Engaging Prospective Voters
By:  Brian Taylor

Project at a Glance :

Students will examine voting curriculum (history of voting rights and process of voting) from the League of Women Voters and suggest changes to make the material more engaging for a high school audience. This project will take approximately 2-3 weeks.

Driving Question:

How can we help young people become engaged and knowledgeable voters?

Standards:

• Civics: C6.2 Rights and Responsibilities in Civic Society (registering to vote and voting knowledgeably on candidates and issues)
• Students also worked on Employability Skills during this project including: collaboration communication

Team / Culture Building:

• Teams were built based on the True Heroes Protocol and Adobe Creative Types. ​

Entry Event:

• Members of the League of Women Voters "taught" a lesson to the class using their voter education curriculum and challenged my students to make improvements (more interesting and relevant). Their hope is to engage younger audiences more.

Stakeholders:

• They are a bit unique for this project as we are attempting to energize young voters.
• This could impact everyone: students, families, local community, schools, businesses, and the political landscape in the area 

Empathy Building:

• Stakeholders Map
• Empathy Map ​

• Students created empathy maps from a variety of perspectives. 

Inquiry / Need to Knows:

• The class used the Need to Know Protocol with post-it notes to imagine what it would look like if young people were prohibited from forming detailed political efficacy
• They also used the Anti-Problem Protocol for this part

Gaining Insights:

• Students dove into the material provided by the League of Women Voters and then made a list of Need to Knows before doing more research 

Incubation:

• 100 Idea Quota​​

• Saturage and Group​
• Rip, Slap, and Pass
• ​AI Protocol called Prompt the Problem

 Checking in:

• There was dedicated time for reflection built in throughout the process. 

• Groups were closely monitored with formative assessments daily. Daily participation notes were kept for attendance and "on-task" behaviors.
• Students were able to use Dot Voting after 100 Idea Quota and Saturate and Group protocols

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Solution Building:

• Students narrowed down their ideas using Dot Voting and NUF Test protocols.​​​

Critique and Revision: 

• Big Paper Protocol was used for groups to review ideas and leave comments
• Critical Friends

Authentic Audience:

• Members from the League of Women Voters
• District head of Instructional Technology
• School Board member

Solution Examples:

• 8 competing groups in 2 classes worked on the driving question. ​​

• Wheel of Fortune and Family Feud games were Solution examples​

• Virtual Reality Simulation of Voting was another solution example
• Other solutions examples included: presentations and short videos including: experiential voting activities and a history of voting rights 

Click here for teacher's full plan.
Reflection and Feedback:

• Students were assessed using recently created PBL rubrics
• Audience members used an evaluation and feedback form for feedback
• Students used Fishbowl protocol for project the reflection/celebration day

Authentic Audience giving feedback

Click here for the teacher's Journey through PBL on Padlet . . .

Meet the Educator:

​Brian is a 25-year- veteran social studies teacher who still likes to try new things :) He has taught an assortment of history and government classes at the secondary level (13 for those counting), but currently mostly Government (and AP Government) and IB World History at West Ottawa High School.



          "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." -- William Butler Yeats