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Erick Potter
Project
Summary
Jasper-Troupsburg Central School
TAH Project
Proposal
Submitted by
Erick Potter
Jasper-Troupsburg High School
Purpose and Objective: The
purpose and objective for this project is to have the students
actively engage in following the presidential transition that will
take place after the election
Stakeholders: This project is
intended for juniors and seniors who are either enrolled in a
Regents U.S. History and Government course or an ACE U.S. History
course.
U.S. History Content Area: This
project deals with the structure and function of the government of
the United States with particular emphasis on the executive branch.
The legislative branch will be explored only within the context of
the Senate’s role in cabinet position confirmations. This project
will align to the New York State Learning Standards for social
studies; specifically it will correlate with the standards
pertaining to the history of the United States and New York and
civics, citizenship, and government.
Outline Describing Content:
-
To introduce this lesson, students will
complete a web quest where they will identify the members of the
president’s cabinet. Students will construct a hierarchical
diagram showing each cabinet position in the order of the
presidential line of succession. This diagram will be created
using Inspiration.
-
Students will research the duties of each
cabinet official, create a PowerPoint presentation outlining
their findings, and present their results to the class.
-
Students will follow the presidential
transition process and keep a portfolio of candidates proposed
for each cabinet position by the president-elect. Students will
be required to research each candidate and prepare a short bio
for each person. As cabinet officials are confirmed by the
Senate, students will place their name and picture on the
diagram they created at the beginning of the lesson. This
process will be ongoing until the cabinet has been completely
filled in.
-
Students will watch The West Wing
episode “The Last Hurrah” and discuss the likelihood of the
losing presidential candidate joining the president-elect’s
cabinet as depicted on the show. Students will be encouraged to
critically evaluate reasons why the show’s writers decided to
make this plot choice.
Software to be used, Internet materials,
etc.: This lesson will require an Internet search engine for
the webquest (i.e. Google), Microsoft PowerPoint, Inspiration, and
ActivStudio software for the final presentation on an Activboard.
The DVD of The West Wing season seven will also be required.
Level of Student Involvement:
Students will be heavily involved in the research, setup, and
presentation of this project. The instructor will serve as an
advisor and guide while the students engage in discovery learning
throughout the course of the project.
Evaluation Process: Students
will be evaluated by the instructor on the following criteria:
-
Class participation and discussion
-
Time on task
-
Accuracy of the information
-
The quality of the presentation and
diagrams
District Approvals: The only
approval needed to complete this project will be permission to view
The West Wing.
Journal for
TAH Project
Erick Potter
Jasper-Troupsburg High School
Eleventh
Grade U.S. History and Government
Phase 1:
·
Students created their
hierarchical diagrams of the cabinet according to the presidential
line of succession very successfully. Students were easily able to
find information necessary to complete this aspect of the project.
The White House website proved very helpful to students.
·
Students were able to
create PowerPoint presentations that outlined the duties of each
cabinet official. I was very pleased with the outcome and the final
student presentations. Students did an excellent job with their
presentations. Many students seem very excited about the incoming
Obama administration.
Phase 2:
·
My original intention
for this portion of the project was to have the students take time
and thoroughly research each cabinet nominee as they were confirmed
by the Senate. The transition and the choice of cabinet officials
seems to be taking place with unprecedented speed due to the onset
of the economic crisis.
·
Students are feeling
somewhat overwhelmed with the rapid progression of the transition.
I am considering a more condensed version of the research process
for cabinet nominees.
·
I have decided that I
will only require students to research the final nominee for each
cabinet post rather than all candidates due to the rapid speed of
the transition. I have decided that I would rather have students
more thoroughly research the final nominee for each cabinet post so
that they may have a better understanding of the new cabinet as it
comes together. It would have been nice if they could have
researched all possible candidates but that is not proving to be
practical.
·
Students have finished
their research on the final cabinet nominees. There has been some
“excitement” in this process because a couple of the cabinet
nominees have had to withdraw their names from consideration.
Students have had no difficulty in placing the picture of each
cabinet official on the diagram they created in phase one.
Phase 3:
·
Students watched an
episode of The West Wing today called “The Last Hurrah.”
Prior to watching this episode, students were asked what they think
the losing presidential candidate does after the election. Student
responses were compiled on the board. Some responses were pretty
amusing. Students were asked to keep this question in mind as they
watched The West Wing. Because the episodes run about 40
minutes, it will have to be concluded during the next class.
·
Today students finished
watching The West Wing episode “The Last Hurrah.” In this
episode, the losing presidential candidate agreed to become the
Secretary of State under the new administration. The class
discussed whether or not this could happen in an Obama
administration. Students seemed to think that there is little
likelihood that John McCain would join an Obama cabinet. Students
were surprised to learn that Senator McCain met with President Obama
and pledged to work with him when possible. Students were asked to
decide why the show’s writers included this plot twist. The
consensus was that this is to show the American people how this type
of move by the losing presidential candidate could potentially
benefit the nation by bringing people together. This activity
served as the concluding activity for this project.
TAH Project
Reflection
Erick Potter
Jasper-Troupsburg
High School
Eleventh Grade U.S.
History and Government
My TAH project this year involved
students following the presidential transition. I feel it is
important for students to know about incoming presidential
administrations but the historic nature of this election made it all
the more important in my opinion. If there is one thing that comes
to mind after completing this project, it is the phrase “never take
anything for granted.”
As long as
I can remember, presidential transitions have been long and drawn
out. I felt this would be a good opportunity for students to really
get a feel for the different candidates being considered for each
cabinet post and have a good grasp of “who’s who” at the uppermost
levels of our government. I had visions of the students developing
detailed portfolios for each candidate and having the class compare
them to see who was most qualified. If this had been a “normal”
transition, this would have worked wonderfully.
Because of
the onset of the economic crisis, this was perhaps one of the
quickest and most efficient presidential transitions in recent
American history. It seemed as we started out on this project that
then President-Elect Obama had chosen most of his cabinet
secretaries before we even really had a chance to start examining
the candidates! Students seemed overwhelmed as the flow of
information poured in. Instead of closely examining each potential
candidate as I had originally imagined, I changed tactics in
mid-stream and turned it into a learning opportunity. We used the
rapid pace of the presidential transition to discuss how times of
national crisis (in this case economic) can lead to the government
moving more quickly than normal. Our class was still able to
examine the people in the presidential cabinet but only the final
nominees instead of the full range of candidates as I had wanted to
do at the outset.
Despite
the small problem of a more rapid presidential transition than I had
anticipated, the end results of the project were very positive. I
was very pleased with the work that students produced. I was also
very pleased to see that students were enthused about the incoming
Obama administration. I think this enthusiasm was one of the
reasons why their final products were of good quality. At the
conclusion of this project, students seemed to have a good grasp of
President Obama’s cabinet.
To
conclude this project, I showed students an episode of The West
Wing entitled “The Last Hurrah.” This episode dealt with the
question of what happens to the losing presidential candidate. To
introduce this episode, I had students brainstorm what they thought
the losing presidential candidate did at the conclusion of the
campaign. After watching The West Wing, students were
surprised to see that the show’s writers depicted the losing
candidate joining the incoming administration as Secretary of
State. We discussed the likelihood of John McCain joining the Obama
administration. The class agreed that there was little likelihood
of this happening. However, we also discussed why the writers may
have chosen to include this plot twist. It was decided that it was
more of a message to the American people about the benefits of
coming together for the common good as opposed to being true to
life.
Overall, I
think this project was very successful even if it did require some
modification of the initial plan. I think that the end result was
greater student interest in presidential politics. Students also
gained a good working knowledge of President Obama’s cabinet. With
these students becoming eligible to vote in the near future, I think
that this project served as a motivator to get students interested
in government so that they can make informed decisions as voters.
The next time there is a change of a presidential administration,
I will use this project because it worked very well.
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