Great Comparison/Contrast Activity to Begin the New School Year With:)

The start of a successful year involves some creativity on the part of teachers to get to know all of their students in a low stress learning environment.  Infographics can sometimes liven up any class if the content is something students can relate to because they can make personal connections with the themes. 

An infographic which fits the bill is 100 years of change.  Here two years in America's past are  compared-1913 and 2013.  Though students have probably studied events from those periods, they may not have a clear picture of the everyday differences in those two time periods for the average citizen.  This visual is full of rich details, but not overwhelming in language.  Such a format allows full participation from everyone:  English language learners, students with special needs, English only students, and the gifted.  Having students discuss the changes in small groups will also build language proficiency of ELLs. 

Once the class has had time to explore the visual, the teacher can move on to making projections as to what life might be like in 2113.  The teacher with the class can select the categories to be studied and then leave the choice of category to be reviewed up to the class with the understanding that student groups will be limited to 4 or 5 AND will be of mixed talents (cooperative learning).  All results will be shared with the class in any format that the members of the groups agree upon. 

Why not have students also create the class rubric for scoring the? :)  This approach leads to a buy-in by all.

Denise

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GREAT INFOGRAPHIC GENERATOR FOR ECONOMICS, HISTORY, SCIENCE, GEOGRAPHY AND MORE!

Here is a tool that will make content comprehensible to long-term ELLs and others. Charts can convey academically deep concepts with ease at times.  For example, economics may at times seem a bit overwhelming to some students due to the math.  Here students study what makes an economy grow, slow, or collapse.  This involves monitoring trends in the business market that steer the economy.  With the current global international business community, these trends become even more of a challenge to follow for many students.  Using this tool, market swings/projections could easily be handled.

Now, imagine using a tool that could in a few minutes convey complex topics in visuals.  Further, these visuals could be shared with ease either as printouts or as PDFs.  Now, of course, students could still use chart paper to draw up ideas from scratch, but at least this tool might provide them with some suggestions as to how to display their in-depth understanding through well thought out visuals.

Again, here is another non-traditional, but highly demanding, alternative assessment.  Students could design their own and then explain what concepts they are addressing in it.  This is academically challenging work.  An essay might come later,  but for now, this would provide the students (ELLs especially) time to totally familiarize themselves with the highly academically grade-level content.  Once that is fully grasped, compiling their own charts could be accomplished with ease.

EASY INFOGRAPHIC GENERATOR

Denise

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