The Decades Project required students to put together a presentation about one specific decade in American history. Over the course of the project, we had to come up with at least a paragraph of information on a designated topic, such as the president at the time, cultural aspects, wars, ect. Once all the slides were completed, it was simply a matter of putting together a final presentation, and presenting it to the class. We had to have all the information we learned memorized for said presentation, and it had to last at least ten minutes.
Reflection
The 21st century skill that I felt best reflected this project was the Global Awareness skill. While this skill does focus on learning about cultures and events outside of ones own country, I feel it still applies here. The culture of America in the 1920s, the decade I chose to cover for this project, was vastly different from todays culture. Not only that, but I did learn about major impacts that American culture had on the world in that time. Overall, it was a very interesting project that allowed me to learn a lot.
As for what went well with this project, I would just say I enjoyed it. With the freedom to choose which decade to research, I actually got to take the time to learn about something that interested me. A large portion of this project was independent work, and that really let me reach out. It was just overall really interesting and enjoyable, which allowed me to make a more thoroughly researched presentation.
If I could do this project over again, I would have practiced my presentation more before hand. I was able to meet the time criteria, and then some. I just feel as though I could have been more organized. During my presentation, I went on a few tangents of information that, while still interesting, wasn't really relevant. If I would have gone over the presentation, and made a more organized script.