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Using Standards - Develop Activities
You are interested in having your students gain some specific ability
or skill. Identify what you want them to learn by reviewing the objectives
of that activity. Then review the learning outcomes for each of the Standards
and select those that match.
Also see our bibliography
for faculty and the Toolkit section on developing
courses.
Example
Class: United
States History, Civil War Era
This example has two parts: the first
outlines the assignment and the second revises the assignment to more
adequately prepare the student to succeed by
using the Standards to develop an activity related to the assignment
Part One: Original Assignment with no activity
You may have an assignment that looks like this:
Requirements for the paper: For your paper, you should
select a topic dealing with some aspect of the Civil War. You will research
that topic thoroughly and then decide what aspect of that topic you want
to focus on. I advise you to narrow your topic to
a manageable size. You must have a thesis statement for your paper
that you will argue and prove throughout your paper. Your paper must
do more than merely summarize the history of an event or the biography
of a prominent person. Typed, double-spaced, 12 pt. font and one-inch
margins, 7-12 pages, Bibliography with correct citations, use of at least
six different sources (only one of which may be an encyclopedia),at least
one of your sources must be a book as opposed to an Internet source.
While you would like to have the students narrow their topic to a manageable
size not all students know how to do this successfully, you may be assuming
that they know how to do this.
Part Two: Revision using the Standards and including an
activity
This example does not clarify to the student how to narrow their topic
so we suggest this activity, based on the Standards, to teach the students
how to do this and to practice writing thesis statements and learn how
to find information sources on the Civil War.
We now revise this assignment to include an activity that incorporates
information literacy instruction. Using the Standards we develop an in-class
activity that takes the students to the library for in-depth explorations
helping them to develop this skill and give them an opportunity to get
excited about a topic dealing with the Civil War.
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Objective
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Standard and
Learning Outcome
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Activity
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| You want students to spend some time investigating
options before selecting a topic for their research paper. Your
goal is to have them pick a topic that is both of interest to them
and for which resources exist allowing for in-depth research.. |
Standard
One: KNOW
Outcome:
1C: Explores general information sources to increase familiarity
with the topic.
NOTE: Other standards and outcomes can also be included in this
activity.
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Collaboration with the librarian results in development
of a set of “quests” that allow students in groups
to explore information on a broad topic and break it down into
more manageable topics of interest. |
Each group of 2-3 students will look for information on the Civil War
as it relates to the following aspects: Racial, gender, economic, political,
geographical, the arts (music, literature, theater, visual arts, etc.),
portrayal in films, military, social. Each group will bring back to a
class discussion 3-5 thesis statements that would involve their aspect
of the Civil War.
Example of Thesis Statement Resulting from this
activity:
“Music and its instrumentation not only changed the tone of the Civil War,
but the Civil War marked a very critical time in the evolution of music.”
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