Jodi

I am struggling with trying to make my decision on a lesson plan. Many times I set out to write a lesson for a lower grade and it ends up being way too difficult. So I am tossing around some ideas and will play with them to see which one yields itself to using intel's thinking tools. Here are some of my thoughts: With where we are in our world today and how things have changed so much as far a morals, values, pride, freedoms, etc I feel that these could lead to good discussions since it is authentic and appropriate today.


 * Ice Road Truckers: Is the journey/risk worth it for it's return (diamonds, oil, etc.) in today's economy and environment


 * Do a mock congress of sorts where each student plays the roll of one of the original delegates and then debate the amendments. Are they are relevant today and do we interpret them the way they were intended? (ranking and show evidence, maybe seeing reason (cause/effect of amendents ???)


 * Then and Now: Was life easier for our students' grandparents or our students (interview their grandparents.... ranking) or compare Oregon Train Hardships to today's hardships.


 * Great Depression vs Great Recession or Boston Tea Party compared to today's Tea Party


 * Migration or immigration

(Other thoughts: How does change effect our lives today; Is all change good...... or ...... bad?; Have we learned from our mistakes? How effective is our Gov't? **Deciding where to focus your lesson is the hardest part of the project. There are so many great ideas out there. Carl a ** I am considering using the //**Visual Ranking Tool**// by having the students rank the details of a "scene/scenario" in order of importance. This will help the students determine or focus on what details of a situation are important in solving a mystery or figuring out a solution. I would like to try and use this twice during this lesson, comparing the first set of items ranked to the second even though the list might be different...(not sure if this will work) to see if they are on the right track.

At first look I was thinking this tool //**(Seeing Reasoning)**// would not benefit my students but after reviewing other examples I am now considering investigating it further. The students are investigating a crime scene along with conducting experiments on the evidence and so now I am wondering if this tool or the showing evidence tool would be the best? Originally in my lesson I was going to have them use SMART Ideas to organize their thoughts on linking the evidence to the suspect. Then I would have them take that info from SMART Ideas and use it with the showing evidence for better understanding. I think I need to see the showing evidence tool in more detail in order to make a decision.

Would the students be better able to show not only which pieces of evidence led them to solving the crime but how strong that evidence was by using the Seeing Reason Tool?

Students could use the Seeing Reason tool to show whether each piece of evidence increased or decreased the probability of a certain suspect being guilty, and the strength of each one. Could make a really cool visual representation of all of the grey areas that come with evidence! ~ Liz

I would say that you will benefit from the ease of using this tool over SmartIdeas as it has built in functioning. If the kids are not focused so much on the formatting then they can focus on the thinking more.

//Showing Reasoning//: I think this tool will benefit my students the most since they are investigating a crime scene. I will start out using the simplified version first but would really like to see if they can take it to the next level. I would like for the students to populate their own evidence just to see where each group decides to go with it. In the lesson students will learn/discuss what evidence should be considered "hard" "shaky" or "unimportant" evidence.