TIMP SELF REFLECTION
February/March/April/May
Lynn M.N. Murakami

The opportunity to work together as a team was a definite plus! Having the knowledge and expertise of both our technology teacher and librarian allowed the group to pull all our resources and integrate our unit to it’s utmost. What we did lack however, was the time to meet and discuss. Although we often met afterschool, time quickly zipped by and there was never enough of it.

Our essential content goal was to have the students use the information researched to share what life was like in the colonies and to make the comparison between life back then and life as they know it now. As we got deeper into the project we realized that we needed to adjust our plan. We originally looked at doing research during the 1600’s. We discovered, however, that was too narrow a time period, extending the time period to the 1700’s would allow the students more options while still meeting the goal of having the students see how life in the colonies differs from life in the 21st century.

As teachers we all know that every year brings new experiences and challenges. The importance and necessity of adjusting our lessons to meet each student’s needs is constant. Never was this more clearly or blatantly obvious than while attempting to implement this lesson this year. Having done this unit once before and attempting to implement it a second time I’ve come to realize the necessity of being flexible and adjusting the lesson according to the needs of the students. Although we might not have been able to go as “in depth” with this project in terms of research and a final product. Thanks to the help of technology and Kelvin Chun, our technology teacher, I learned that my students could still be given the opportunity to have a “glimpse” into what life was like in the colonies without the extensive and intensive research and sharing involved. Ideally, the students would go through the whole research and presentation process, from finding not only information on the web, but using their research skills to find books and other materials as well. Their culminating activity would be a demonstration speech based on the information learned. This would allow students to improve their oral communication skills as well as share their knowledge gained, allowing the students to gain information not only on their topic but a number of topics, thus broadening their knowledge base.

Realizing that the opportunity to implement this unit as thoroughly as we would like exists for us again next year, as a team we are “re-thinking” the “set up” and time frame in which to complete this unit. Changes to be made include attempting to start the unit sooner and allowing reinforcement of information learned by first introducing research skills on a state regions project given during the first quarter and revisiting those skills in the second quarter with this Life in the Colonies project.


Although we were not thoroughly satisfied with the final product produced by the students, it was empowering to know that with the help, support and ideas of two other teachers, situations could be “re-worked” and “fixed”. It is always comforting to know that we are not alone when undertaking a new and unfamiliar task and that a support system and network of help does exist.