Student Learning Objectives:
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1. Students will view and analyze film
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2. Students will indentify reasons why people obey orders
Do Now: When students enter the classroom, they should take out their journals. They should spend 5 minutes silently responding to the following prompt:
Why do people obey orders?
Lesson Development:
1. At the end of the do now, student should share out their ideas. The teacher should list on the board the reasons students come up with. Students should copy the reasons into their journal.
2. The teacher should then spend a few minutes introducing the film. The following facts should be listed on the board:
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a. The Milgram Experiments were conducted at Yale University in the early 1960s.
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b. Milgram wanted to know why people chose to follow orders.
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c. In the experiment the teacher is a volunteer.
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d. The learner is an employer of Milgram, but the teacher thinks the learner is a volunteer as well.
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e. The teacher thinks he is teaching the learner a word memory game.
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f. The learner is pretending.
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g. The word memory game does not really matter -- do not try to play along.
3. The movie
Obedience
should be cued. The clip starts about 15 minutes in and lasts about 20 minutes. As the students watch the film they should take notes. Students should focus on how the teacher reacts to the learner and how the teacher reacts and responds to the experimenter. How does he respond? What does he say?
4. After the film segment, debrief what has happened by making a list on the board of the student’s notes.
5. If time permits, have student watch the short segment that immediately precedes the portion just viewed. In this segment, the man chooses to not go all the way. The students should answer the same two questions as in #3.
6. Again, debrief the film by making a list of the student’s responses.
7. A follow up question that can be used is: Suppose that the word game was real and that the teacher was in fact shocking the learner. If the learner were to be injured, who would be at fault? Who would be responsible?
8. At the end of class, as an exit ticket, have the students write 1 paragraph in their journal summarizing the film and what they learned.