On the Trails

Title of Lesson – Collaborating with Explorers, Lesson #1

Grade Level – 3 – 5

Content Area – Social Studies

Standards

New York State Standard - Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of major ideas, eras, themes, developments, and turning points in world history and examine the broad sweep of history from a variety of perspectives.

1. Key Idea -Establishing time frames, exploring different periodizations, examining themes across time and within cultures, and focusing on important turning points in world history help organize the study of world cultures and civilizations.

1. Performance Indicator – Students compare important events and accomplishments from different time periods in world history.

Universal Design for Learning

Teaching methods that support Affective Learning

• Offer Choices of Content and Tools
• Provide Adjustable Levels of Challenge
• Offer Choices of Learning Context

Teaching methods that support Strategic Learning

• Provide Opportunities to Practice with Supports
• Provide Multiple Media and Formats

Teaching methods that support Recognition Learning

• • Provide Multiple Examples
  • Highlight Critical Features
  • Provide Multiple Media and Formats
  • Support Background Knowledge

Instructional Delivery Method
Subpage with differentiated content links and a magis link

Savings Plan

• Message Board of My Teacher Page

Materials
Wireless Computer Lab, Firefox, QuickNote, teacher web site

URL(s) of Web Site(s) Used

• Social Studies Cactus
• My Message Board

Objectives

• Use the tabbed browsing feature of Firefox
• Use the QuickNote feature of Firefox
• Use the Message Board Feature of MyTeacherPages
• List the main events of an explorer’s life
• Use the jigsaw teaching method to encourage student collaboration

Essential Question
What were the important events that happened to the explorer you chose?

Procedure

• Divide students into 5 groups – one for each explorer
• Open Firefox
• Open go to http://btcactus.org
• Setup their web browser for learning
  
  • right click on social studies cactus and open that link in a new tab (this is the place where the kids will find information)
    
  • right click on the blog/message board cactus (this is the site where they will share what the learned)
    
  • right click on the problem solving cactus (this is the site where they will be able to work on something quietly while the other groups finish)
  • open QuickNote (this is where the kids will organize what they learned)

• Share the resources with the kids – tell them that the resources are at different reading levels
• Have the kids read quietly – without organizing information – for 5 minutes – make them read
• When the 5 minutes are done, tell them to use QuickNote to HIGHLIGHT – RIGHT CLICK – SEND TO QUICKNOTE – the important events that happened in the life of the explorer
• Two items per student is sufficient – they will all be collaborating eventually so there will be many ideas to be learned
• Have the students click on the Firefox tab for my message board
  • they need to post their name
  • and then HIGHLIGHT – LEFT CLICK AND HOLD – AND DRAG AND DROP THEIR IDEAS TO THE MESSAGE BOARD
  • click submit

• Have the students read all the information for their explorer – contributed by their classmates

Assessment

• Circulate around the room to check:
  • skill in using Tabbed Browsing
  • skill in using Quicknote
  • skill in using Message Board
• Check Message Board to see if all students have posted