Term

Summer 2022

Capstone

Capstone Project

Degree Name

MAT

Facilitator(s)

Abigail Rombalski

Content Expert

Anna Penner

Abstract

This capstone paper and project seek to answer the question: How can the Minnesota Historical Society’s History Day program be differentiated and adapted for sixth-grade students? Feedback from teachers has found that there is a level of difficulty in the implementation of the project-based learning program, History Day, at the sixth-grade level. Sixth-grade is the group with the lowest participation in the program, and therefore has the fewest grade-appropriate resources available. The website designed for this capstone project focuses on interweaving the theories of Gloria Ladson Billings’ culturally relevant pedagogy to connect the History Day projects with working towards equity in the classroom. Through the work of Ladson Billings and the research from PBLWorks, I discovered that project-based learning projects can be excellent tools to assist in creating an equitable environment in the classroom. For that reason, this website intends to provide resources and information that can assist teachers in the implementation of History Day in their sixth-grade Minnesota Studies classroom. In addition to utilizing the culturally relevant pedagogy framework, this website grounds the History Day projects in Native American history; the goal being to further assist teachers in not only meeting Minnesota sixth-grade social studies standards, but also to strive towards incorporating more culturally authentic and representative material to meet gaps found by the Restoring Our Place report that was put out by the Understanding Native Minnesota campaign in 2022.

Project Type

Website Creation

Keywords

Achievement, Project-Based Learning

dc_type

text

dc_publisher

DigitalCommons@Hamline

dc_format

application/pdf

dc_source

School of Education Student Capstone Projects

Included in

Education Commons

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