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Teaching
points
Introduction:
tell
the students that the year is 1944. They have been given the
task of planning the liberation of Europe. They will receive
information sent by spies about the coastal defence structures
in place along each stretch of nazi occupied Europe and advice
from Military experts. using this information they must plan
and successfully implement the invasion of Europe.
Main
activity:
Students should open up the D Day activity.
Ensure that students are aware that they should not click
on any links until the entire page has loaded. Demonstrate
how to open each piece of information on the start up page
and remind students that there are pros and cons attached
to all of the possible landing sites. If students are being
asked to make notes, give details of what you want them to
do at this point.
Providing students with a realistic time limit for completion
of the activity will make the task more 'pressured' and a
little more realistic. 15 minutes should be more than enough
time for this. Students who are told that they have been replaced
as Commander in Chief can restart the activity, but ought
to be asked to make a note of why they were sacked and offer
some solutions that they could use in their next attempt.
Plenary
many
students within the group will, from my experiences at last,
fail miserably in their quest to liberate Europe. There are
only 3 or 4 routes through the activity that offer a positive
outcome of any description. students should be asked what
the strengths and weaknesses of each of the landing sites
were, be asked what obstacles were put in place by the German
forces and for those who failed at the last hurdle, ie on
the beaches, should be asked what they could have done differently.
After the plenary to the D Day activity the class would benefit
from being told what actually did happen on D Day. this could
be done using the activity to demonstrate what decisions were
made with brief explanations of why each decision was made.
Examples
of follow up activities that have been suggested by users
of this activity are:
'The
success of the D Day landings in June 1944 was down to luck
rather than design.' Discuss.
Source
based analysis of the landings.
Use
of videos on the landings and the construction of the Mulberry
Harbour's.
If
you have any comments about your use of the D day activity
please e-mail me to let me know how successful the activity
was. feedback will be of great use in the planning of future
activities of a similar nature.
Link
to D Day activity
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