Indiana Disability History Project
From Segregation to Integration: Oral History about the Education of Children with Disabilities

This series of four lesson plans provides Grade 4-6 elementary school teachers with ready-to-use classroom materials about the historical experience of children with disabilities in Indiana. The series draws from primary sources comprising video interviews from the Indiana Disability History Project’s online oral history collection. All documents are in PDF format.

Target Grade Levels : Grades 4 – 6

Indiana Academic Standards: The series is flexible in its classroom applications. Its content aligns with the 4th grade Indiana in the Nation and the World/Standard 1 History topics “Contemporary Indiana: 1950 – Present” and “Chronological Thinking, Historical Comprehension, Analysis and Interpretation, Research.”

Approximate Length of Lessons : 40 minutes

How to Use the Lessons

All four lesson plans can be presented sequentially within four classroom periods. Lesson plan content is based upon chronological developments in Indiana’s history.
One or more individual lesson plans can be selected to be used on a “standalone” basis.
Although it can be used year-round, the series is well suited for weekly presentation during Disability Awareness Month, observed annually in Indiana during March.
Each Lesson includes several short, captioned video interview excerpts. Each video is introduced with a Guiding Question for students to think about as they watch, and Things to Know (historical facts related to the excerpt). Discussion questions and a glossary of terms complete the lesson. An optional short quiz for each lesson is available on Kahoot.com.

Lesson Materials
Teachers can download the following files types of files for each of the four lessons:

PDF of PowerPoint slides for presentation during the class period.
Lesson Plan: overview lesson with content summary for each video clip, links to Kahoot quizzes
Teacher Notes: includes screenshots for each slide with accompanying information
Discussion/Debrief Guide: possible answers for discussion questions

Technical Requirements to Present the Lessons

Your classroom may need a visual display with Internet connection, granting access to YouTube online. All video clips are available via YouTube.
The computer you use must have an internet browser and a PDF viewing software such as Acrobat Reader.

Download Lesson Plans

The Indiana Disability History Project was funded by the Indiana Governor's Council for People with Disabilities. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent positions or policies of the Council. The Indiana Disability History Project is a project of the Indiana Institute on Disability and Community, Indiana University.