Learning Activities for 21st Century Communication Skills

Using the Internet for Current Events: "Dear Mr. President..."**
Grade 6-8
Prompt:

• Rationale: As 21st Century communication skills include "mediated and digital communication, interpersonal, written and oral communication*", 
• Standards: 
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.1 Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.8 Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate the information while avoiding plagiarism.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.SL.2 Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.SL.4 Present information, findings, and supporting evidence such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning and the organization, development, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
• Learning Outcome:
• Students will be able to gather and analyze multiple sources from the Internet.
• Students will be able to use multiple sources as their supporting evidence to express their knowledge and opinions on a certain event.
• Students will be able to write a business/professional letter, appropriate in content to the audience and containing all correct parts of a letter (heading, body, signature, etc.).
• Vocabulary:
• May vary based on current events (inauguration, policy, regulation, law, protection, citizens, civilians, etc.)
• Collaboration: Students will go through a revision process where at least two classmates will read the letters and offer suggestions for each other to further develop their writing skills.
• Audience: Teacher and president
• Learning Presentation: A letter & a visual (a three-panel poster or a short PowerPoint presentation of 3-5 slides)
• Teacher Reflection: Teacher will assess on students'

Reading Multiple Sources to Analyze Historical Events: Rosa Parks***
Grade 8-12
Prompt:

• Rationale:
• Standards: 
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.1 Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.SL.1 Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations widths diverse partners, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.1 Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.8 Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate the information while avoiding plagiarism.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.9 Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection and research.
• Learning Outcome:
• Students will be able to make their own interpretations of a historical events based on multiple sources (primary and secondary).
• Students will be able to write an argument, using multiple sources as supporting evidence, to argue for or against standard history textbooks.
• Students will be able to collaborate with peers, listening respectfully to others and acknowledging all viewpoints of the topic.
• Vocabulary: activist, analysis, causation, movement, civil rights, primary source, secondary source, interpretation
• Collaboration: Students will be given the opportunity to work in groups and gather evidence for both sides of the argument: reasons for and against standard history textbooks. Students will share their own interpretations of the sources to each other and provide references to support their interpretations.
• Audience: Teacher and classmates
• Learning Presentation: A persuasive essay & class debate
• Teacher Reflection: Teacher will assess on students' 

Source:
*http://www.p21.org/our-work/4cs-research-series/communication
**http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/01-1/lp2291.shtml
***http://teachinghistory.org/teaching-materials/lesson-plan-reviews/19430

Beginning Differentiation

Differentiation of instruction within a classroom begins with providing various forms of content presentation as well as implementing different learning activities to supplement and reinforce the new content.

English Language Learners:
Many ways to different content for English Language Learners include using varied supplementary materials, advanced/note-taking organizers, and leveling questions, and providing different levels of explanations.

Content Presentation:

Using varied supplementary materials may benefit English Language Learners because the content can be organized and presented in a way that can be processed easier. Supplementary materials can include adapted text where the content is broken down into smaller chunks and is less demanding in terms of readability and specific terminology. Also, supplementary materials can include manipulatives that can be used for demonstrations or applications to further support a concept--such as using tangrams or gumdrops and toothpicks to help students understand shapes and geometry.

Structuring advanced or note-taking organizers for student may also help them process the content easier as the new information is divided into comprehensible chunks and categories. As an example, in analyzing the components of persuasive writing, English Language Learners can complete a chart that breaks down the main components of a strong persuasive writing (opinion>reasons>details/examples).

Leveling questions and providing different levels of explanations appropriately addresses the student's pace of learn and abilities. For example, in teaching about ecosystem, questions can be structured to allow students in the preproduction stage of English proficiency to actively listen and use nonverbal gestures, like pointing ("Where is the canopy/forest floor/etc. in the forest ecosystem?"). For students within the early production stage of English proficiency, questions ("Who.../What.../Where...") can be structured to allow them to answer in words or phrases. To appropriately address the learning stages of students in intermediate fluency and advanced, questions should target for comprehension and responses in complete sentences with native-like proficiency and fluency.

Learning Activities:

Integrating physical/hands-on activities into learning activities can help English Language Learners to make connections with new information. In discussing and analyzing certain events in history or genres of literature, students can work in groups to create a skit to demonstrate the key actions or events of historical figures/plot. In reading Shakespeare, students can demonstrate comprehension of the content through acting out the scenes of Macbeth to show the character's key thoughts, emotions and actions that contributes to the conflict and plot of the overall play. For learning vocabulary terms (root words, biology terms, etc.), students can gather different images and pictures that associates and provides examples for better understanding of the meaning of the word.

Students with Exceptionalities:
Some methods of differentiating content for students with exceptionalities involve in preteaching, chunking, and copycatting.

Content Presentation:

Preteaching can improve student learning by giving them early exposure to familiarize them with the new topic or lesson. Teaching in detail and reviewing vocabulary terms, such as the parts of a plant, prior to a lesson may decrease the chances of confusion when students begin reading their textbooks on photosynthesis. Furthermore, activating background knowledge is another way of preteaching as it prepares and directs the students towards the relevant topic of the lesson.

Copycatting lets students become familiar to the patterns of sentences or steps of a math problems by having them copy down what the teacher writes. Chunking is another strategy where the teacher can break down a concept into more manageable steps for students; for an example, in summarizing a text, the teacher may first ask students to identify and highlight/underline the main idea and it supporting details before writing a paragraph or sentence for the summary.

Learning Activities:

Peer pairing is beneficial in learning activities as students can support and learn from each other. Students with exceptionalities can be paired with higher achieving students who can encourage, mentor, and provide modeling. On the other hand, working well with others may be one of the challenges students with exceptionalities face. Learning activities can be designed for independent participation where it involves in picture/cue cards and simple steps and directions to avoid overwhelming of senses and frustration in learning.

Advanced or Gifted Learners:
Integrating technology, offering various texts, asking deeper questions, and allowing personal goal setting can be ways to differentiate content for advanced or gifted learners.

Content Presentation:

With wider range of texts and resources (encyclopedias, maps, journal or newspaper articles, internet sources, etc.), advanced or gifted learners can have deeper access to the lesson topic or concept. Moreover, creating more challenging tasks and offering a quick learning pace for advanced learners can maintain their motivation in their learning progress.

Learning Activities:

Modification of learning activities can allow for more independent and self-reflective learning for advanced students. For example, within the unit of U.S. history and media literacy, students will be researching for three websites about the Spanish-American War by comparing and contrasting each based on a given criteria. The assignment will be modified for advanced learners where they will create their own 4-point rubric for evaluating the websites based on five or more features; furthermore, the students will find a website to exemplify each level of their rubric, providing justification for each website selected.