Lesson Plan for Web Scavenger Hunt

Web Scavenger Hunt Lesson Plan

Blog or Wiki Address:

http://lilmizqtpi.blogspot.com/2015/12/lesson-plan-for-web-scavenger-hunt.html

Subject Matter: ELA

Grade Level: 1st

Lesson Objective:

• Learners will demonstrate knowledge of/understanding of/ability to:
• Differentiate fiction from nonfiction books
• Deduce the topic of a fiction and nonfiction book

Common Core State Standard and/or Academic Content Standard:

CC.1.R.L.5 Craft and Structure: Explain major differences between books that tell stories and books that give information, drawing on a wide reading of a range of text types.

Technology Standard: NETS for Students:

3. Research and information fluency Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information.

a. Plan strategies to guide inquiry

b. Locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information from a variety of sources and media

c. Evaluate and select information sources and digital tools based on the appropriateness to specific tasks

d. Process data and report results

Website Addresses Used as Resources:

1. http://www.studyzone.org/testprep/ela4/i/fictionnonp1st.cfm

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KAJ0lJiD6c

3. http://www.readathon.org/the-storymaker/

Student Research Questions:

Essential Question:  See discussion of essential questions in week seven documents and resources or learning activities folder.

1. What was the most important thing you learned about the difference between fiction and nonfiction books?

Subsidiary Questions (6-10):

2. What does “fiction” mean? Nonfiction?

3.  How do we know the difference between fiction and nonfiction?

4. Give me an example of 3 books have we read in class that are fiction? Nonfiction?

5.  What ways are fiction and nonfiction the same? What ways are they different?

6. How do we figure out the topic/theme of a book?

7. What parts of a book make up the topic/theme?

8. What questions do we ask to find the topic?

9.  What is your favorite, fiction or nonfiction?

10. If you could write only one kind of story, which would you choose and why?

Assessment:  

Using the internet to do a web search to find information on fiction/nonfiction as well as learning the theme/topic of a book helps students interact more personally with the lesson and they are able to practice application by building their own story, both online and in class by listening to stories and choosing the correct genre. They would have an in-class portion of this lesson to write both a fiction and nonfiction story and would have to identify the topic as well as the characters, setting, problem, solution, and main idea.

Writing the literature review was such a great experience. I rediscovered my passion for my topic and found some great new resources, which I did not expect at all! I was confused at first on how to organize the topic, with all of the sources, and add in the new sources I found. I decided to approach it with the basic topics: who, what, why and how. Under each heading I was able to organize different material and make a lot of information much more accessible. I am planning on using this strategy from now on because it makes it so easy to access your sources in an organized way. It helped me stay on topic and I think it would be so helpful when writing a research paper. I ended up with so much information that I went far beyond the 2-3 pages and I felt like I had enough information to write a completely informed research paper with the information I had. This was a great assignment that taught me so much about research organization.

Annotated Bibliography

This week while writing my annotated bibliography I found a few new resources that explored disproportionality in greater depth. One article, written by Dr. Gentry, a professor of special education, explores in depth solutions to disproportionality and helpful recommendations for the entirety of special education. The article also addresses overrepresentation and underrepresentation, and how each scenario can negatively impact students, explores the bias of misdiagnosis in detail and offers solutions to bring about much needed change.

The second article is a research study that focuses on the over representation of minorities from across the United States and explores reasons why overrepresentation occurs, what mandates have been implemented to prevent it and whether those mandates made any true change. Although this study is based upon surveys taken from 2004 to 2008, this study introduces evidence that may show that the mandates in place to protect from disproportionality are not effective. The article describes the factors that contribute to disproportionality, legislative initiatives to prevent or reduce disproportionality, the current study, which was based on the US Census Bureau, and the findings of the study.

I found each article on Ebscohost, and I believe that even though the study is dated from information from 2008, the mandates that have been put into place are not effective and need revision. That is why I believe this research is so important to educators. This is a problem that is affecting students for their entire lives because they are misdiagnosed. We need to recognize the difference between learning disabilities and other factors that may contribute to learning, but have nothing to do with a student’s intelligence.

Plagiarism and academic integrity are fundamental issues as a college student. I distinctly remember the night after freshman orientation in college waking from a nightmare that I had accidentally mis-cited a source and was banned from every school in the country. While the drama of my dream was a bit extreme, the value of writing with academic integrity is of the utmost importance. When we write, we are using tools that have been learned through other author’s countless hours of research, study and hard work. We must always give credit where it is due for the facts and opinions of others. I have always felt that my greatest accomplishment as a student would be creating unique and original work that would reflect my heart as a writer and would impart wisdom to others. The research we use every week to develop our own research topics were written by those who feel the same and to steal the ideas of another person makes our own contribution cheap and false. Give credit where it is due, cite sources, even just one sentence from one article, if it was written by someone else, it belongs to someone else and they deserve that credit. In doing so, you stay authentic and honest, and your writing will display your own character.

The article I found this week was very interesting to say the least. It was a study examining the correlation between high poverty schools and poorly qualified special education teachers. Finding it through an Education specific journal helped a lot, because there was so much information right in front of me!

The article, using different research methods, and examination of school surveys, the author found that many high poverty schools had a dramatically higher number of teachers who were not fully prepared, holding general education certificates rather than special education certificates, or completing nontraditional or alternative preparation programs. The study looked at different factors for determining preparedness of a teacher including the following: Amount of teacher preparation, degree major, certificate in special education, certification in education, type of preparation program, and teaching experience.

The statistically significant differences based on school poverty reports suggest that students with disabilities in high-poverty schools are not provided an equal opportunity to an equitable education, violating the equal opportunity standard. The concern is that in high poverty schools, students are more dependent upon the quality of teachers than more affluent schools.  This article shows me that not only is there disproportionality of minorities in special education but that unprepared teachers in low income areas are aiding in the diagnosis of these minorities. If they are not prepared for special education, how can they be aware of the different testing methods, fully prepared to diagnose a learning disability over a cultural barrier. I am going to continue to explore this topic and although this study was based on data from 2003-2004, I would like to follow up and see if anything has changed in regard to teacher preparation for special education.

This week was interesting because the article I initially found led me down a rabbit trail to another article that offered a wealth of information for my research. I felt like I truly understood the research process this week. The first article addresses a study that found that 347 school districts were flagged for having overidentification of minorities in special education. These districts are now required to dedicate 15 percent of their federal special education budget to address the problem. Though this study only spanned 25 states, over 100 of these districts were all located in Louisiana. The article helped me develop further research into what steps these districts will take to remedy the problem, how the issue developed and is leading me to question why one southern state has such a large number of these issues. I decided to continue to research  and searched for “testing strategies” AND “special education” AND “diagnosis” and the first article I found was a goldmine of information on the impracticality of standardized tests in special education, analysis of the Response to Intervention (RTI) process, and different assessments that may offer more information on the student to better diagnose disability.

I was so excited to find this resource and to learn more about diagnosis and assessment of students.

Week 3 Book Research

This week was a little frustrating at first in my research process, I was finding books that seemed like they were exactly what I was looking for in relation to diagnosing minorities in special education, but after skimming through I found that there was maybe one chapter that applied to my topic, and the rest were completely unrelated.

I found a few useful tools this week while searching for an appropriate book for my topic. I discovered one very helpful way to narrow down options and make sure a book is the right choice before I read too far into it. First of all, there are so many electronic resources, that I limited my advance search options to ebook only. That way I don’t waste time borrowing a print book that may not be as useful as it seems by the title and bibliography. I found there were a few titles that matched my research topic perfectly and seemed like they would be a good resource, but after I started reading them I realized there was only one chapter that actually focused on my topic. The next thing I did when I realized I was not finding exactly what I needed, I would look at the Table of Contents on Ebscohost after I clicked on a title and the Table of Contents can be a great way to find the specific piece of information you are researching. Then, you can click on the chapter in the Table of Contents and it will take you directly to that chapter instead of scrolling through the entire book to get to the chapter you want. I have been using this method for another class I am taking and it has helped me cover more information faster than I was able to before.

I m hoping that as I continue to research that I can find a clear cause between minorities being over diagnosed with learning disabilities for so many years, and now that there are laws in place to protect against over diagnosis, there is suddenly a drop of diagnosis' for minorities. I would also like to find the solution to this problem, whether the problem is in testing, classroom issues, or in the laws that were designed to help.