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An overview for teachers and staff unable to attend live workshops

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Grades

9 - 12

Lesson Plan Type

Unit

Estimated Time

Nine 50-minute sessions

Lesson Author

Publisher

Student Objectives Session One Session Two Session Three Sessions Four through Six Session Seven Sessions Eight and Nine Extensions Student Assessment/Reflections
STUDENT OBJECTIVES

Students will

examine the lyrics to songs and describe how the music and words relate to their life stories.

organize their thoughts and express their stories by using PowerPoint presentations.

improve technical skills by familiarizing themselves with PowerPoint.

evaluate their own work.

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Session One
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1. Present the PowerPoint autobiography assignment to students and explain the required elements. If you have created a model presentation, you can use it to present the concept to students.

2. Distribute the It's My Life Assignment and It's My Life Project Rubric to students and discuss the following requirements:

Students will select five important events in their lives. Using written summaries of these events, they will create PowerPoint multimodal autobiographies.

Students may use recordings from the radio or their personal music collections.

Students will follow guidelines for fair use of copyrighted images and music. (Explain that this topic will be discussed in detail in the next session.)

Student will present their slideshows in class. Slideshows are limited to 5–10 minutes in length.

Students will respond to their peers' presentations in writing.

3. Have students begin the prewriting stage of their projects by brainstorming at least 15 major events in their lives. Students can brainstorm with the whole class, small groups, or individually. Students may list any events that hold personal significance, but you may make the following suggestions if students have difficulty coming up with their lists:

First day of school (e.g., preschool, kindergarten, first grade, middle school, high school)

A special family trip or vacation

A family event or milestone

A personal achievement (e.g., first place in a competition)

A personal loss

4. Explain that in this stage of the writing process, students should write down all of their ideas. If they are working in groups or with the whole class, lay ground rules that encourage all students to share their ideas with the group and that discourage students from critiquing their peers' responses during this brainstorming stage. Explain that students will have the opportunity to evaluate their lists and select the events that they want to include in their autobiographies in later sessions.

5. Ask students to select 8–10 events from their lists and write a brief paragraph summary for each one. Students may also include events that were not included on the lists they created during their brainstorming sessions.

6. Have students set aside these summaries to use in a later session. If necessary, have students complete this activity for homework.

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Session Two
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1. Ask a few students to share an event from their own lists, and record each event on the board.

2. Have students think about the events described and to connect songs to these events. For example, a student might associate a love song with a family member's wedding ceremony.

3. Next to each event on the board, write the titles of songs students associate with that event. For each event/song, ask students to respond to the following questions:

How does the song make you feel?

What images come to mind when you think of this event?

What images come to mind when you think of this song?

4. Next play a song or two that you associate with the event from your own life that you've described. It doesn't matter if the songs are not "current" hits; students will understand the feelings behind the music.

5. Ask students to discuss how the song fits the event and to suggest other songs they might associate with the same event.

6. Have students review the summaries they wrote in Session One.

7. From the list of events they described, ask students to select five to include in their autobiographical presentations.

8. Be sure to discuss lyrics with students to assure that song selections are classroom-appropriate as determined by teacher and school policy.

9. Emphasize that students should avoid using music that involves profanity or derogatory remarks towards any race, gender, and/or religious affiliation. Encourage students to discuss any questionable lyrics with you in advance. Point out you will either approve students' choice of songs and images or provide suggestions for revision on their planning sheets.

10. Before students begin to gather music for their presentations, have a discussion about issues of intellectual property rights and copyright infringement. Ask students questions such as the following:

Have you ever downloaded music or other content from the Internet? What other Internet resources have you used?

You will need to use music for your presentations. What are some ways you can get the songs you'll need? From what sources can you download music? Are all of these ways legal?

Is it OK to use other people's music in something you are creating?

11. Discuss and review the legal use of copyrighted materials in the classroom. Provide each student with a copy of the Copyright and Fair Use Guidelines for School Projects sheet, which provides information about fair use and copyright issues. Through your discussion, students should understand that these materials are the intellectual property of the people who created them, and that there are legal limits to their use (in and out of school). These limitations apply to the use of photographs, drawings, music, videos, and text. Students should keep the following guidelines in mind as they work on their projects:

Students can use 1–5 images from the same photographer or illustrator without permission.

Up to 10% of a song can be used in a presentation. That translates to about 30 seconds from one song.

Students must include a bibliography of any work used in their presentations.

12. Before beginning Session Three, review students' planners to ensure that they understand the assignment and have selected appropriate images and songs. Approve each plan, providing feedback, or make suggestions for revision.

13. Meet with students individually to discuss any necessary changes.

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Session Three
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1. Have students refer to their Presentation Music and Image Planner sheets as they draft their autobiographies by creating a storyboard for the PowerPoint presentation. A simple storyboard can be created by using one of these methods:

Tape sheets of plain paper together along the short edges.

Divide a large piece of blank paper into equal rectangles.

Use a blank index card for each PowerPoint slide.

Use the ReadWriteThink Stapleless Book interactive to plan each slide of their presentation. This tool provides space for students to write the text that will appear on the slide and information about the song they will include, along with space for a simple illustration.

2. Before beginning their PowerPoint presentations, students should use the storyboards to lay out their text and images, and to write the titles of the songs and specific lyrics they will use for each slide.

3. Have students add the text of the paragraphs they wrote in Session One to their storyboards in this drafting session.

4. Remind students of the writing process and explain that they will have the opportunity to revise their text and other elements when they reach the revising stage.

5. Allow more than one session of class time to complete this work if required. You can choose to extend this activity to the next class period or have students complete their drafts for homework. Students should also have any CDs or music they want to use available for the next session.

6. Provide access to a scanner for students who wish to scan photographs or other images for use in their projects.

7. Before moving to the next session, review students' drafts and provide feedback.

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Sessions Four through Six
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1. Once students have completed their drafts/storyboards, provide information as needed about using the PowerPoint software. Depending on your class's level of experience with PowerPoint, you may need to first provide basic instruction on how to use PowerPoint and allow them some time to become familiar with the tool. Students who are more experienced with PowerPoint can help those who are less experienced or who ask for assistance. The following resources can provide you with background information about PowerPoint, tutorials, and specific information about adding music to presentations. Share these resources with your students as they familiarize themselves with PowerPoint:

2. Once students are comfortable with PowerPoint and have practiced with the software, have them begin creating slides using their drafts/storyboards.

3. Remind students of the guidelines for using copyrighted music in their projects.

4. Review students' progress as they work and provide assistance to students who are having difficulty using PowerPoint.

5. Allow additional time as needed for students to work on their projects in or out of class.

Session Seven

1. When students have completed their PowerPoint presentations, review the revision stage of the writing process and explain that at this stage they should look for areas that could be changed:

Are slides arranged in an effective way? How are the events in my autobiography arranged? Sequentially? Thematically?

Can I do a better job of describing each event? Will the reader/viewer understand what I'm trying to communicate?

Do the images I've selected adequately represent the events?

Does the song reflect my feelings about each event?

2. Guide students in working through this stage of the writing process and encourage them to make revisions that will help them more effectively communicate the information included in their autobiographies.

Sessions Eight and Nine

1. When students have finished making revisions, have them take turns presenting their PowerPoint autobiographies to the class. Use a projector if you have access to one.

2. After all students have completed their presentations, have them respond in writing by completing the It's My Life Self-Assessment.

EXTENSIONS

Have students use the Profile Publisher to enhance their autobiographies by creating one or more profiles to represent themselves at different times in their lives, with a special focus on the connection between experiences and music.

STUDENT ASSESSMENT/REFLECTIONS

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It's My Life: Multimodal Autobiography Project - ReadWriteThink

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Grades 9 - 12 Lesson Plan Type Unit Estimated Time Nine 50-minute sessions Lesson Author Publisher Student Objectives Session One Session Two Session Three Sessions Four through Six Session Seven Sessions Eight and Nine Extensions Student Assessment/Reflections Students will examine the lyrics to songs and describe how the music and words relate to their life stories.

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More sites to help you find success in your classroom

Rubric Maker

Create custom rubrics for your classroom.

Graphic Organizer Maker

Create custom graphic organizers for your classroom.

Pics4Learning

A curated, copyright-friendly image library that is safe and free for education.

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Project-based Learning | Creative Educator

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More sites to help you find success in your classroom Rubric Maker Create custom rubrics for your classroom. Graphic Organizer Maker Create custom graphic organizers for your classroom. Pics4Learning A curated, copyright-friendly image library that is safe and free for education.

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by TeachThought Staff
This post has been updated with new ideas and clearer formatting
At TeachThought, we're huge fans of project-based learning.

While there is no magic bullet of practice, program, or framework that automatically produces progressive and effective learning, what makes project-based learning exceptional is its flexibility. As it is, first and foremost, simply a curriculum planning tool, so much other 'good stuff' that can support learning (game-based learning, learning simulations, place-based education, self-directed learning, etc.) can all be 'embedded' in project-based learning.

With PBL, there is no 'either/or' proposition: anything from open-ended, play-based learning to data-driven, research-based instructional environments can all use PBL effectively.

While there are all kinds of great resources necessary to teach and learn through PBL, from apps to planning templates and more, the genesis of a great project is the idea itself-the purpose and/or audience of the project itself.

Below, we've shared dozens of ideas for projects, and we're going to constantly update the list with new ideas, suggestions from our community, resources, etc. In that way, this page can become a kind of guide for project-based learning in your classroom. The focus will be on the ideas for the projects themselves but we'll also include apps, tools, and other pedagogical bits and pieces you'll need to effectively realize this approach in your classroom.
6 Posts To Get Started With Project-Based Learning

1. The Difference Between Projects & Project-Based Learning

2. 5 Types Of Project-Based Learning

3. 11 Tools For Better Project-Based Learning

4. 4 Keys To Designing A Project-Based Learning Classroom

5. 23 Ways To Use The iPad In The 21st Century PBL Classroom

6. 12 Timeless Project-Based Learning Resources

The Constantly-Updated List Of Project-Based Learning Ideas

Note: This list is intentionally not separated into 'content areas' as many of the projects could be approached from a number of angles (the math of design, the language of planning, and so on).

1. Create an interactive family tree with voice-overs from living family members.

2. Design an app with a specific purpose for a specific audience.

3. Inventory the world's most compelling ideas in an elegant and browsable interface.

4. Problem-solve 'screentime' for yourself and family (identify problem, overcome those challenges, monitor progress, evaluate effect of changes, etc.)

5. Solve the problem of negative and/or 'fake news.'

6. Using the best thinking of major world civilizations, design the perfect civilization. Identify critical characteristics, resources, and habits, etc.

7. Mash any three social media apps and explain the purpose and features of the new app.

8. Help local businesses increase environmental sustainability (e.g., reduce waste).

9. Identify, analyze, and visualize recurring themes in human history; then contextualize those themes in modern society.

10. Make a compelling case for a viewpoint other than your own on any issue.

11. Create 'visibility' for something beautiful, useful, or otherwise deserving of attention (e.g., music, parks, people, acts of kindness, effort, movies, nature, etc.)

12. Leverage the wisdom of people living in nursing homes.

13. Artfully express, analyze the causes-effects of, or otherwise evaluate population growth.

14. Debate the relationship between technology and humanity from a historical (Mary Shelley?) or modern (Steve Jobs?) perspective.

15. Reimagine major coastal cities in light of 6 degrees of warming.

16. Measure the sociological impact of social media on local communities (using a self-selected parameter).

17. Design an alert system to publicize the spread of viruses/disease.

18. Plant and manage a garden to feed local homeless/hungry.

19. Solve a personal problem.

20. Analyze the impact of architecture-or lack thereof-on a community.

21. Dissect the 'anatomy' of viral web content, memes, or social media arguments.

22. Help a local business that does 'good work' market itself to younger audiences. Create a proposal, present to business, refine proposal based on feedback.

23. Artfully illustrate the global history of human/civil rights.

24. Visually demonstrate the galaxy's behavior from changing a single parameter (e.g., the gravity level of a single planet).

25. Design the next Google (the next method of content and data discovery).

26. Start and run a profitable business that is 'aware' of its impact on the world.

27. Plan a Mars colony using current data of the Martian landscape and atmosphere.

28. Create a photo documentary, then turn that into a film documentary, then turn that into a short eBook.

29. Define, Analyze, and Visualize an Abstract Concept (Wisdom, Freedom, Conflict, etc.).

30. Develop a feasible response to potential asteroid-> earth collisions.

31. Analyze the cause and effect of low voter turnout on both democracy, and the health of the local community.

32. Re-imagine the American Constitution-or similar governing documents-as if they were designed today.

33. Perform a cause-effect analysis on consumerism (or any self-selected topic)

34. Create and publish a weekly or monthly podcast on a self-selected topic based on market data.

35. Film a documentary on an under-served social issue few people see.

36. Imagine and articulate a community where neighbor-to-neighbor and neighborhood-to-neighborhood interaction was necessary to survive.

37. Design a better book (physical/printed) that's affordable and accessible to a wider range of readers.

38. Identify an emerging musical genre, then write/perform a song that fits in that genre.

39. Design a school, including new content areas, grading, collaboration, and community involvement.

40. Create and manage a YouTube channel for a self-determined and authentic purpose.

41. Solve a problem your parents have (scale is important here-choosing what to try to solve that's worthy of an entire project and your best thinking and design).

42. Analyze, visualize, and socialize the long-term impact of coal on the environment.

43. Revise the United Nations in some way, shape, or form to better respond to international crises.

44. Answer the following: What would (insert historical figure) say about (insert relevant social issue)?

45. Re-conceive YouTube as an aggregation tool and player for traditional literary forms (e.g., poetry, fiction).

46. Redesign your city to reduce the need for extended commutes.

47. Research all modern tools sued to provide clean water access, then design a better tool.

48. Study local land regions and resources to identify a geological-based response to the Zombie Apocalypse.

49: Design a 21st-century library by first analyzing macro-purpose of a library, then reimagining one in a modern context.

50. Design a modern bookstore by integrating both physical and digital media and categorizing them all by something other than traditional genres.

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50 Smart Ideas For Project-Based Learning

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by TeachThought Staff This post has been updated with new ideas and clearer formatting At TeachThought, we're huge fans of project-based learning. While there is no magic bullet of practice, program, or framework that automatically produces progressive and effective learning, what makes project-based learning exceptional is its flexibility.

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your gateway to the very best in Project Based Learning, no matter where you are in your PBL journey. Here, you will find a growing set of resources to help you design, adapt and implement powerful learning in your classroom.

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By Jamie Kumiega

The project-based learning (PBL) trend is sweeping schools across the nation, and my special ed (SPED) classroom is no exception. Students in my classroom have a variety of disabilities, which make specialized instruction in content areas necessary. In class, we focus on functional life skills that are needed to achieve success in academic and post-secondary life.

A project-based approach works exceptionally well for my students, since it provides them different learning opportunities and is adaptable enough to meet the needs of students on every level.
Here are the top three reasons I use PBL with my students: PBL is customizable to fit every student's individual learning needs.
To help me plan my lessons, I use Defined STEM - an online resource with hundreds of real-world performance tasks segmented by grade level, career focus, and standards. The resource provides support materials like articles, videos, and rubrics-all in one spot. Many of my students have difficulty with traditional reading and writing tasks, so I use the videos and other visual resources to keep them engaged.

The flexibility of PBL also allows students to create final projects that showcase their strengths. Defined STEM makes it easy for me to pick and choose what's appropriate for my students and customize every piece of the lesson for each individual. The wide variety of lessons helps me plan projects based on what I know students are interested in.
PBL helps build social and presentation skills.
Because my students struggle with appropriate social interactions, we often focus on basic skills like how to interact with others. After students complete their research, I ask them to informally present what they've learned to myself and/or other students in the class. While sharing with others, the presenter is able to work on making eye contact, speaking clearly, and comprehending what they've learned. The audience practices how to act when someone else is talking, which includes not interrupting, asking appropriate questions and sitting quietly. Although speaking to the class is stressful for some students, I've found this is a wonderful way to empower individuals to learn and help everyone feel part of the group-no matter what their needs are.
PBL bridges the gap between the classroom and the real world.
I use PBL to help bring the outside world into the classroom. For example, during a unit on the environment, my students acted as city park planners. I was able to customize the lesson for my students and make them think deeply about who uses parks, what sort of animals live in parks, what they eat, where they sleep at night, and more. When lessons use examples that students can relate to, they're able to connect the dots and bring relevance to what they're learning. Connecting new information to something they already understand is at the core of education. These real-world, project-based lessons are also cross-curricular, so I am able to incorporate STEM, literacy, and social studies into one project.
Jamie Kumiega is a special education teacher at Maine East High School in Park Ridge, IL.

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3 Benefits of Using PBL in a Special Education Classroom - Defined STEM

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By Jamie Kumiega The project-based learning (PBL) trend is sweeping schools across the nation, and my special ed (SPED) classroom is no exception. Students in my classroom have a variety of disabilities, which make specialized instruction in content areas necessary. In class, we focus ...

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Project-based learning is an excellent way to differentiate instruction in a full inclusion classroom especially when that class includes students of widely different abilities, from the cognitively or developmental disabled to the gifted children. Project-based learning is also excellent in resource rooms or self-contained classrooms with either typically developing partners or with sufficient support or accommodations.

In project based learning, either you, or your students, devise projects that will support content in a way that will challenge students to go deeper or further. Examples:

Science: Create a model of a concept, perhaps insects, and label each part.

Reading: Create a television commercial or a web page to promote a book, one you have read together or one that the group has read in a literary circle.

Social Studies: Create a play, a power point presentation, or display for a State (as in Michigan,) a country, a political system (socialism, capitalism, republic, etc.) or a political point of view.

Math: Plan a trip to a preferred spot (Paris, Tokyo) and create a budget for hotels, flights, meals, etc.

In each case the project may support any number of educational objectives:

Reinforce content retention:

Project learning has proven, in research, to improve concept retention in a range of students.

Deepen understanding:

When students are asked to use content knowledge, they are driven to use higher level thinking skills (Blooms Taxonomy) such as Evaluate or Create.

Multi-sensory instruction:

Students, not just students with disabilities, all come with different learning styles. Some are strongly visual learners, some are auditory. Some are kinetic, and learn best when they can move. Many children benefit from sensory input, and students who are ADHD or Dyslexic benefit from being able to move as they process information.

Teaches skills in cooperation and collaboration:

Future jobs will require not only higher levels of training and technical skills, but also the ability to work collaboratively in groups. Groups work well when they are chosen by both the teacher and the students: some groups could be affinity based, others could be cross ability, and some could be "friendship" based.

Alternate means of assessing students' progress:

Using a rubric to lay out standards can put students of varying abilities on a level playing field.

Student engagement at its best:

When students are excited about what they are doing in school, they will behave better, participate more fully and benefit the most.

Project based learning is a powerful tool for the inclusive classroom. Even if a student or students spend part of their day in a resource or self-contained classroom, the time they spend in project based collaboration will be time when typically developing peers will model both good classroom and academic behavior. Projects can enable gifted students to push their academic and intellectual limits. Projects are acceptable across abilities, when they meet the criterion established in a rubric.

Project based learning also works well with small groups of students.

Pictured above is the scale model of the solar system one of my students with Autism created with me: We figured out the scale together, measured the size of the planets, and measured the distances between the planets. He now knows the order of the planets, the difference between terrestrial and gaseous planets and can tell you why most planets are uninhabitable.

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Project Based Learning for Special Education

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Project-based learning is an excellent way to differentiate instruction in a full inclusion classroom especially when that class includes students of widely different abilities, from the cognitively or developmental disabled to the gifted children. Project-based learning is also excellent in resource rooms or self-contained classrooms with either typically developing partners or with sufficient support or accommodations.

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PBL Evaluation Sample & Evaluation Rubric (final)

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If you read about my last PBL (project based learning) post, you may have been anticipating this one. I absolutely LOVE how our zoo PBL went!

First we read the book called If Anything Ever Goes Wrong at the Zoo by Mary Jean Hendrick.

After that, we had someone come and pretend to be a zoo keeper. He explained that something has gone wrong at the zoo. They had too many animals in the Savannah section and they needed our kindergartners to help research the animals so they could find a new home for them.

Then, we went back to the room and discussed what we needed to learn about the animals. We came up with our questions to research and figured out what Savannah animals were.

I put my students into research groups based on their surveys, and they went to work researching. They used books, websites and videos. I linked to the website and videos with QR codes that they scanned with the iPads.

If you are curious about the job assignments you see in the pictures, click here!

Then, we actually got to go to the zoo to do some field research! Here is where I loved to be... it may surprise you, but I LOVE birds! I have two just like this one!

We came back and got back to finishing our research and developing our products. The students made masks, backgrounds with water colors, and posters. I let the students pick their final products, but they were all intrigued with making a movie on the Flip Camera, so that is what they all picked!

Here are some masks made for the video presentations:

Here are some of the Savannah Backgrounds:

At the end, we presented to the fifth graders, "sent off" our videos to the zoo keeper, watched the video he created for us in response, and had a fun lion craft snack!

To continue the theme throughout our study, we incorporated a graphing math activity, and I created a zoo addition bump game!

This really was a lot of fun! I will post soon with the survey, QR codes, and research notes packet we created to use. If you'd like to check out my zoo addition bump game, you can click here!

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If you read about my last PBL (project based learning) post, you may have been anticipating this one. I absolutely LOVE how our zoo PBL went! First we read the book called If Anything Ever Goes Wrong at the Zoo by Mary Jean Hendrick.