KAITLIN BARNES
HOLOCAUST VIRTUAL FIELD TRIP
As a reading teacher, I use our class novels to expose my students to different cultures, time periods, and ways of life. By sharing a book, we also share a common experience that we can learn from, connect with, and refer back to throughout the year. Our fourth class novel, Making Bombs for Hitler, centers on the experiences of a Ukranian girl who is captured and forced to work in a Nazi prison camp. Many of my students had a limited understanding of the Holocaust prior to reading this book, so it was important that I provide them with historical information and context to help them better comprehend the text. In order to help my students better understand the setting of this novel, I designed a virtual field trip that would allow them to access primary sources from the Holocaust at their own pace.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Planning the Virtual Field Trip
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PLANNING THE VIRTUAL FIELD TRIP
I would have loved to take my students to the Holocaust Museum in Houston, but because that museum is closed as it moves to a new location, the virtual field trip was a way for students to gather the same benefits from the comfort of our classroom. Our virtual field trip took place several days after we began reading Making Bombs for Hitler. I purposefully waited a few days because I wanted my students to be able to make connections between our novel characters and what they viewed during the field trip. In addition to reading and discussing the beginning of the novel, I gave my students important historical context about this time period by showing them a PowerPoint and discussing key leaders. Our novel makes reference to these leaders throughout the text and I wanted them to have that background knowledge while reading.
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Above is the PowerPoint that I used to introduce the key political leaders during this time period. Students talked with their table partners about who they recognized and then I explained how the leaders were connected. On the last slide, I also made a reference to the character Lida in our book to help students better internalize the new information.
The virtual field trip allowed students to hear from Holocaust survivors and explore the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam. Students took notes on our questions graphic organizer to help them keep track of what they were thinking during the virtual field trip.
When designing the virtual field trip, I started out by identifying what issues I wanted to highlight for my students. We had already watched a BrainPop video that gave us an overview of the Holocaust, and we had explored Holocaust pictures, graphs, and charts as part of our text features study. Students had a basic understanding of what the Holocaust was, which allowed me to focus on parts of this time period that were less familiar to them. Many of my students are visual and auditory learners, so I knew that I wanted this virtual field trip to be as interactive as possible. I decided to split my field trip into three different sections: video interviews with Holocaust survivors, a 3D virtual tour of the Anne Frank house, and artifacts from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. I also had to be cognizant of which resources and artifacts would be appropriate to include for my fifth graders. I previewed all of the survivor videos to ensure that the content and language was age-appropriate, and I repeated the process with the Anne Frank house website and the USHMM artifacts, hosted by the Google Arts and Culture project.
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Next, I used our district's online interface to share the links and guiding questions for my students. Once my students logged in during class, they would be able to see the links and explore the resources at their own pace. At this point in the school year, my classroom is 1-1 and each student has their own Chromebook. 12 of these computers were purchased by my school, and the remaining 10 were secured through a Teach for America grant I applied for and was awarded.
This is what students saw after logging on to our district's HUB, where teachers can share assignments and links with students. Students were able to explore the resources at their own pace, and I included guiding questions (highlighted) for them to think about.
After introducing the virtual field trip to my students and explaining how this activity would work, I gave students 35 minutes to explore the resources. As they explored, they jotted down at least three questions that they had about a resource or resources that they viewed. The question graphic organizer matched a mini-lesson that we had earlier in the day about how to develop thin, thick, and deep questions about a text or topic. This question organizer helped keep students accountable for how they were spending their time, and helped me check for understanding because I was able to see what students were focused on during the virtual field trip.
This student is above grade-level in reading and was able to formulate six questions. She is an ELL and still struggles a little bit with English semantics, but her deep grasp of the material is evident.
This student is slightly below grade level in reading and was also able to develop six questions while participating in the virtual field trip.
This student is on grade-level in reading and developed three questions, including one deep questions that focused on whether or not the German soldiers should have followed Hitler's orders.
This ELL student is well below grade level in reading and clearly still struggles with English semantics, but her questions make sense and display a thorough understanding of the Anne Frank resource.
Finally, after the virtual field trip had ended, students completed a written reflection sheet to process some of their thoughts and reactions about this activity. I often use written reflections after experiential learning activities to help me see what students took away from the activity. For this virtual field trip, students reflected on where they spent most of their time and why; what surprised them; and what they learned. I also included a question about what they would be interested in learning more about. This set our class up for our independent inquiry projects, in which students explored an aspect of the Holocaust or World War II and chose how to demonstrate their learning.
This ELL student is below grade-level in reading but her understanding of the material on the virtual field trip is still clear despite English grammar and spelling mistakes.
This student is below grade-level in reading and repeated some of her thoughts for multiple questions, but her final research question shows an understanding of the moral dilemma of publishing Anne Frank's diary without her permission.
This student is above grade-level in reading and was interested in learning more about World War II battles, which he explored in his independent inquiry project following the virtual field trip.
This student is on grade-level in reading and was able to make a connection to our class novel in her response to the first question. She remembered that the Nazis in our novel gave the prisoners food and water in buckets and connected that to what she saw in the USHMM artifacts collection.
Students used the virtual field trip to identify the areas they were interested in researching for their inquiry research projects. These two students were inspired by the Holocaust survivor videos they viewed and conducted additional research in order to write letters from the perspective of a survivor.
Overall, the virtual field trip was successful in exposing my students to primary sources connected to our class novel that they would not have had access to otherwise. Setting up the virtual field trip was the next best thing after visiting the Holocaust museum in person, and the fact that each student had their own computer allowed them to explore the resources that interested them the most at their own pace, allowing for a more individualized and differentiated experience. Having students jot down thin, thick, and deep questions helped hold them accountable and prepared them for the inquiry research they would start the following week, while the written reflection allowed me to see what the major takeaways were from this experience. In the future, I will try to design a virtual field trip for each of our class novels because many of them take place during time periods or in settings that are foreign to my students. Allowing them to explore the setting of the book will result in better comprehension and an increased understanding of the challenges facing the characters.