Education in The US
For the Grouping Assignment, students will pick between two options. Then submit their work via the Blackboard portal.
Option (A): 20th Century Timeline
1) Grouping: Using the 20th Century Timeline, analyze the information looking for any data clusters of blocks that catch your attention. Or, you might want to grab a single block of data and jump from there.
2) Patterns: Now, take a step back and look; what does the information table tell you? What events in time surround your data block(s)? Do you see a logical pattern that leads the creation of that event? Do we see any unusual activity accompanying your data block(s)? Discern where we have holes, see trends, and assess if the information is reliable. What outside research do you have to perform to answer these questions?
3) Summary: After evaluating the patterns, write a summary of your process to determine a logical conclusion. Your overview should begin with a thesis of sorts.
For example: The ___insert data cluster___ shows that when ___ this ____ happened, ___that___ happened, meaning __insert brief reason__.
Your overview should explain to the class what patterns you found, how you found them, and what logical conclusion you drew. We want to see the process you took as much as we want to know the ending. Meaning, after you group the items, what does that information tell us? Why would a simple exercise of ‘grouping things I like’ help my learning style? Is there a message to be learned from this exercise? Have you gathered enough information to make a valid assumption about me? Did you design a classification scheme to help build your groups? Did you need to search more areas? Have you fallen into a trap where everything is the same? 4)
Submit your work using any visual means, i.e., Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, Microsoft Word, PPT, or Excel. If you use a cloud-based document, be sure to turn on sharing mode. If the document is locked to viewers, and I can’t grade it, welp … Use the Rubric to ensure you hit all your requirements. The final product should include visual references of the grouped data, a few paragraphs discussing what information means and how we should interpret the data you are trying to convince exists.