Beyond-the-Basic Productivity Tools (BBPT)

Lesson Idea Name: Branches of Government

Content Area: Social Studies
Grade Level(s): 3rd

Content Standard Addressed: SS3CG1 Describe the elements of representative democracy/republic in the
United States.

Technology Standard Addressed: Knowledge Constructor: Students critically curate a variety of resources
using digital tools to construct knowledge, produce creative artifacts and make meaningful learning
experiences for themselves.

Selected Technology Tool: bubbl.us

URL(s) to support the lesson (if applicable): https://bubbl.us/

Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy Level(s):

☒ Remembering ☒ Understanding ☒ Applying ☒ Analyzing ☒ Evaluating ☒ Creating

Levels of Technology Integration:

☐ Infusion Level: Students may work at a higher Bloom’s Level, but they do not have any “Voice or Choice”
during the activity and most of the decisions are made by the teacher.

☒ Integration Level: We would like to see ALL lessons/activities reach this level. The project is student-
driven. Students have “Voice and Choice” in the activities, selecting the topic of study and determining the
technology tool to demonstrate mastery of the standard. The teacher becomes more of a facilitator.
☐ Expansion Level: The projects created are shared outside of the classroom, publishing student work and
promoting authorship. This could be reached by showcasing the project on the school’s morning
newscast, posting the project to the classroom blog, or publishing via an outside source.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL):

Engagement: When creating mind maps, bubbl.us allows the students to format their map any way they like.
They will get to choose which color to make each bubble and what color or font the text should be. This will
keep students engaged as they have some creative freedom here.

Representation: The students will be allowed to discover information about their topic in any way they
choose. They can watch videos online, they can read books from library, or they can search through websites
on the Internet.

Action and Expression: Students can choose how they would like to organize their research into a concept
map. They can choose how to split the information into subtopics and what information to include for each
one.

Lesson idea implementation:

This lesson will serve as an introductory lesson into the Branches of Government. The teacher will introduce
bubbl.us and demonstrate how the student should create their own mind maps. The students will then be
split into groups, each group will have a different branch: Legislative, Executive, Judicial (Branches of Federal
Government) Executive: Governor, Legislative: Georgia General Assembly, and Judicial: Supreme Court of
SBooker, 2020
 Beyond-the-Basic Productivity Tools (BBPT)
Georgia (Branches of State Government). In their groups, students will research their branch through the
Internet and library books to find the responsibilities of each branch and who makes it up. This should take
the students about 30 minutes.

The students will then have an additional 30 minutes to create a mind map of their topic on bubbl.us. They
will add the information they found to see the relationships between the people in the branch and the
responsibilities. Once students have finished, the mind maps will be posted on a classroom blogs and the
students will read through each groups product. They will also be able to refer back to these as needed
throughout the unit.

Reflective Practice:
This lesson is designed as an introduction lesson. I think a good way to extend this lesson and promote high
order thinking is to create new groups with one student from each topic in each group. Then the students can
plan, create, and edit a movie where they act as each branch and show the responsibilities of each and how
they are connected. This would be student lead and students will have a lot of creative choice. These videos
can then be shown to the class, other classes, and even parents. This could also increase LoTI levels.

SBooker, 2020