TIPC Ratings

Approaching – Students are constructing their own questions to guide research and selecting the most appropriate tools and information to complete an authentic task.

Ideal/Target – Students are choosing and justifying effective means for collaborating and disseminating information with the outside world as well as the most effective tools for communicating within their group.  Students are also asked to reflect on the effectiveness of their collaboration each class period as well as upon assignment completion, which is a part of the rubric and their grade.

Ideal/Target – Student are engaged in critical thinking as they apply lessons learned form ancient history to today’s world.  They are also asked to evaluate and reflect as they choose which digital tools will be the most effective in disseminating this information.  Making connections between history and current events is an authentic task that requires high-level thinking.

Approaching – Students are asked to create meaningful original work that make predictions based on the past.  As a teacher, I’ve created parameters where students are required to synthesize information to create and original work

TIPC Ratings

This was not the focus area of this lesson.

The students worked together in self-selected groups choosing their own roles as they completed their triaramas. They posted their reflections on the classroom blog, and they commented on the pictures of their triaramas which were also posted on the blog.

This was not the focus area of this lesson.

This was not the focus area of this lesson.

In this lesson, the students use a GoogleDoc to decide on group roles, group norming procedures, and divide work equitably for an assignment. After establishing guidelines for their groupwork, the students create rubrics which will be used to grade effective leadership during a “time of crisis”. The students justify the categories of their rubric by referencing specific historic examples from World War II. These GoogleDocs are shared with the teacher and then viewed by the class. The students use ActivEngage, to select the “best” overall rubric, which will then be used by the class when completing the performance task for the unit.

TIPC Ratings

Varies
Research and Information fluency are not specifically emphasized during this lesson, however they do play a role in the lesson. In the lessons previous to this one, the students have “built” repositories of information regarding World War II, including discussion boards, Voicethreads, and spreadsheets containing ActivEngage responses. The students can use these “repositories” to complete the research necessary for the leadership rubric. However, students can go above and beyond these repositories as well. Students can use search techniques that were discussed in previous lessons, to find specific historical examples that justify the descriptors of their specific rubrics. The level to which this strand is achieved will vary from class to class, but could be anywhere from Entry level to Ideal.

Ideal/Target – 6
The students use the GoogleDoc Leadership Rubric to establish group norms, form teams, and organize roles before their collaborative work begins. Throughout the creation of the rubric, students use the Google Doc to reflect on their roles as communicators and describe what they are learning about working with others. Along with the GoogleDoc, the students are encouraged to use other digital tools to work on the assignment outside of school hours, which they will document along the way. The creation of the Leadership Rubric is an authentic task, as it helps the students to internalize the skills, characteristics, and qualities that are integral for effective leaders. This lesson will help students in their civic lives beyond school, as they vote for elected officials and take on leadership roles themselves.

Approaching – 5
In creating their Leadership Rubric, the students must justify their decision making by referencing specific historic examples from World War II. The students must explain why their chosen leadership characteristics are required for a leader during a time of crisis. The students must also generate and respond to purposeful questions in creating their rubric. The students must ask themselves, “what separates an exemplary leader from one that is just satisfactory” and “what is the difference between a satisfactory leader versus a leader that needs a tremendous amount of improvement?” The students will use their responses to these questions in order to create their final rubric.

Approaching – 5
The students are creating meaningful original work within the assignment parameters, but their work has lasting impact beyond the assignment. The students are analyzing their own thoughts and making decisions that will inspire new solutions to how they approach future leadership roles and the choices they will make when selecting a leader.

TIPC Ratings

Ideal 6 – The students construct their own research questions and discuss the effectiveness of these search terms as a class. The students synthesize 30 posts worth of information to come to a conclusion about the effectiveness of the President. The authentic task in this lesson is that the students are learning how to make political decisions, which is a skill that the students will use later in life. This type of process demonstrates to the students that choosing a public servant is more than just making a decision based on a particular political party or a person’s personality, but instead actually evaluating the words and actions of individuals. Although there is an authentic task in this lesson, there is still much room for improvement. In order to reach the highest levels of the TIP Chart, this lesson could be adapted so that students research more than one candidate and decide which candidate to choose based on their particular research.

Approaching 5 – The students use a variety of digital tools to collaborate during this lesson. Although the students complete the ultimate evaluation individually, the ActivEngage session helps the students develop a collaborative understanding of research terms and rubric writing. The students use each other’s responses to refine their own thinking. During the rubric writing stage of the lesson, which is completed using GoogleDocs, the students establish group norms and organize roles by each taking a particular category of the rubric before revising and refining the entire rubric collaboratively. Finally, the Schoolspace discussion board provides an outlet for students to share the research that they gathered on the President. Although the students do not respond to each other’s posts, this tool serves as a way for students to work collaboratively towards a common goal.

Approaching 5- During this lesson, the students generate and respond to purposeful questions. The students must ask themselves what constitutes an effective President and then justify their decisions based on current events. Activ Engage is used to facilitate this critical thinking process. The brainstorming sessions allow students to become more aware of their thinking process.

Approaching 4 – The students use digital tools to summarize their knowledge of current events. The final graphic organizer that the students create is meaningful in the sense that it helps them to understand the voting and political process. Additionally, it helps them to monitor their own thinking and decision making processes. Creativity and Innovation were not the focus of this lesson, but could be emphasized in future iterations of the lesson. The ultimate product for this this particular lesson could include presentations created by the students that explain their rating of the president or written essays that serve the same purpose. These presentations could be presented in a format of the student’s choosing.

TIPC Ratings

Entry – The teacher provides all print resources to the students. Having the students construct some questions themselves and finding answers to those questions online prior to the fishbowl activity would help elevate this score.

Approaching – Communication is evident throughout this lesson. Students are working in self-selected groups, utilizing the School Space chat feature, and posting reflections to a blog post. Students are collaborating purposefully without direct supervision., and the teacher supports students as they engage challenges purposefully.

Approaching- This lesson is truly an authentic task that is taking a present day issue that is relevant to the students and relating it to past primary documents. The students are engaged in a type of Socratic seminar in order to debate a hot topic. This has the potential to score in the ideal category had the students performed more independent research.

Approaching The self selection of group members and the fishbowl activity put the ownership and learning outcomes in the hands of the students. The students had numerous opportunitis to synthesize and communicate critical thinking skills to address an authentic task. The students reflected on their learning via a discussion forum in Space Space. A suggestion would be to have the students create a final product of their choosing to illustrate and share what they had gained from this activity.

TIPC Ratings

The teacher modeled search strategies and instructed students of the expectation of validating their research and how to accomplish that expectation. Students were structured through their research but they did develop questions to help gather the appropriate information to complete the task. Students used this research to compare issues from the past and present along with the important people who drove those issues to identify trends in history.

The lesson was introduced through teacher and student discussion around the problems during the Industrial Revolution and how society responded to those issues. Students worked in groups of 3 with assigned roles to research and create their presentation on muckrakers.

Students responded to teacher provided higher order thinking questions while researching past and present day muckrakers. Students were applying their understanding of muckrakers and how they impacted society during the Industrial Revolution by choosing a present day figure who embodied those same characteristics.

Student make connections between the subject matter (muckrakers impact on the progressive era) to their impact today. Student summarized their research and applied their understanding by choosing an appropriate modern-day muckraker and explaining their choice.

TIPC Ratings

Approaching – Although the students were writing their own bill of private designation strictly for Varina High School, they were highly suggested to find an outside source to support their claim. So if a student was arguing that seniors should leave for lunch, they should have found a source that supported that seniors leaving for lunch is advantageous. It was their responsibility to research to find supporting arguments for their claims.

Ideal/Target- The students used a 21st century tool, GoogleDocs, in order to collaborate on bills and communicate with one another about their thoughts on the bills that they were reading. Each student has his/her own GoogleDoc name, so they could get on and look at the bills from anywhere at anytime. Also, any instructor or administrator that had the folders shared with them, could monitor the GoogleDocs to ensure no one was abusing this tool. Students could reflect on the bill that they had written by reading what other students commented on and adjusting their bill so that it would get passed to the President.

Ideal/Target- Students were encouraged to not only find a matter that they wanted to improve about the school but defend it to others so that it would get passed. The technology of Google Docs allowed the students to comment and question certain elements of a bill and then respond with a solution that they believed would help. This process encouraged students to work towards a common goal of getting a bill passed, by reworking a bill to fit the needs of all.

Ideal/Target- The students had a wonderful opportunity to reflect upon their 4 years at Varina and pick something that they wanted to improve about their school. They used the prior knowledge that they had in order to clearly define the problem, create an effective solution, and support it with evidence so that administration would actually pass the bill that they created. It was the goal of the individual to encourage and inspire their peers to support their bill so that it would get passed.

TIPC Ratings

Approaching – Although students were given guiding questions to think about as the project began, it was their responsibility to take what was given to them and go to the next level. The students used the poll question results to shape their campaign strategies in order to win the election. They used their knowledge from positives of social networking like Facebook, and created positive and helpful Facebook pages for their candidate. They researched past campaign funding from presidential candidates to shape the financial elements to their campaign.

Approaching: The students had different roles and tasks that had to be completed but worked together and collaborated to determine who was responsible for getting which task turned in. The students worked together to ensure that all materials were turned in.

Ideal/Target: This was a student-centered project. The students had to work together to determine their own campaign strategies in order to get their candidate elected. They used digital tools such as MovieMaker and MP3 recordings to strengthen their campaign and their candidate’s voice. At the end of the project, the students reflected on the role that each individual played in the group through the work that was submitted.

Approaching: The students analyzed campaign commercials and had to determine which strategies are used in past presidential campaign commercials. Once this process was mastered, students were encouraged to use a strategy that had been used in a previous commercial and incorporate the strategy into their own commercial. They are creating their own work and commercial but found new solutions to make the commercial their own while using past strategies.

TIPC Ratings

Students will use their research from yesterday and will need to collaborate with one another to create a page to add to our 5 Region Flipchart. Each region will have their own page and will need to choose from a collection of pictures that are relevant to their region’s physical characteristics. They will use the pen tool and then use the handwriting recognition to turn it into type-written information. All information taught should be included.

The students will collaborate and communicate together moves to their region’s raps. The moves should mirror somehow the words in the rap. A student will be chosen to use the flip camera and record the students raps.

Then as a group use the synetic’s map and collaborate with each other to come up with 4 nouns that reflect your region. On your map, label each box with a noun. Notice the middle box has the work MOON in it. In each box decide how the noun you chose can make a connection with the MOON. Be able to justify the connection you made. The second part of this assignment will require you to need to compare/contrast your region’s physical characteristics to that of the moon. We will set our goal for the future to PROVE our comparisons/contrasts with the Moon’s surface when “we arrive on the surface.”

Can you plan as a group, after given several items on the table, how would you design your rocket to represent your specific region. Be sure to have conversations with each other to be able to support why you chose the item. You will need to fill out your Rocket Justification sheet as you choose items to use. You may then begin constructing your rocket. This will be the vehicle to house all of your Virginia Region products.

TIPC Ratings

This lesson is Developing in research as students participated in a demonstration using water and other “chemicals” to simulate the pollution of the James River. Through this demonstration and class discussion, students gained new knowledge. Teacher could increase research by allowing students to find organizations in their area that work on pollution prevention.

This lesson is Ideal/Target in Communication and Collaboration as students worked in self-selected groups to address the authentic task of raising awareness in our community about the pollution of the James River. Students were enthusiastic and sought out ways to promote their message throughout the school. These students talked about organizing an ecology club and have asked permission to do so from the principal.

The lesson was Approaching in Critical Thinking and Problem Solving. The students had to use the new information they learned to create awareness in their community. They used the new information they learned to form arguments and create ideas of how to prevent pollution.

Even though an authentic task was well designed, the lesson is Developing in Creativity and Innovation as the teacher did not allow the option of using more than one tool to create their awareness posters. Some other tools that could have been used are Comic Life, Pages, or Keynote.