Step-by-Step+Instructional+Strategies

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 * Step-by-Step Instructional Strategies **


 * Goals and Objectives **


 * Students will use online reserach strategies to research the cultures of Native Americans in their current geographic location, focusing on how natural resources in that area impacted the culture.
 * Students will communicate with other students via a Project Blog in order to gain information about Native Americans in different regions.
 * Students will use information found in research and through collaboration with other classrooms to compare and contrast Native Americans in different regions.

1. How did natural resources in a specific region affect the lives of Native Americans? 2. How can I effectively communicate my online resource on Native Americans using educational technology? // These questions are authentic for the learner because while researching, each student will discover different ways natural resources were used in teh daily lives of Native Americans. Each group's power point presentation will be created differently with various information. //
 * Essential Question(s): ** How is this an authentic question for your learners?

Initially, the three classrooms involved in this project will independently research the lives and cultures of the Native Americans who once lived in their region. Each classroom will focus on how the Native Americans used natural resources in their daily lives. Once this research is complete, each classroom will post their findings on a Project Blog that has been created for the three schools/classrooms to use. Finally, each classroom will use the information they found as well as information from the blog to compare and contrast the lives and cultures of Native Americans in different regions of the United States.
 * Three Classrooms' Collaboration Activity: How will your three classes collaborate in answering the essential question? **

Students in the individual classrooms will work in collaborative groups to research Native Americans from their area. Research will be conducted via the Internet and informational texts. Each teacher will decide how groups should be formed based on the needs of the students.
 * Each Classroom’s Collaboration: How will students within each class collaborate on different parts of the project? **

**Equipment**:
 * Computers with internet access
 * Informational Texts
 * Writing Utensils and Paper
 * Computers with Microsoft Power Point and Microsoft Word

**Step-by-Step Instructional Strategies**: Describe each step you will follow in implementing your project, including a description of each activity. Describe them in sequential order and with enough detail that another teacher could pick up your instructional strategies and teach from them. ** Days 1-2: Introuction to Project and Preliminaries **
 * The teacher will introduce the group of Native Americans which once lived locally. This could be done with a read aloud, informational video, or power point presentation, or a combination of these instructional tools.
 * The teacher will introduce the project, goals, and essential questions.
 * The Teacher review the ethics of online research and communication.
 * The teacher will form groups for research and give each group a graphic organizer to aid in research.
 * The project rubric will be dicussed and Students will be provided access to the rubric. The rubric will be posted on a locally accessible server.
 * Students will visit the media center to check out informational texts (the teacher and media specialist should discuss possible texts and availability prior to the beginning of the project) and access the Internet to conduct research. The teacher will give the students a list of appropriate websites.

** Day 3: Student Research and Posting to Blogs **
 * The Project Blog will displayed on the interavtive board for reference.
 * Students will gather their research and prepare to post it to the Project Blog.
 * Students will post their findings on the Project Blog. This blog should be created by the instructor(s) prior to the project.


 * Days 4-5: Using Online Communication to Discussion Research **
 * Students will visit the Project Blog to gain information about Native Americans who lived outside their region.
 * Students use information gained about different groups of Native Americans to compare and contrast their cultures.
 * Each group will create a power point presentation to compare and contrast. Students will receive a rubric to reference while completing this task, this will be a formative assessment for this unit.


 * Formative Assessment Strategies: These should be identified as formative assessment, but should be integrated in your step-by-step instructional strategies. **

Students will create power point presentations to communicate information gained regarding the impact of natural resources on the lives and cultures of Native Americans in specific areas. The formative assessment will be evaluated using a rubric. This rubric will guide students to ensure they are making progress toward the summative project.

** Summative Assessment Strategies: These should be identified as summative assessment, but should be integrated in your step-by-step instructional strategies **
 * Completion of the project will be assessed using the summative rubric.
 * There will be a peer review of the project. Students will have the opportunity to view each others projects and assess them based on the provided rubric. There willl be a discussion and a posting about how to improve the project for the next group. Students will provide to postive responses about a given project as well as one constructive suggestion. The students will complete a reflection about what they have learned through the course of the project and how it compares to the expectations of the rubric.