Motivating Middle Schoolers (Grades 5 – 8)
What motivates middle school students? Hormones and success! There is not much that teachers can do about the hormones, but they sure can affect the success. Teaching Information and Communication Technology Skills: The Big6 in Middle Schools, a forthcoming book from Linworth publishing, offers classroom teachers and teacher librarians new strategies for helping students use the Big6 to succeed in the classroom.
Teaching Information and Communication Technology Skills: The Big6 in Middle Schools, the latest edition in the Big6 series, focuses on the information needs of learners in grades 5 through 9. Teachers will find some tried and true methods, such as the popular trash-and-treasure note taking procedure, in addition to new strategies for integrating information and communications technology skills into the curriculum.
Part I, by Mike Eisenberg and Bob Berkowitz, gives an overview of information problem-solving and compares the Big6 to other models. It discusses each of the Big6 steps in detail and provides information on curriculum mapping and assessment.
Parts II and III, by Barbara A. Jansen, puts the Big6 in context with specific strategies for how to get started. Classroom teachers and teacher librarians will find additional activities to extend students’ repertoire of strategies for implementing each Big6 skill. A strand for using wikis* to develop Big6 units and aide students throughout the entire process is one of the latest technologies included in the edition. A CD-ROM containing all of the reproducible charts and templates accompanies the book. Five model lessons and a plethora of Big6 “Cool Tools” give teachers and library media specialists everything they need to help students succeed in solving their information problems.
Teaching Information and Communication Technology Skills: The Big6 in Middle Schools contains useful information of all kinds, including advice for educators, tips that you can use in the classroom, and even Big6 lessons. A few excerpts from the book appear below.
Strategies for Implementation
Determine Types of Information Needed
Questions identified in Task Definition 1.2 require that students search for a particular type of information. For example, if a student is researching the question “What is federalism?” she needs to find a definition or an explanation. The question “What is the atmospheric make up of Venus?” requires searching for facts, and “How did Susan B. Anthony affect women today?” needs biographical information. Teaching children how to identify the types of information imbedded in their research questions will help them make the distinction among the resources they will choose.
Reinforce Summarizing and Paraphrasing
Practice, practice, practice! Efficient note taking requires repeated efforts. The following activity will provide a structured practice session for summarizing and paraphrasing. Choose two short newspaper articles from the newspaper dated the day of or day before the lesson. They should interest the students and contain three to five paragraphs. Make enough copies of the first article for each group, and the second article for each student. Separate the class into groups of three or four. Discuss or review summarizing and the steps involved. Have each group summarize the article. Each group should read its summary, having the class critique it according to the steps of effective summaries. Follow the same directions for paraphrasing, using the same article. Discuss each group’s effort and compare to the steps of an effective paraphrase (listed above). Hand out the second article and have each student summarize and paraphrase it on their own. Discuss their results. Consider having students turn in their work so that you can individually assess and help those still in need. One or two days later, review and re-teach for those students who do not understand the concepts of summarizing and paraphrasing.
Use PowerPoint to Record Notes
While PowerPoint is often overused or used ineffectively as a way for students to present the results of information searching, it can act as a powerful note taking organizer. Students can easily add new slides when their source or topic changes. They can store notes and images, and create citation slides. Slides can be organized and re-ordered, printed or made into outlines. Students can color-code the slides or the text of notes that belong to a particular source. PowerPoint can act as note cards, as students can cut the slides apart with scissors.
Provide an Audience
Let’s face it—performing in front of an audience raises our level of concern and increases the amount of effort we put forth. Students will take more pride in work that will be viewed by many eyes, even if the “eyes” are imaginary, such as those in the example of the sixth graders’ City Council presentations and the ninth graders’ consultation with the movie producer. Or, knowing that the library will display their projects, students understand that any library visitor will view their work. You get the idea; stated audience = better results.
Sample Lessons
Lesson Plan: The Student Council’s math problems
Grade: Six
Content objectives: math—graphing, operations, problem-solving model, math concepts to everyday experiences
Information skill objectives: focus on survey strategies
Technology skill objectives: spreadsheet—data collection, graphing, functions
Time estimate: Three or four class periods
Information problem:
The Student Council wants to sell healthy snacks in the cafeteria during lunch to earn money for community service projects. The Council has come to our math class for help to determine which snacks will sell the best and at the least cost to them. What is our task?
Big6, 1.0: Task Definition
1.1 Define the information problem. Discuss the information problem with the class and have them help determine how to solve it. Tell the class that we will use the Big6 to lead us through the steps to solve the problem. (Display the Big6 and point to each step throughout the process.) Help them to define the task: Find out which snacks are popular and which store or price club warehouse sells them at the lowest cost.
1.2 Identify information needed. In whole group, determine what we need to find out:
Which snacks are the most popular with students at our school?
Would students buy healthy snacks such as little bags of carrots, nutrition bars, or cheese and crackers?
Do students bring money to school?
If so, how much would students pay for various snacks?
Who sells them for the least cost?
Big6, 2.0: Information Seeking Strategies
2.1 Determine all possible sources. Whole class brainstorming: How do we find out what snacks students will buy?
2.2 Select the best sources. Lead students to determine that surveying their classmates and schoolmates will be the best way to find out the answers to their questions interview students during lunch.
Big6, 3.0: Location and Access
3.1 and 3.2 Locate sources; Find information within sources. Math students locate students to interview in the cafeteria during lunch.
Big6, 4.0: Use of Information
4.1 and 4.2 Engage (read, hear, view, touch); Extract relevant information. Prepare the instruments for data collection. Students use the instruments to collect data during the survey by interviewing as many schoolmates as they can during lunch for one or two days, recording responses.
Big6, 5.0: Synthesis
5.1 Organize from multiple sources. Using spreadsheet software, groups set up tables and transfer the data to the appropriate columns or rows. (Demonstrate this to class.) Show the class how to manipulate the data into various types of charts and graphs, then ask students to consider which method represents the data best. Using the graphs, determine which snacks will sell the best. As a class, put all data together to make a final determination of the most popular snacks, with teacher or one student manipulating the projected spreadsheet.
Put students in groups to contact stores (by phone) to find out prices. Student groups will prepare a set of questions including a statement that identifies the student, project, school, and asks for the appropriate department. Students perform the math functions to find out how much one item will cost the Student Council. Groups compare prices from various stores and calculate, with instruction as needed, which is the least expensive per item.
5.2 Present the information. Class decides how best to present its findings to the Student Council. Each group turns in its raw data, tables and graphs, and final results.
Big6, 6.0: Evaluation
6.1 and 6.2 Judge the product (effectiveness); Judge the process (efficiency). Each student completes a group evaluation.
Instructor’s Assessment: Grade groups on their effort, data, tables, graphs, and final results. Each student in the group receives the same grade, unless circumstances dictate otherwise.
Teaching Information and Communication Technology Skills: The Big6 in Middle Schools will be available to order through Linworth publishing this fall. Consider purchasing this valuable resource, and supercharge Big6 in your classroom or school library media center!
For more information, see Linworth Publishing. www.linworthpublishing.com
on May 4th, 2010 at 7:01 pm
[...] for their work. Having such an audience can result in feedback and and greatly increase student motivation to do their best work. Students also have each other as their potential audience, enabling each of [...]