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Making the Industrial Revolution work for my students with Eric Schulz

Kathy Hays

March always means Industrialization in my World History class. I have shared about my Industrialization Unit before, but I have two tweaks from this year to share. 

First, I’m using the Images of the Industrial Revolution lesson as a small group activity. While the whole class completes the Origins of the Industrial Revolution Edpuzzle I assign in Google Classroom, I have a group of 4 or five students came up to the front. 

We use tables from the library with dry-erase marker and set each table up with numbers 1-5 on the top and a line across the middle. The word before is written above the line and the word after below the line. The images are put into page protectors and given to students who sort them into before and after industrialization groups. 

Once we have the before group completed, we try to come up with words to describe it.  Then, we move to the after-industrialization group. Finally, students try to match up the images (Printing with printing etc). I have not tried it but I wonder if it would work to have the group select a member or a pair to teach the next group and have students move around the room more.

The second adjustment I made was to the Urbanization Game. I hand the maps back the day next day and we annotate with the cultural advancements that altered the community. I really like doing this because it kept students engaged in their work and provide those who gave up a chance to add important information. As our closure, students drew a chart on the back of the map that they could use to consider the impact of industrialization on the environment, social impacts, technology, and the economy.  This helped me wrap this lesson up and provide some formative data.  

What do you have other groups do while working with a small group?  The term cultural advancements comes from my standards. It is tricky because advancements sounds positive and not all of these ideas had positive impacts.

  • What term do you use and how do you define it?   
  • How have you improved your teaching of the Industrial Revolution?

Share your thoughts and questions below.

  •  

    Thanks so much for this post. I use this activity also and add the small group instruction in a similar way. I give my students a graphi organizer broken down into Communities, Networks and Production/Distrubtion. Next, I have my students describe the communities before the Industrial Revolution and compare them with the after. I ask they focus on the changes and do them in the other frames. While I have my small group up others are working on their vocabulary terms for the unit. Lastly, I have students all compare their notes with each other as a class to see their observations. I really love the idea of using Ed Puzzle while you are giving small instruction as I use this also as a pre and post assessment tool. I will look into using this next year in the activity. 

  • Thanks for sharing your ideas Eric.  I use a lot of what you have shared over the years.  The Urbanization Game is one of my favorite activities to do with students.  Your method of handing the drawings back and having students annotate them got my interest.  I typically hang mine up (in fact, they've been up in my room since October) and I use them as a reference now and then.  I'm just curious, aren't the drawings kind of messy and a bit chaotic?  Are the students able to figure out what to annotate?  Do you use post-its? 

  • I love the adjustments you made to the urbanization game, Eric! I have never tried this activity out, but will be teaching industrialization very soon. I now plan on using this resource!

    I am currently reading Sapiens with my 10th graders. This book does a great job covering historic advancements, while at the same time, allowing students to ponder whether or not these advancements had positive impacts. I think that having students focus on the positive and negative impacts allows for a really meaningful conversation to happen. 

  • in reply to Todd Nussen

    The mess is the point, right.  I have to reassure lots of students with those words.  I have the students tape two larger sheets of paper together.   Most have room but they could alway flip the paper over and draw a simpler, “clean” map and annotate that.  The only trouble with sticky notes is they fall off.  

  • in reply to Adriane Musacchio

    i need to read that book,  

  • in reply to Jeffrey Boles

    I am glad this was helpful.  

  • Thank you  for presenting these activities. I like your idea of placing the images on a line and pairing them thematically. This is a good way to show the technological changes and reflect upon their impact on production, lifestyle, and urbanization. Something I have noticed in recent years is that not all my students know the meaning of words like "rural, urban, or textiles" so I use a lot of images, charts, and short video clips to introduce the concepts. In this part of the unit I introduce the concept of the assembly line and Taylorism with an adaptation of this activity. Here is a video of what we did in class. The article Smith, Marx, and Keynes adds nuances to this process (mainly the section on Karl Marx).

    6646.VID_20240322_092107212~2.mp4

  • in reply to Eric Schulz

    It's a great one! Fits right into the later half of Sapiens so easily - but also just really makes you think! If you are an audiobook person- I loved the audiobook as well!