Tag Archive | "Middle School"
Posted on 17 May 2012. Tags: Collaboration, critical thinking, Google Earth, Middle School, Science, Virginia Randolph
Submitted by: Chad Lowe
School: The Academy at Virginia Randolph
Summary
Students will be told that WWIII has started and they will be responsible for providing energy to their homes for the foreseeable future. They are to use the information they know about energy resources to guide their research on different types of renewable resources are available and how they can use them. Students will be asked to give three reasons why they think the system they created would work. Students will present their arguments to the class and then be given time to reflect and change their minds after seeing other responses. The students will compile their information to create a community resource plan.
TIPC Ratings
Approaching-Students were presented a problem that required them to research information about renewable energy resources and locations to gather these resources in order to get maximum use for the new energy independent community. Students were directed to addictomatic.com as a jump off site to start their research. Each student initially worked independently on an energy resource. Twenty minutes into the lesson, students were presented a Glitch card that required them to reevaluate their search and in some cases redirect their position. They used the information they gathered to develop their energy independent community.
Developing-Initially students were not required to communicate and collaborate with each other. Each student performed his/her investigation without sharing information but after the glitch was presented into the lesson, the students began to realize that in order to create an energy independent community, it would be necessary for them to share resources and information. They began to think more about how the different resources could become integrated to create a successful community together. Although they did not use a collaborative digital tool to share information, they share information in group discussions to complete their paper and their presentation.
Target-Students were given a task to research and find renewable resources that would help meet the energy needs of their community. Teacher provided students a “jumping off” point for their investigation but the soon realized that they would have to generate questions to help them direct their search. Students also had to search for resources that would help them with their energy needs. Just when they thought they had solved the needs for their community, the teacher throws in a “glitch”. The “glitch” will cause some of the students to re-evaluate their searches and the class to realize that they are going to have to pool their resources to provide the energy necessary for their village to function. Students collaborated to write their results including what energy resources there are using, why they choose their particular region, and how they were going to store their energy.
Approaching-After completing the assignment, the students had to find a tool that would demonstrate and present the research about the energy resource they had investigated. The class discussed tools that they had learned this year when one of the students thought about Google Earth, a tool she had learned last year. This tool allowed them to take the audience to the region where they collected a specific type of renewable energy. The students included a caption telling why they selected that specific region and a picture of the area. The students also included an audio blurb giving additional information for their final product.
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Posted in Comm/Collab - Dev, Creativity - Target, Critical Thinking - Target, High School, Info Fluency - App
Posted on 30 April 2012. Tags: Buggio, course 2, Elko, math, Middle School, Pallis, sales tax
Submitted by: Tara Pallis
School: Elko Middle
Summary
Like to go to fancy restaurants? Ever go out to eat with your parents and ask why they leave a “tip” for the server? How do they know how much to leave? It is time to see why more money is added or taken off of the bill. A new restaurant wants you to design their menu with appetizers, main courses, sides, desserts, and drinks. Once you have finished designing your menu, switch menus with another group in the classroom. Make sure you choose one that you will enjoy eating at. After choosing what you would like to order, find the tax, tip, and total of your meal with your partner. Once your calculations are complete, create a training video of the step by step process you used to determine your findings. The video will be shared with other students, to help them visualize how tax, tip, and discount are calculated.
TIPC Ratings
Students select the most appropriate digital tools and information sources to assemble and organize information to address an authentic task. The teacher models strategies to guide student investigation and supports students as they acquire, evaluate, and apply information.
Student work in self-selected teams and design their own restaurant menu to communicate and collaborate with their peers. Students design problems that promote collaboration within the classroom to address authentic tasks. Students collaborate purposefully without direct supervision.
Students justify decision-making and problem solving practices as they create training videos for their peers that explain the process step-by-step. Students select the most appropriate digital tools to think critically and solve open ended authentic tasks that require higher order thinking skills in calculating tax, tip, and total. The students also reflect on their roles as critical thinkers by discussing and showing how they calculated the answers. The teacher facilitates critical thinking problems solving strategies and supports students as they engage in meaningful questioning and problem solving within their menu choices and calculations.
Students researched, questioned, summarized, collaborated, and applied critical thinking skills that inspired new solutions to authentic tasks. Students created meaningful, original work within the assignment parameters.
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Contents:
- Student Created Menu
- Chosen Menu for Dinner Out & Calulations
- Student Training Video
- Photo Credit: by Infrogmation on Flickr
Posted in Comm/Collab - App, Course 2, Creativity - App, Critical Thinking - Target, Info Fluency - App, Math, Middle School
Posted on 20 April 2012. Tags: blog, critical thinking, Middle School, research, Spanish
Submitted by: Sarah-Henning Snellings
School: Brookland Middle School
Summary
Students will work on making plans for the future using the simple future tense vocabulary in Spanish. Working collaboratively in small groups, they will imagine they are competing to win prize money to spend on their Spring Break. Working only within their budget,, they will decide where they are going to go, what they are going to do for their dream break. They will research how much each activity or item they purchase is going to cost and put together a proposal written entirely in Spanish. They will then share their “entries” with the rest of the class and the world through the class’s blog site.
TIPC Ratings
TThis lesson scores approaching in the area of Research and Information fluency. The teacher designed a challenge that asked students to work within a budget to plan their spring break for a “mock” contest. Students researched possible activities using search engines and developed a written plan that was posted to the class blog.
This lesson scores in approaching for Communication and Collaboration. The lesson includes students working together in student selected pairs to create a post for the class blog. This post will be written complete in Spanish in the future tense which is a critical part of this lesson. Students will also complete a self reflection form using google docs.
This lesson scores in approaching for critical thinking and problem solving. The teacher has designed a authentic task in which students are competing in a radio contest to win money. In order to win this money students have to critically think about budget and compromising over decision on how to allocate their funds.
.This lesson scores in approaching for creativity and innovation. The teacher created a lesson where students must synthesize their research in a collaborative setting to develop the plan for their vacation. The students created that plan and posted it to the class blog. They then voted and commented on the most original idea.
Posted in Comm/Collab - App, Creativity - Dev, Critical Thinking - App, Grade Level, Info Fluency - App, Middle School, Spanish, TIP Chart, World Languages
Posted on 20 April 2012. Tags: Collaboration, communication, English, Middle School, Pocahontas, project
Submitted by: Debbie Gilfillan
Collaborators:
School: Pocahontas Middle School
Summary
Students choose an individual who has faced and overcome adversity. While researching this individual, students design a presentation that incorporates a Word Wizard role, a Discussion Leader role, and a Summarizer role, as well as any other roles that the students would like to use. Students then use their research to write historical fiction interviews featuring the individual that they researched.
(This is part of a larger unit that begins with student reading, analyzing and interpreting “Hard as Nails” by Russell Baker, “Water” by Helen Keller, Miss Spitfire by Sarah Miller, and “Zlata’s
Diary” by Zlata Filipovic.)
TIPC Ratings
Prior to the Overcoming Adversity Project, students work through the Entry and Developing phases of the chart. As they delve into creating their own presentation, they reach the Approaching stage of the chart. Strategies (using EasyBib, using OneSource as a database tool to locate verified sources) are modeled for students. The project designs challenges promoting synthesis of resources to address authentic tasks, and asks students to consider how they can make their project relevant to real world problems. Students are supported as they acquire, evaluate, and apply information. Some students may reach the Ideal/Target stage as the students independently engage in research and using information fluently as the teacher facilitates and formatively assesses authentic tasks.
This project models a range of communication methods and digital tools while designing challenges that promote collaboration within and beyond the classroom to address an authentic class. Students are taught how to collaborate purposefully without direct supervision (although they may require monitoring and are encouraged to bring problems to the teacher prior to the culmination of the project). The teacher facilitates and formatively assesses authentic tasks where students are engaged in meaningful communication and purposeful collaboration. The students select their own groups, establish group norms, and organize roles (with a structured framework provided), to address an authentic tasks. Students use appropriate digital tools to facilitate collaboration. In some situations, students also selected appropriate digital tools to communicate and collaborate with peers, regardless of time zone or physical differences. Students also reflected on their roles as communicators and collaborators and set goals for future growth.
This project could easily be implemented at the Ideal/Target stage. Since my students are sixth graders and are fairly new to research skills, they didn’t fully obtain the Ideal/Target stage, but they certainly made progress towards this level. A range of critical thinking and/or problem solving skills and digital tools were modeled, and instruction was designed that promoted solutions to authentic tasks. Students were supported as they engaged challenges and problems purposefully. Students generated and responded to purposeful questions, justified decision-making and/or problem solving practices, and applied digital tools to think critically, solving open-ended authentic tasks that require higher order thinking skills. Students also reflected on their roles as critical thinkers and/or problem solvers and set goals for future growth.
Strategic risk taking, creativity, and craftsmanship was modeled through the use of an ActivInspire Adversity flipchart and a variety of incorporated media throughout the project. Opportunities for students to synthesize research, communicate/collaborate, and apply critical thinking skills to address an authentic task were created. A learning environment where students are engaged in creativity and innovation was developed, facilitated, and assessed. Students analyzed trends by comparing different genres, media forms, and different individuals, inspiring new solutions to the authentic task of creating an interview to share a story of overcoming adversity. Students created meaningful, original work within the assignment parameters. The opportunity was given for some students to synthesize existing and self-generated knowledge to create new ideas and products within and beyond assignment parameters. Students were encouraged to choose strategic risks that supported innovation, and reflected on the creative/innovative process, setting goals for future growth.
Posted in Comm/Collab - Target, Creativity - Target, Critical Thinking - App, English, Info Fluency - App, Middle School
Posted on 05 April 2012. Tags: Collaboration, communication, creativity, critical thinking, Google Docs, Middle School, movie maker, Science
Submitted by: Karen Thomas
School: Brookland Middle School
Summary
Our world is an oasis filled with plants and animals of every species imaginable. Exotic plants, tropical fish, predatory birds, omnivorous mammals, and singing insects, all for us to discover and enjoy or are they? Is all this splendor friend or foe? In this lesson students will conduct research to learn about invasive species. They will collaborate as a class and in small groups using google and one search to locate information and create an America’s Most Wanted profile video detailing their research and making the public aware of this information by posting their products to the google site.
TIPC Ratings
In this lesson students are required to acquire, evaluate, and apply information researched on a specific invasive species in order to create the Public Service Announcement. They will review search strategies, site authenticity, and citations with the school Librarian during the course of the lesson to help strengthen their information fluency skills. In addition, students will construct their own questions to guide the research using the KWL chart.
In this lesson students will use a variety of resources for communication. They will utilize Google Docs as a class to generate a list of characteristics for invasive species as well as a list of invasive species that they can research. In small groups students will use Google Docs to create and complete a KWL chart on their selected topic. Those small groups will then select a digital tool to use for the presentation of that information in a PSA.
Students will be required to generate, research, and answer their own questions using the KWL chart (in google docs) on the invasive species they have selected.
Students were instructed to create a PSA using the presentation tool of their choice. At the end of the lesson students had created their presentations using MovieMaker, GoAnimate, and Prezi. They synthesized their research and created an original work.
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Contents:
- Lesson Plan
- Student KWl Example From GoogleDocs
- Class Generated Reserch From GoogleDocs
Posted in Comm/Collab - App, Creativity - App, Critical Thinking - App, Grade Level, Info Fluency - Target, Life Science, Middle School, Science
Posted on 02 April 2012. Tags: critical thinking, math, Middle School
Submitted by: Carrie Fields
School: Brookland Middle School
Subject: Course 2/Math 7
Summary
In this 90 minute lesson, students will work in teams to re-design a bedroom within a budget. Each group will be given different room dimensions and budget amounts. Based on this information students will develop a plan for the re-design of their bedroom. This lesson incorporates several seventh grade math concepts including calculating area, calculating sales tax, and working within a budget.
TIPC Ratings
Students and teacher are at developing level for this category. Websites will be provided and students are responsible for navigating through them. The teacher states the topic and questions to be answered.
Teacher is at developing level for this due to instructing the use of approved communication methods. Students are at approaching level if they have decided to work with a partner. Based on the individual needs of students in a self-contained classroom, group work is not always ideal. For those working with a partner, they will need to delegate roles and use appropriate digital tools to facilitate collaboration
Teacher will be at approaching for this category. Modeling of strategies is used, the challenge is an authentic task, and supports are given. Students are at a developing level because they are applying techniques demonstrated by the teacher and using information sources with a provided checklist.
Teacher and student fall in the developing range for this particular category. Direct instruction is used and there are connections made between the subject and new ideas. Students will be able to choose certain items for this lesson, but they must be within certain perimeters.
Student Artifact
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Contents:
- Lesson Plan
- Flip Chart
- Student Worksheet
Posted in Comm/Collab - Dev, Course 2, Creativity - Dev, Critical Thinking - App, Grade Level, Info Fluency - Dev, Math, Middle School, Subject
Posted on 02 April 2012. Tags: Collaboration, communication, critical thinking, Middle School, Pocahontas, research
Submitted by: Claiborne Snyder
Collaborators:
School: Pocahontas Middle School
Summary
Students are given $500 and asked to shop for clothing for a French family of 4. They are to convert their dollars to euros, select complete outfits for a mother, father, 13 year old boy, and 12 year old girl from an online French clothing store and still fall within the budget given. Students will also teach themselves 15 new vocabulary words from the French website, and present all of their findings in a digital format. They create a fashion show explaining the clothing items they purchased for each family member, why they chose the item, and the total cost of their shopping trip. They will learn to communicate as a group and work together to produce a fashion show video of their findings. They will also work to sharpen their verbal skills by producing a voice-over description of the fashion show.
TIPC Ratings
Although students were given the website, the students were heavily involved in researching the clothing options to purchase for the family.
Students worked in self-selected groups to make decisions and “buy” the clothing for the family. The groups also collaborated to create a presentation to display their shopping list, along with French narration.
The students attempted to solve real world problems by shopping for a needy family overseas.
Students created a presentation to show the results of their shopping experience.
Posted in Comm/Collab - App, Creativity - Dev, Critical Thinking - Target, French, Info Fluency - App, Middle School, World Languages
Posted on 02 April 2012. Tags: BMS, Byrd, byrd middle school, Collaboration, communication, critical thinking, earth science, Google Docs, Middle School, reflection, research
Submitted by: Kelly Smith
School: Byrd
Summary
This creative end-product lesson involves a high-level of collaboration among group members to conceptualize a “story” of a rock travelling through geologic time while describing the processes that occur along the way. Students are heavily invested in higher level thinking of Blooms Taxonomy as they apply and synthesize our entire first semester of geology while creating a “story” that reflects the students’ knowledge, creativity, and personalities. In this multi-phased project, students will be actively engaged in real world tasks of meeting deadlines, collaborative group management, and creating a novel product that will be shared and used in a variety of ways. The project opens with an introduction, partner selection, and establishing collaborative-management. Phase two includes rock personalization/character creation (either virtually or with an actual rock), brainstorming, and reflection. The storyline involves brainstorming, outlining, researching, and product creation. The final step is presenting and sharing. Students can communicate, assign tasks, and combine research on a Google Doc form. The students’ products will be shared both electronically for the class to use as a review study tool for SOL’s and their masterpieces will also be presented to the class. In addition, to add further authenticity that expands beyond the walls of our classroom, students will also share their knowledge and creativity with our neighboring elementary schools. The fourth and fifth grade SOL’s are very similar to our own, so the teachers can use our products as a fun way to introduce or teach their own students.
TIPC Ratings
The students are actively engaged in researching specific rock transformations and major events of geologic time. Students are using advanced searches as well as classroom resources such as books and magazines. Students have the freedom to choose which resources they prefer or to mix and match the resources.
Students have complete freedom to use any digital tool(s) that they would like and can try novel or familiar digital tools. Additionally, students will be able to contribute and communicate on a Google doc form. Students can clearly see other partners’ ideas and add to them or direct those ideas into a different direction. Students are then able to work on their own section while simultaneously commenting on another member’s ideas. Students will reflect three times in this project: first at the very beginning to become aware of group dynamics; secondly during peer review; and lastly at the end of the project for a final overall reflection. During the first reflection students are made aware of group dynamics of what worked and what didn’t work. During the second reflection, students are able to compare and contrast their story to another group’s during the story editing process. The final reflection will be done at the end where students may give me feedback on what worked or didn’t work for next year as well as what they gleaned from this exercise.
Students have complete freedom to incorporate tangible materials with digital or to use strictly digital tools. The groups may use whatever tool they would like for their presentation. The students will be creating a “story” that is very complex, and challenging. Students are not only having to incorporate time, but also having to simultaneously demonstrate geologic knowledge. Students are synthesizing an entire semester’s worth of information into a creative end-product. The students are heavily vested in an authentic task that serves each other as well as others in the same learning community. Many of these students have younger siblings have taken this challenge to heart to make it easy to understand, informative, and engaging.
Students are creating projects to facilitate their own understanding of geologic process and geologic time, to help each other, and to help others in the community. These “stories” are resources that will make SOL review engaging and enlightening at the end of the year when the students share their creations with each other. Additionally, the “stories” will also provide a valuable resource to younger students in the county to ignite interest in geology, and to expose them to higher level and creative concepts that extend beyond the SOL boundaries. Reflection is a key element in any field. With three reflection points, built into the lesson, the students should become more adept with each one at recognizing faults and successes. Student should learn from each of the opportunities and become stronger collaborative learners and students.
Posted in Comm/Collab - Target, Creativity - Target, Critical Thinking - Target, Earth Science, Grade Level, Info Fluency - Target, Middle School, Science, Subject
Posted on 20 January 2012. Tags: English, M12S, Middle School, Pocahontas
Submitted by: Christen Tulli
Collaborators:
School: Pocahontas Middle School
Summary
: This interactive project caters to four distinct learning types: mathematical/scientific, linguistic, visual, and interpersonal. Intended to correlate with “Flowers for Algernon”, the story about a mentally challenged man who undergoes an operation that triples his IQ, this allows students to choose a learning style to examine the text through a digital presentation. For instance, students who choose the “mathematical/scientific” option charted the protagonist’s progress before and after the operation and examine the moral objections to this surgery. They used a range of media to achieve this, from Active Inspire to Movie Maker. Students with an appreciation for art chose the “visual” option and created presentation that incorporated symbols from the story and music that fit with the story’s tone, utilizing programs such as Microsoft Paint and Movie Maker. Students that selected the linguistic option created a musical word journal and presentation where they examined significant words that showed the protagonist’s progress. They had the option of implementing a variety of media, from Wordle.net to Active Inspire to Movie Maker. The “social butterflies” who flourish when working with others could choose the “interpersonal” option where they had to speak from the point of view of other characters in the book. They were given access to a variety of media to achieve this presentation, including Flip video cameras.
Each option challenges students to use a variety of technological media as well as their analytical and evaluative stills. Moreover, this project offers freedom of choice, ensuring a truly 21st century, student-centered learning experience.
TIPC Ratings
All option in this project were examples of “authentic tasks” because they not only had cross-curricular opportunities, but also challenged students to trouble-shoot issues that came up as they used different programs. Students used a variety of tools to display and interact with information, such as the Active Inspire presentation analyzing the main character’s progress.
Students were given opportunities to collaborate with one another on this project. They completed Quia surveys after the lesson to set goals for future growth and reflect on the project.
Students were given a choice in the media they used, and were challenged to trouble-shoot issues that came up as they used different programs. Students used a Quia survey to assess one another, and after each presentation gave feedback on the strengths and areas for improvement, helping their peers to grow as critical thinkers. They completed Quia surveys after the lesson to reflect on their roles as critical thinkers and what they had learned through using these new programs.
Students were able synthesize what they had learned through the story by acting, selecting songs to represent the theme, sifting through art, and even posing as scientists. Again, they reflected on their use of creativity through a Quia survey at the end.
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Contents:
- Lesson Plan
- Project Rubrics
- Student Project Guide
- Student Samples
Posted in Comm/Collab - App, Creativity - Target, Critical Thinking - Target, English, Info Fluency - Target, Middle School
Posted on 20 January 2012. Tags: Collaboration, current events, Google Docs, Google Presentation, M12S, Middle School, physical science, research, Science, secondary, Tuckahoe Middle School
Submitted by: Dan Daglish
School: Tuckahoe Middle School
Summary
News you need to know! Students scoured the Internet for current national and international science news. They each wrote a synopsis concerning the event they discovered. Students collaboratively revised the synopsis and created presentations to share the news with the entire class.
TIPC Ratings
Students were using appropriate Internet search techniques to discover sources that explained their science experimental topic. Students evaluated their resources to determined which were the most authoritative for their research purposes. Students used the information to write a synopsis that described their current science event. Small groups then used collaborative presentation tools to display their research for the whole class.
Students used Google Apps documents and presentations to work collaboratively on this project. Small groups work together to refine and amend a selected synopsis. Students then created a presentation collaboratively based on the research. Small groups work independently to accomplish their task.
While all strands of the TIPC are important and should be addressed, this lesson is focused on Research and Information Fluency. There are ways to increase the level of Critical Thinking and Problem Solving but they may not tie as closely to the learning outcomes focused on in this lesson.
Students worked alone and collaboratively to create their final presentation. Students used knowledge gained from research to write an original document concerning their topic. Student worked together to create an original presentation incorporating specific requirements as designated by the teacher.
Student Artifact
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Click these links for lesson materials:
Posted in Comm/Collab - App, Creativity - App, Grade Level, Info Fluency - Target, Middle School, Physical Science, Science, Subject, TIP Chart
