CMS: 6th Grade Research Project - Social Studies and ITL

6th grade social studies teachers, Glenn O'Neill and Lucille Hyland recently worked with John Horrigan, LMS, to plan and implement a research project on a disaster. After determining that there were plentiful resources, studens followed their interests around a spcific natural or man-made disaster, such as: the San Francisco earthquake, Pearl Harbor, the Irish potato famine, Hurricane Katrina, the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown, the Titanic, or the Love Canal disaster.

Students used the online project guidelines and resources on the LMC page, which included the following:

• Questions to consider
• Disaster project note sheets
  
• A project rubric
• Instructions
• Photostory Tips
• Scanned pictures and music in the R -Drive
• Resources to develop background knowledge
• Specialized resources to develop more knowledge (books, magazines, Internet)
  
• Suggestions for interviewing, viewing videos
  
• Use of Noodletools to cite sources
  

This year was the first year for this Social Studies/ITL project and it was so successful that it will be done earlier in the year next year providing students with the opportunity to become oriented to their new library media center and to both apply and learn new information and technology literacy skills within a social studies context.

Here is one sample by Emily which focuses on the Irish potato famine:

GFS: Research and Writing a Feature Article

GFS Library Media Specialist, Kelley Auringer, has been working with the four fifth grade classes and their teachers: Calla Constantine, Stacy Fowle, Kristen Lukovits, and Sarah E. White for the last month on the process of creating and writing a feature article. The students did research for their own articles using i-Conn and the information site Kids InfoBits to find inspiration and information. A template was created that guided the students in finding a topic, an angle and four main ideas upon which to build their articles. The 5^th graders also learned how to conduct surveys and interviews and to use this data as part of their research. The students reviewed NoodleBib and used it to cite all of their sources. The articles were designed, formatted and printed as an activity in the computer lab with technology teacher, Sally Wanamaker. This is the third year GFS has done this collaborative project.

[Since this year's projects have not been completed, here are two sample projects from last year: Sydney's Cell Phones Article (Page 1 shown below) and Kari's School Time Article]

(Click on image above to view in original format.)

SES: Research Grade on 5th Grade Report Cards

Last year all 5th graders started receiving grades on their report cards for Research and Technology. In many cases the library media specialists and technology teachers support the 5th grade teachers in preparing the students' grades. Rubrics (Research and Technology) and check lists of skills (Research and Technology) were created by all elementary library media specialists and technology teachers to support the grading process.

(Click on image of note taking rubric to improve view.)

RaeAnne Locke, LMS at SES, reported on her part in the grading process:
"As a result of collaborative work with the 5th grade team, I was able to see student progress as the quarter progressed and help evaluate for the ITL report card grade in research. After co-teaching an introductory lesson on types of questioning for research, I was able to follow-up with reinforcing lessons incorporating note taking and asking “think” and “fact” questions. A note taking rubric (see above) was established, and each 5th grader submitted their best example of note taking from their note taking sheets which included one "think" and "fact" question used for their ancient Egypt essay. The rubric grade was incorporated into each 5th grade teachers’ final grades for the report card."

The assessment of the level of attainment of research and technology skills by 5th grade students will help with the placement and teaching of new literacies in grades K-4 and 6-8.
(Our current K-12 ITL Benchmarks)