Entering middle school is stressful for many students. They suddenly have six teachers instead of only one or two. They are suddenly surrounded by a huge group of kids (there are over 600 sixth-graders in the school I'm coming from) they have to handle class-changes, lockers, more homework, letter-grades rather than standards-based number grades. Many students join after-school clubs, or are involved in sports teams, music lessons, dance class, or faith-based classes. They're also starting to deal with pressure to fit it, changes in peer groups and relationships, and changing hormones. It's a lot to handle, and it's easy to see how this could quickly overwhelm the most confident of 6th grader.
Fortunately, the 6th grade health curriculum addresses stress right off the bat and gives students strategies to manage their stress. Below you will find a 6th grade health lesson that integrates technology to teach students the causes and effects of stress and how they can become empowered and not let stress overwhelm them. Lesson Details
Topic: Mental/Emotional Health
Grade Level: Sixth Grade Student-friendly Objective:
Group Activity
Using what they learned from the class discussions and teacher presentations, the students will work together in groups to help their classmates come up with productive ways to deal with stressors using the C.O.P.E. strategy. Students will usePadlet for this activity.
Individual Activity
Now that the students have collaborated to come up with solutions to their classmates' stressors, have them reflect again on what stressors are currently affecting them. Using what they learned about stress in health class, the students should write a letter to themselves using Lettrs.com. The students should use the "Got Butterflies" Game and the Tools to Deal with Stress article to help them with this task.
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Here's another unit designed to integrate technology into a content area subject. This time around, I was asked to create a social studies lesson. Wanting to create materials that I can use when I'm teaching 5th grade next year, I looked over the 5th grade standards provided by UAS, the school where I'll be teaching in Kuwait. One of the focuses of social studies in the 5th grade curriculum is the five themes of geography. This also happens to be the topic covered by the 6th grade social studies teachers at my current school.
Deciding to kill two birds with one stone (1. Create something that I can use. 2. Share technology integration ideas and that will help my current colleagues), I found some technology-light materials that my colleagues use now and gave their lesson a make-over. The powerpoint below is adapted from a presentation created by the 6th grade social studies teachers at Mills Park Middle (Allison Vroome, Cheri Pederson, Karen Varney, Greg Cretin, and Anne Axburg). The multimedia poster I describe below is inspired from a hand-drawn one-pager about a student's favorite place that these teachers designed. Introduce the 5 Themes of Geography with this Powerpoint PresentationReview
Here are a few materials that I created (Quizlet) or found (International Pizza Delivery Game, Kahoot) to help the students review the vocabulary and concepts discussed in the 5 Themes of Geography presentation.
Investigate and Create
After introducing the students to the 5 Themes of Geography and reviewing them, have the students deepen their learning as they research a place of their choosing.
Introduce students to tools that will help them gather information for their "Places of Importance" projects.
Ideas for Extensions
Pinterest's new mapping option would be a cool extension for this project. With 5th grade students, I would likely be curating my students' work myself, but older students could collaborate to create a board. Anyway, I would pin my students' posters to a board with the students' project location as markers on the map. This could be a great tool for the students to explore and to use with future projects (like the folktale project that I described in an earlier post).
Connecting to the Curriculum
I took Spanish class middle school through college, but I've forgotten much of what I learned since I graduated. So when designing my "Integrating a World Language and Technology" Lesson, I walked over to the curriculum library in Poe Hall and found the teacher edition of Exploring Spanish, Third Edition from EMC Publishing to get a little extra help. Unit ten in Exploring Spanish is about artists who have contributed to the culture of Spanish-speaking countries and provided some helpful information that became the framework for my lesson.
I read the unit introduction and created Quizlet flashcards to help students remember the important contributions of artists from Spanish-speaking countries. Then, I found galleries featuring the artists' works on Google Cultural Institute. I provided links so students can view these pieces of art and can further research their artists. Students will then create a short screencast (In Spanish!) about a particular artist or piece of art. Google Translate can help students with words and phrases they don't yet know how to translate. Each student will print a trigger image and link his or her video to the trigger image using an App called Aurasma. Students can then hang the trigger images in the hallway like an art gallery and travel around with mobile devices, scan the trigger images and view the screencasts with augmented reality. If you're interested in learning more about the specifics, read on. Lesson Details
Introduction to Artists from Spanish-speaking Countries
1. Read pages 123-127 of Exploring Spanish, Third Edition (EMC Publishing). Review famous latin artists and art movements with these Quizlet flashcards.
Digging Deeper: Research an Artist or Painting
Use these links to the Google Cultural Institute to view paintings from the following artists. Use NC Wise Owl for further research on your artist.
Screencast a 1-2 Minute Presentation about your Artist.
Students will use Google Slides to create a simple presentation about their artists. Here's an example.
Augmented Reality
Aurasma is an augmented reality app. The students will print a picture of an piece of art from the artist they researched and use it as a trigger image. Watch the video below to learn about how Aurasma works. All students will walk around with a personal device and headphones to scan images and view presentations.
Give students a quiz on Google Forms
Here's a quiz from the Exploring Spanish Teacher Edition. I used Google Forms to make it an electronic quiz. Teachers can put a link to the quiz on a class website, or even project a QR Code up on the board for the students to scan on their personal devices.
Use Flubaroo to Grade the Quiz!
If you haven't used Google Forms and Flubaroo before to grade a multiple choice test or quiz, you have to try it. It's incredibly easy to set up and use. Flubaroo grades for you in less than a minute. Students can also submit extended responses through Google Forms although you would have to grade those manually.
In 6th grade language arts we read folk stories at the end of the year. The kids love the magic, romance and danger found in fairytales, folk tales, legends, myths, and tall tales. Humans love stories and folk tales are a true testament to that. These stories have been passed down from generation to generation mostly told aloud, only to be recorded on paper relatively recently. It's great seeing students discovering universal themes, archetypal characters, and similar plots as we read stories from around the world. It helps us realize that even though we humans are different, we are also the same.
I realize that it seems cliche to tie in global awareness with a folk tale unit, and if it is the only time in the year that this is done, it is not enough, but it definitely makes sense to explore the questions
With that in mind, here's a lesson for 6th grade language arts in which students research, write a folk story, and share their work on a website. The students used personal devices to access Culture Grams and research the climate, geography, history, religion, government, diet, and population of a country. I modeled this process during a writing workshop using Kuwait as an example as I am going to be moving there to teach next year.
I shared my notes with my students and together we brainstormed ways to integrate these details into a folk story. Perhaps I could write a myth about how sandstorms came to be or why it is so hot in the summer. Students suggested mentioning traditional foods and spices, a few words or phrases in Arabic, descriptions of traditional clothing in order to add local customs to the story. This got the kids thinking about the countries that they chose and they started picking out details from their research to use in their stories.
Unfortunately, this year the district dragged its feet on rolling out Google Apps for the students, but in the past I have used Google Docs for the purpose of peer review and revision. It is a great tool for the students to work simultaneously on projects, to get and give authentic, specific feedback, and for me to track the students' changes. After finishing peer editing and revision, the students would work together to create a weebly site to house their group's stories. Groups can be chosen to represent each of the continents or even create a website containing several different stories from one country or region. Here is a site that I created with an AG class last year. It contains a Google map (also below), and the students' stories organized by country or region. If I could do this project over again, I would add a multimedia component in which students should create something to accompany their stories. Some ideas include
Click on the pins!
Standards
NC Common Core Standards
W 6.3 Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences. (Especially relevant is sub-standard D: Use precise words and phrases, relevant descriptive details, and sensory language to convey experiences and events.) W 6.5 With some guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach. (Editing for conventions should demonstrate command of Language standards 1–3 up to and including grade 6 on page 53.) W 6.6 Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others; demonstrate sufficient command of keyboarding skills to type a minimum of three pages in a single sitting. ISTE NETs Standard 2: Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others. (Especially substandard A: Interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments and media.) Tech Tools
Personal Device
Culture Grams Google Docs Google Maps Weebly (Additional Tech Tool of the Student's Choosing. Options include Storybird, Animoto, Voki, GoAminate, iMovie, Stopmotion, etc.) Helpful Materials
Here are the instructions and a rubric for this project so you can use them with your own students if you would like.
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