Summary
In the course of their Virginia Studies in fourth grade and their study of Henrico County in fifth-grade, students were familiar with both the Virginia Trekkers and Henrico Trekkers web sites and videos. While learning about Henrico County Public Schools, students delved into the unique history of their own school by reading and synthesizing information from a 30 year old publication written for adults as well as “interviewing” a citizen who was a student at the school in the 1950s. Students then took this information and produced short video clips to disseminate the information learned about the history of their school to the public beyond their classroom.
TIPC Ratings
Research and information fluency were not the focus of this lesson. Students did, however, apply research skills when reading, synthesizing, evaluating, and organizing the information from the source provided and when constructing interview questions.
This lesson falls in the ideal/target range. While the students worked in teacher-selected groups, they were not assigned specific roles/jobs. Students had to communicated effectively with one another by reading, listening, sharing ideas, listening to the ideas of others, and working cooperatively to analyze and decide which information they wanted to share. Then, they had to synthesize the information into their own thoughts and words in order to make it interesting and understandable to the public, including primary elementary students. After uploading the videos, students were able to view their own final products and those of others and were then able to reflect on their effectiveness as communicators and collaborators. Students not only contributed information to the outside world on our blog, they also brought in and incorporated information from the outside world in with our guest speaker.
This lesson falls in the ideal/target range. Students had to justify their opinions and reasoning with the members of their group as part of the process of coming to consensus on what to share. Students were completing an authentic task of assimilating and presenting information on the history of their own school. When they viewed their own final products in relation to others they had an opportunity to reflect on their own roles and evaluate their own success.
This lesson falls in the ideal/target range. Students created meaningful, original work within the assigned parameters. Students also synthesized existing information to create a new product (video) within assigned parameters.
