After learning about the principles of good website design, the 7th graders in Language Arts classes created their own personal website portfolios using Google sites. These portfolios will be used throughout the year to showcase student writings, videos of public speaking performances and debates, and reflections on books and class readings. | |
In addition to learning how to create attractive websites, the 7th graders learned the importance of making their sites easy-to-navigate and read. Students were motivated to create attractive sites that reflected their personality and style. Background images were required to have citations, reinforcing the information literacy lessons that have been a key component of the Middle School curriculum this year.
0 Comments
Large amounts of data and numbers can be difficult to understand and put into context so 7th grade math students have been learning how to create graphs based on a variety of data. First they learned about which graphs to use for different types of data. Next, they practiced creating graphs by hand and using Google Sheets. Each student submitted answers using a Google Form to develop a pool of data about 7th graders at ASFG. Students made a copy of the responses spreadsheet in order to work with the data. This experience provided a great opportunity to learn how Sheets can create graphs quickly and easily...if the data is consistent. The open ended questions (height, favorite sport, favorite team, etc.) provided messy data that required organization and editing before graphing.
In order to reinforce understanding, students also created graphs based on their walking rates, coin flips, and dice rolls. The culminating project in the graphing unit will be for students to research environmental data and develop graphs and conclusions based on what they learned. They are currently practicing the research process and we are looking forward to reporting on their findings in the next Technology Reports.
strengths and weaknesses in the information-seeking skills of their students. Earlier this year, students in 8th grade completed the assessment. Half of the students took the 6th grade assessment and the other half completed the 9th grade assessment. The results indicated that our 8th grade students are more knowledgeable than their US peers in 6th grade, but less knowledgeable than their peers in 9th grade. You can see the TRAILS results summary and learn more about the categories in which our students are strong and weak.
Since 8th grade students completed the assessment, teachers, librarians and specialists have been working together to develop a consistent, spiraling curriculum to develop these important skills. Using the data from the assessment, we know that proper MLA citations are an area in which we want to improve so we designed a poster with guidelines about in-text citations and works cited. This poster will be available for teachers in grades 5-12. Research websites are under development for students and teachers to use in class. The 5th and 6th grade Research Stop provides a common set of practices to be used whenever students engage in inquiry/research. Another Research Stop is being developed for grades 7-12. Keep an eye out for posts about how our students are using their research skills to be critical and creative thinkers, purposeful learners, and effective communicators at every level at ASFG. Fifth grade social studies classes have had multiple lessons in information literacy with both upper school librarian Victoria Robins and middle school technology teacher Devin Wolfe. Students learned why it’s important to carefully evaluate the websites they use for research and information gathering, and they used these critical thinking skills to determine which websites of a list of seven were real websites and which were “hoax” sites, meant to fool them. The students definitely learned that you can’t believe something just because you read it on the internet—just ask them about the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus! |
Categories
All
|