Lesson Description
This lesson will be taught within a social studies unit for second graders. The purpose of the unit will be for students to choose a national symbol from a set list, research it, and create an iMovie trailer that introduces others to the important facts about the symbol. The unit will be co-taught by the classroom teacher and me. I will teach the lessons that have to do with researching and finding materials and also help the teacher with the platform of iMovie. He or she will be handling all of the content over the national symbols.
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This lesson is about choosing search terms or key words to research within child appropriate search engines. The students will learn how to think about what they want to know, start out with the question they want answered, and then pare the question down into good key words or search terms to use in the search engine. We will begin the lesson by taking a general topic and deciding what is important to know. Then, we will see what questions we need to ask to find out the information. Then, as a whole class, we will decide what the important words are to get a couple of the questions down to the key terms. We will plug both the question and the key words into the search engine and look at the difference in the yield of the search.
Standard Alignment
This lesson has multiple standards that are met within it. These standards come from both local and national sets of standards. The school and library standards come from the school district of Parkway in Kansas City, Missouri. I wrote the lesson to teach within this district. There are also Common Core and AASL 21st Century Learner standards that this lesson aligns with. Lastly, a standard from the Indian Education for All Essential Understandings is aligned to this lesson as well. Click the document below to view the list of the specific standards.
Enduring Understandings & Essential Questions
Below are what students are expected to understand once the lesson is complete.
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Students will understand how to pare down questions into effective keywords and research terms.
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Students will understand the need for constant reflection to improve the research terms and keywords.
Below are the long term questions that students will be answering throughout the lesson and the overall unit. They come from the Parkway School District curriculum.​
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What do American symbols and traditions tell us about our nation?
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Why is it important to continuously assess the research process?
Lesson & Product
As an independent portion of the lesson, the students will receive a worksheet with a few topics. They will need to demonstrate that they can come up with some questions and then pull the key search terms out of those questions. Since they have already chosen their symbol as a topic as well, the last question will ask them to come up with a couple of questions about their symbol and pull out the key words from them. I will collect the student work and mark the answers that are the strongest search terms. I will give the students back their work at the beginning of the next class before they start their research on their symbols. The worksheet is two pages and meant to be printed front and back. Click the document below labeled "Student Product" to view a sample worksheet completed by a student and click the document labeled "Student Rubric" to view the completed rubric for the sample work.
Click on the document below to access the complete lesson plan for the lesson on choosing key words and search terms to use in research.
Assessment
The assessment for this lesson takes the form of an exit ticket at the end of the class period. This allows me, the teacher, to quickly determine whether the students seem to understand the content that has been presented to them, or whether some students need more practice with the skills. There is also a rubric that was created to grade the worksheet that students complete during the lesson. With a slight amount of modification, the rubric will be usable for the exit ticket as well. Click the document below to view the exit ticket and blank rubric for the worksheet.
Scaffolding & Extension
There are multiple opportunities for scaffolding children throughout this lesson. Some scaffolding will be built in as I introduce the kid-friendly search engine and show the students how to ale a topic and pare it into a few research terms or key words. Some scaffolding will be done on an individual basis. Click on the document below to learn more about the scaffolding throughout the lesson.
The extension for this lesson comes naturally through the unit and research project that the students are doing on national symbol. The students will have to apply the knowledge that they learn in this lesson in new contexts and situations. Click on the document below to learn more about the extensions for this lesson.
Technology Integration
Technology is an extremely important piece in this lesson. The students will see a demonstration that will introduce them to using kid-friendly search engines, and I, as the teacher, will be using various technology tools to teach my lesson. Click the document below to see the more detailed plan for technology integration in the lesson.
Classroom Management
Though not specifically geared toward this lesson, below is my classroom management plan for the library. Classroom management is a vital part of any lesson because it is essential to create an appropriate learning environment. This management plan outlines some overarching rules and procedures that will be implemented at the beginning of the year. Click on the document below to view the complete plan.