EDCI 270: Marie Cinatl

Timeline of a Hoosier
Adapted from Lisa Heatons Indiana History Timeline.1

Overview
of the
Lesson
Learners

Learning
Goals
Lesson
Content
Learning
Objective
Standards

This fourth grade lesson is meant to be a follow up to a unit on

the Industrial Revolution (See standard 4.1.9). Students will
create a timeline using Dipity about the life of a significant
historical figure that lived in the late 1800s.
Intended learners are fourth graders in Indiana public schools.
They have completed three or four years of public schooling
already, and are in classrooms with about 20 students each. The
students are from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds. All
students have been issued iPads to take with them to and from
school, and these iPads have hotspot capabilities. (Taken from
the other two Web 2.0 lesson plans.) Students have also used
Dipity on several previous occasions.
Students will use independent researching skills to learn more
about the life and impact of a significant Hoosier during the time
of the Industrial Revolution. They will also learn to identify
when one or more events cause another.
Content is flexible based on what historical figure is chosen by
the student. However, students will include the Hoosiers
involvement in important events or movements in the Industrial
Revolution.
1. Given previous discussions and teacher guidance, find
and evaluate three biographical sources that are reliable.
2. Given two example timelines, put 13 of 15 important
historical events in correct chronological order to show
cause and effect.
This lesson covers the following Indiana standard:
4.1.15: Create and interpret timelines that show relationships
among people, events, and movements in the history of Indiana.

http://users.manchester.edu/Student/lmheaton/ProfWeb/Indiana%20History%20Lesson.pdf

Required
Materials

Teachers will need a Dipity account and an e-board/whiteboard.

Students will need iPads with hotspot capability (or if
unavailable, access to internet capable computers at home) and
Dipity accounts.
This lesson takes almost two hours of class time to complete,
with 50 minutes of initial instruction and one hour long session
of individual student progress meetings/work time.

Procedures

Day 1:
1. Create an e-board slide with text boxes of steps to buying
a pet. Save this e-board slide for a class activity.
2. Choose a group of three to five students to come to the eboard and move the text boxes so that the steps to buying
a pet are in order. Then ask the class if they can see any
steps that led to another. Ask if there are steps that
allowed another. Ask for students definitions of a cause
and effect relationship.
3. Introduce the timeline project, telling the students that
they must choose a Hoosier that lived during the
Industrial Revolution (the unit just studied) and create a
timeline of their life using Dipity.
4. Project requirements: Students should find three reliable
sources and add 15 important events from their persons
life onto the Dipity timeline. For three of these events,
students should write in the description what other events
caused them. The description of the timeline should
include the URL of the three (or more) sources. When
finished, the student should email a link of the timeline to
the teacher.
5. Ask students to remember strategies to find information
on the internet, and give students three Internet searching
tasks (finding specific information such as where
someone lived, what event someone was a part of, and
what political office someone held) to complete on their
iPads. Ask students what strategies they used.
6. Then the teacher helps the class brainstorm a list of
people that lived during the late 1800s, allowing students
to use their iPads to look up people.
7. Ask students to select a Hoosier. More than one student

Procedures
Continued

Assessmen
t

may research a famous person. Ask students to consider

what made the person famous and why this person is
important to them. Send a sign-up sheet around the
classroom for students to write their name and the name
of their famous Hoosiers.
8. If students are undecided, they must select someone for
homework and sign up first thing the next morning.
Day 2:
1. Instruct students to use the next hour of class time to work
on their Dipity timelines. If they have not found their
sources by this day, students should have the goal of
having all three sources by the end of the work session.
2. Allow students to use the full space of the classroom
while using their iPads, laying on the floor, sitting in the
reading corner, standing, or using their desks like normal
as long as they stay quiet. If the class becomes too noisy,
have students move back to their desks.
3. The teacher will during this time walk to each student and
ask how their timeline is progressing, spending just a few
minutes with each student. Who are they researching?
Have they found their sources? If so, how much have they
done on their timeline? Do they have any questions about
how to complete the project? If they have not finished,
when do they plan to get their work done?
4. Remind students of the timeline due date (recommended
two to three days from the work day.) Ask students to
come in during recess for an extra credit point if they
think they need more work time.
1. Students will email the teacher a link to their Dipity
timeline, which will have 3 reliable sources (5 pts. each),
15 events (1 pt. for each event and 1 pt. for its correct
location along the timeline), and 3 cause-effect
explanations (5 pts. each) for a total of 60 pts.
2. Students will receive 10 pts. for good use of class time
during Day 2. They may also have received 1 extra credit
point for coming in during recess to work on the timeline
(so long as time was used well.)

References

http://users.manchester.edu/Student/lmheaton/ProfWeb/Indiana
%
20History%20Lesson.pdf
The student profile is replicated from my previous lesson plans.