This unit on the Russian Revolution was a great opportunity for me to let go a little and see what my students can do. The assignment was a personal project on anything related to their interest and life in the Soviet Union.
The form below is a copy of what I had students submit. This allowed them to think about their interests in a step-by-step process, which teaches them what it takes to find a topic for term papers, for example.
I was excited with the results because everything I was going to teach in the same old way was addressed through the plurality of the student presentations (see highlights below).
They are not perfect, of course, but it only took a class period (77 minutes) for individuals to work on the presentations and two class periods to present -- time well spent.
Students received grades and actionable feedback via Google Classroom, and I used this highlights slide show (below) to debrief the whole project.
