The importance of modeling activities for students and trial of half days

Last week we had three half day schedules for parent conferences making it extremely difficult to get through anything. I intended to use this week to introduce my students to exploration and colonization. I would use the first  day to explain the reasons for European exploration, a day to locate where Europeans explored on maps and the remainder of the week to practice analyzing primary and secondary sources. In looking back these goals were far too ambitious and we were only able to get through the map activity. After my powerpoint presentation on the motives of exploration, I distributed a map activity for the students to complete. The activity asked them to identify  Spain, England and Portugal, then identify which countries they claimed in the Americas. The final part of the activity asked them to make predictions about why certain countries had more territory then others and judge whether or not their actions were fair. I found that most of my students struggled to identify different countries on their map. They found it difficult to match the larger projections in the book with their smaller map.  Perhaps I could have circumvented this with some guided practice and modeling. As opposed to,  handing them a map activity, with the assumption they would move through it quickly, I should have projected a large map on the board and engaged them in some collective geography practice. In the end almost every student ended up calling me to their desk individually and expressed frustration when I helped their peers and could not get to them quick enough. Based on this experience, I found that independent practice is easier for the teacher and students when students are scaffolded appropriately through practices like modeling and guided practice. I also found that I need to spend more time working on my students geographic literacy skills.