OUTCOME: Students will develop a method for evaluating the difficulty information retrieval from written material, enabling them to more easily discriminate between useful and superfluous text. They will know the difference between easy and difficult to understand texts. They will evaluate the difficulty of obtaining information from text. They will be judged on their work within the group and on group's presentation of the findings.
CONDITIONS: Given a textbook in the subject being taught and a list of questions related to information that is located within the chapter being presented, students will locate the information. Then, given a 10 point scale rating the difficulty of locating and discerning the information, students will rate the text for its presentation of the material. Finally, students will work as a group to pool their findings, giving the chapter an overall rating of difficulty.
This lesson should take a minimum of two class periods with the possibility of homework.
ACTIVITIES:
| TEACHER | STUDENT |
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¨ Write 10 increasingly difficult questions with answers that can be found within the chapter you are presenting. Try to develop questions with both clear and fuzzy concepts (ie. spelled out clearly or must be discerned by reading multiple paragraphs or deducted by reasoning from the material.) ¨ Make copies for each student of the answer sheet provided. Give them the questions, telling them that they must answer them and rate them on a scale of –5 to +5, depending on how difficult the information was to locate within the chapter. ¨ Show the students how to find an average by adding up the difficulty scores for a question and dividing by the number of scores used. ¨ Give the students a poster board or large chart paper to record their group results on.
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DAY 1 ¨ Have the students read the chapter either the night before or during class. ¨ Have the students answer the questions either during class or as a homework assignment. ¨ Have them rate the difficulty of finding each answer using that text. DAY 2 ¨ Give the students a chance to try doing some averages on the chalk board from sample statistics you provide. ¨ Have them develop a chart which shows the average of the difficulty scores for each of the 10 questions, as well as an overall average of the combined individual averages. |
MATERIALS: 1 text book and 1 answer sheet copy per student. 1 sheet poster board. 1 set colored marking pens. Scratch paper
METHOD OF ASSESSMENT: Students may be assessed on accuracy of answers to questions. Also, using the Basic Skills Rubric for strategies and acquisition. Finally on the Life Skills Rubric for accuracy, completion, cooperation, teamwork, and use of resources.
MODIFICATIONS/ACCOMODATIONS: Allow more time. Allow group answers.
STANDARDS: Contra Costa County Lifelong Standards: The student uses a variety of critical thinking strategies: Benchmark: Identifies the qualitative and quantitative traits (other than frequency and obvious importance) that can be used to order and classify items.