced students can find and work on defining
every word in the vocabulary list. The same applies with the matching game
everyone will have to do the most basic pairings, and they will become
more advanced after that.
-For the closure activity where students have to create a law that they
want to be passed, the lower performing students will be given a broad topic
and an outline to create their argument, that will typically allow for a shorter
presentation. The average students will have to come up with their own law,
but will still be given an outline to help them find the correct information.
Advanced students will have to come up with a law and a presentation
without an outline to guide their thinking, and their presentations will be
longer than those of the lower performing students.
o The transition in to the beginning of the lesson could be a sensitive
topic to some students, depending on their experiences and taught
perceptions of law enforcement. During this transition, it will be
important to encourage all students to be sensitive to one another.
o Introduction: 30 minutes, Day # 1 -I do expect that transitioning in
to the background knowledge will be smooth, especially with the
first activity. The word search will inspire confidence in student
ability, and will increase students sense of self-efficacy. The word
search and grouping activities should be quiet activities that are noncontroversial and easy to manage. Before we begin these activities,
however, we will discuss the reason for studying this lesson in hopes
to motivate students to take an interest in what we are about to learn.
o New Material: 30 minutes, Day # 1, 1 hour on Days 2 and 3 - In
the next part of the lesson, students will actually begin to learn new
material. As always, there could be some initial confusion and
frustration if students do not get the right answer right away. They

may also argue over which is the right answer. As we transition in to

this section, it will be important to encourage patience and
acceptance by all students, as well as an attitude of perseverance.
o Project Work Time: 1 hour on Day 4 - For the closure activities, I
expect that students will work very hard on their presentations since
they have to present them to the rest of the class. Some of the
individual work will be done at home, but they will also be given
class time to work on their assignments.
o Final Presentations: 1 hour on Day 5 - During the presentations,
students may be anxious and nervous to do their public speaking,
and if their law is not voted in, they may feel badly. Therefore it will
be important to continue emphasizing the need for a supportive
environment, positive feedback from myself as the teacher, and
constant reassurance that no matter their level, them doing their
personal best is the most important thing.
Teaching the Lesson
(Lesson Sequence/
Activities):

Motivation/
Anticipatory Set

Pre-Assessment/
Activating
Background
Knowledge

Teacher Input,
Modeling, &
Checking for
Understanding

Guided Practice

Independent
Practice

Closure

For motivation, we will begin the lesson talking about laws, law
enforcement, law creation, and the reason that we have laws. We
will compare laws to school rules. This will be done primarily with a
classroom discussion where students can share their experiences and
background knowledge about rules and laws to help them see why
the new information will be relevant for them. As the discussion
continues, we will introduce the new federal and state government
section. Sign language available for deaf students.
Pre-Assessment/Activating Background Knowledge After the
discussion, students will perform a word search. The same word
search will be entered in to the computer with a read-aloud feature
that will read the letters across each row from top to bottom for
students who are blind. Students will also do a matching game that
will provide visuals for them to keep about the different levels of
government. (i.e., the school board would be matched with local
government, U.S. Department of Education would be matched with
federal government, etc.). For students who are blind, the matching
game will be entered on the computer, and when an item is clicked
on, it will be read out loud, as well as what the item is about to be
matched with as the student approaches a possible match. These will
be done among groups of students working together.
Teacher Input, Modeling, and Checking for Understanding For the
previous activity, I will be able to discern where we need to pick up
based on how students did in this last activity. Based on student
answers and perceived understanding, we can either work together
on the new material as one large group, or we can divide in to
groups so that students can explore the meaning behind our key
vocabulary, prepare for our field trips, and learn the relevance of the
information to their lives and the challenge based project within
their general skill levels. If there are varying levels of skill and
background knowledge, I would group students according to their

Assessment
Formative
and/or
Summative

Must align

ability levels, giving them skill-level appropriate assignments. In

these groups, students collaborate to reach higher understanding,
although there would not be explicit roles that the students would
need to fulfill such as recorder, spokesperson, etc.
Guided Practice As I activate background knowledge, I am going
to give students examples of laws (both related to education and
non-related to education), and I am going to classify them as local,
state or federal laws while explaining my reasoning. This will be the
I do section of the lesson. The students will then get a list of
scenarios, and they will vote on which level of government would
handle that particular rule or law (i.e. which level of government
would determine high school diploma requirements, which level of
government would determine school funding). This would be
classified as the we do section of the lesson. After the smaller
groups or big group vote on all of the scenarios, we will go over the
correct answers, and the logic behind the correct answers. The
scenarios and answers will be displayed in writing as well as
verbally to accommodate deaf or hard of hearing students.
Independent Practice After our classroom activity, students will be
asked to come up with a law that they want to pass that is related to
education (i.e. school funding, school uniforms, mandatory school
hours, etc.). They must describe the law itself, why they want it to be
implemented, and which level of government would be responsible
for introducing and possibly implementing the law. This could be
presented via an essay, an audio recording, a graphic map or flow
chart. This project will become a presentation, and students will
practice their democratic rights once again by voting via individual
student clickers (if available) on whether or not they want each
law passed. The assignment will be graded based on whether or not
the student was able to justify the level of government that would
need to implement the law.
Closure After reviewing the presentations and having the class
vote, students will be asked to show geographically how to find the
federal, state, and local government constituencies, and demonstrate
their reach of power in comparison to others on a map. They will be
graded on whether or not they can correctly define the reach of the
different levels of government. For blind students, they may do this
via a computer mapping system where the computer will read aloud
the location on the map that the mouse is currently occupying. This
will assess knowledge and provide opportunities to clarify anything
that is still confusing for students.
1. Students can demonstrate their knowledge of federal and state level
differences by (a) answering multiple choice questions (b) providing a short
answer of the difference they can identify, or (b) show on a map the
constituency of the federal government and the constituency of the state
government or (c) explain the difference verbally. The day before the test,
students will be asked to mark the way that they would like to demonstrate
this knowledge. Then I can plan accordingly.

with stated
objectives
Notes & Reflections:

2. Students can match the educational institutions (i.e. school board,

Colorado Department of Ed., and U.S. Department of Education with the
different levels of government).
In creating the last part of this lesson, I realized that there are many
opportunities for students to feel insecure about presenting their law, having
their law voted down, or even just trying to grasp the concept of the
different levels of government. That being the case, I will have to pay
special attention to the environment and place large value in having a
positive attitude towards others so they are willing to take a risk.