eModule 3: Framing a Unit
Objective:
- In this lesson, you will begin to frame a research unit using a special Instructional Planning Matrix (IPM). You will then learn the remaining strategies (5-9) from your students’ perspective, and finally practice using the Teacher Scoring Rubric to score an example student outline.
The IPM helps teachers plan activities, enrichment lessons, and formative assessments, and determine the class time needed for students to learn and perform each strategy. It serves as a road map for the entire research unit, segmented into nine strategies. Often, teachers add a 10th strategy, which is the student’s final product, such as a blog entry, report, brochure, or debate speech—and a summative assessment.
With an understanding of the remaining strategies, you will be ready to frame your instructional unit using an IPM (PDF; MS Word) that is mapped to the strategies and to the aligned CCSS standards.
Through collaborative brainstorming sessions, the IPM was created by teachers, for teachers. Watch the video of this process, The Strategies Instructional Planning Matrix: Created By Teachers, For Teachers and think about how you and teachers at your school could engage in a similar collaboration. What techniques and topics do these teachers focus on? What do you think would be important to discuss with others? Write down any teaching strategies that are discussed which are unfamiliar to you, and think about how you would use these strategies with your students.
Review the IPM template for Strategies 1-4. If needed, revise the content or add notes to the matrix to make it your own, according to your personal instruction goals. This will help you start framing your instructional unit.
Objective:
- In this lesson, you will learn how constructing a unit plan is essential for teaching students how to conduct academic research online.
Watch the Framing a SOAR Unit Video, keeping in mind how the frame you began in the previous lesson will continue for the rest of the strategies.
Review your IPM. Think how your teaching of the earlier strategies will affect students’ learning outcomes and products as they learn later strategies. As you fill in the template and decide instructional strategies and formative assessments, focus on the concepts that may be difficult for students, the concepts you may need to pre-teach, and other strategies for ensuring student success with the strategy.
Continue to fill in your IPM as you learn about the rest of the strategies.
Objective:
- In this lesson, you will learn, from the perspective of your students, to find information in a website, read for understanding, and “clip” selected details into a digital notebook.
Strategies 5-7 teach note-taking, organizational, and synthesizing skills that students typically do not perform when doing online research. To conduct effective Internet-based research, students must actively reflect on what they are learning, take notes, and compose summaries (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.6-8.9).
They must also synthesize information from different sources or different types of information, and have a system for citing sources and keeping a bibliography so they can return to their original sources (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.6-8.6.7).
Students must be able to quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and providing basic bibliographic information for sources (CCSS. ELA-Literacy.WHST.6-8.8).
Strategy 5 (“Finding Information in a Website”) builds on the Strategy 4 vetting process. Critical reading comprehension is necessary for recognizing trustworthy information. Knowing how to use the find command, menu, and search box embedded in a website can greatly simplify this process by helping students to zero in on the topics they are looking for. By using these tools, students do not have to wade through irrelevant information in order to obtain information to support their research questions.
To help students read online using Strategy 6 (“Reading Online”), it is useful to emphasize the text-to-speech function. Show students how to use text-to-speech on their devices, and model for them the appropriate times to use it. One such time is when students read content that is above their reading level. Text-to-speech helps students comprehend what they are learning when they follow along with the text or just listen. Students’ working memory capacity can be overtaxed if they have to read and comprehend difficult text at the same time. Studies show that students who have mastered the ability to recognize reliable online resources and avoid biased sites typically make their decisions when they are scanning or reading the text and information on the site. Therefore, it is necessary to promote critical thinking and close reading using text-dependent questioning strategies which are taught in Strategies 4-7.
When you teach Strategy 7 (“Recording Notes”), students may need specific supports. Some students may record minimal notes without enough useful information. Other students may copy long sections of text without really understanding what is essential. Either way, students may end up with irrelevant information. Using your own examples, model for students how you would decide what information is relevant to your research. This skill takes time and practice; give students many opportunities to practice, with feedback from you.
Review the Teacher Scoring Rubric and Student Scoring Rubric, and then watch the videos, do the practice exercises, and perform the Try It! exercises for Strategies 5 (“Finding Information in a Website”), 6 (“Reading Online”), and 7 (“Recording Notes”) in the Student Toolkit as if you were a student.
While learning these strategies, plan how you would teach them, with special consideration to formative assessment and enrichment lessons to help students meet the aligned CCSS or the curriculum standards you have chosen. Complete your IPM with instructional plans for Strategies 5-7, if necessary.
Objective:
- In this lesson, you will see how the final two strategies relate to organizing the information gathered from online sources for use in academic assignments.
The CCSS for English Language Arts for middle school students are about organizing ideas, concepts, and information into broader categories (RH.6.8.8.2a), and citing specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources (RH.6-8.1).
Strategy 8 (“Creating Categories”) shows students how to create the skeleton for an outline, including an introduction, conclusion, and relevant outline headings. Students may have difficulty creating headings for their outlines. Support them by suggesting methods for sorting through their notes, or helping them adapt key words from their gathered research. You can provide an example research topic, and model to students how to pull out relevant key words and categories while creating a sample outline.
Strategy 9 (“Combining Notes in an Outline”)—the last step—shows students how to create a structured outline presenting research results, organized by topics and subtopics. This is the final step, but it is not intended to be the student’s final product. Outlines provide the scaffolding for final products that students present to others—such as a research paper, poster, presentation, or blog article. Because students perform research best when they are invested in what they are learning, it is important that they conduct their research with a specific assignment, goal, or product in mind.
Learn the final two strategies as if you were a student by completing the practice questions, watching the videos, and doing the Try It! Assignment in the Student Toolkit. Add to your IPM when needed. Post your completed Try It! on the teacher forum.
Review again the outline example of a student at the highest level of mastery. Answer the following questions:
- What Google-ready questions did the student potentially ask?
- What vocabulary or concepts did the student encounter and possibly have to learn in order to ask these questions and provide these topic headings?
- Does the student meet the aligned content standards by integrating different types of information from different resources to support the final presentation?
Look at the Teacher Scoring Rubric and Student Scoring Rubric. Use the Teacher Scoring Rubric to score this example of a student outline. You may look back at the Novice, Competent, Experienced, and Master level examples from eModule 2.
Once you have scored this example, use the traits on the Teacher Scoring Rubric to provide a rationale for your rankings. Sample outlines and scoring rubrics can be used as instructional tools in the classroom to give students clear expectations about the final product, and to train them to score their own outlines.
Click to view eModule 4: SOAR for Students with Learning Difficulties.
