IDM Reflection
Methods of Teaching Social Studies
Kennedy Ihrig
May 6th, 2022
Creating this IDM was completely different from what I have done for other lesson and
unit plan projects in the past. In the past, my lesson and unit plans were more up to what I
wanted to do to get the information across, but when doing the IDM, I had to choose supporting
questions to act as the ‘main’ idea for the lesson/s of the IDM. I am used to using a template that
makes me put in the play-by-play for a lesson plan, which can make up a whole unit. This made
it so I gave the idea of migration and immigration, providing sources, but gave the room for
other teachers to manipulate to better fit all their students and not so much a play-by-play.
I think my strengths when doing an IDM is creating the blueprint, coming up with
supporting questions that will lead students to answering the compelling question, and taking
informed action. These were the three things I understood fully on how to do and felt the most
confident when executing and coming up with. With the blueprint, once I had that done, I felt as
though the rest of the IDM could be put into place because the structure was there.
I feel like I can grow in detailing all the steps clearing in the pages following the
blueprint for the IDM. I got really overwhelmed and didn’t really know how to best explain the
process throughout those pages. I’m a very linear thinker and when it came to the IDM, I had to
put that to the side. I need to work on focusing on the task at hand and not overwhelming myself,
by thinking I am doing something wrong. I got in my head really bad that what I was doing was
incorrect, so I decided that it wasn’t going to be a good IDM. Overall, the experience was helpful
