In order to help 5th grade students understand the celebration of Día de los Muertos, students watched this video. Students also reviewed important aspects of the Mexican Revolution on the 105th anniversary through another interactive video. Students enjoyed using Zaption and several re-watched the videos in order to improve their scores on the questions and reinforce their learning. 5th grade students will continue using Zaption this year.
5th grade geografía students are using Zaption to engage with content. Zaption is an interactive video that pauses and asks questions. Students answer the question and then the video continues. The teacher dashboard of Zaption helps teachers understand student misconceptions by breaking down the results by question and providing detailed data to improve teaching and learning. The Zaption site has thousands of videos that can be used as is or re-mixed with new questions. Teachers can choose videos from YouTube or create their own too. There is even a Share to Classroom option that makes it easy to provide the resource to students.
In order to help 5th grade students understand the celebration of Día de los Muertos, students watched this video. Students also reviewed important aspects of the Mexican Revolution on the 105th anniversary through another interactive video. Students enjoyed using Zaption and several re-watched the videos in order to improve their scores on the questions and reinforce their learning. 5th grade students will continue using Zaption this year.
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Then students used their information literacy skills to find reliable websites with the data they needed for their graphs. They compared the information they found on multiple sites in order to determine the best way to present the information. When they had enough data, students created a graph and wrote a conclusion to help their audience understand the answer to their question. Students were engaged in this project because they had freedom to design their question and investigate a topic they wanted to know more about. See the relationship of trash and recycling or sea level and temperature in these reports. Learn about the black rhino population or how human activity affects animal endangerment.
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.
how their location celebrates the holiday. Students used their information literacy skills to find reliable sources and cite their information and images. Working in a team required students to organize and collaborate in order to produce high quality work. This project engages and motivates students by providing the opportunity for creativity and fun.
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. The young chemists in 8th grade science class have been busy at work conducting “wacky” chemistry experiments and documenting them with entertaining and educational videos. These young scientists have learned first-hand that the best way to learn new concepts is to teach them! With an audience of elementary students in mind, the 8th graders created short, engaging videos explaining the chemical reactions involved in experiments with exploding pumpkins, “elephant toothpaste,” and homemade “snow,” among others! In addition to acquiring a deeper understanding of chemistry, students also learned key principles of video production and editing, and they demonstrated excellent teamwork and collaboration skills. 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! The students in 5th grade Spanish classes have been using the new Macbook cart to create comic versions of modern-day fables. After a conversation about what constitutes a fable, students brainstormed ideas and began writing and illustrating their fables using a website called Pixton. Using the comic format as a teaching tool is becoming increasingly popular in schools for a variety of reasons. Comics can engage and “hook” visual learners, teach students how to develop a storyline and plot, and help students make inferences from visual clues and text. After they’ve finished writing, designing, and editing their individual comic fables, students will present them in class and share them online. Perhaps through this assignment we will discover an “Aesop” of the 21st century!
engaged in thinking about language and history while they determine how to present their understanding of the familiar song. They interview others, research and write a script before acting and recording their video. Finally, students edit their video and share it with their class. This fun project requires collaboration, imagination, and sometimes costumes.
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