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INFORMATION, MEDIA, AND TECHNOLOGY SKILLS

Formative Assessment and Engagement

Activating prior knowledge is a great way to get students engaged at the beginning of class. Below is a Quizziz game I prepared to start a 3-day lesson on nuclear equations. The Quizziz game served as a formative assessment of students' knowledge about atomic particles and atomic mass number, and activated that knowledge in preparation to continue with the nuclear equations lesson. The video shows the first few questions of the game, first as the instructor sees it, then as the students see it.

Interactive Teaching

To keep students engaged a teacher must generate frequent opportunities for students to interact with the teacher and each other. One method I've used is to create a slide presentation that facilitates asking multiple questions of the class for each slide. The slide presentation below is from a lesson on isotopes and nuclear reactions. I prepared a slide presentation intended for about two and a half 50-minute periods (see below). At first glance, it would appear to be much, much too long - it has 121 slides! Going through the presentation you will see that it really has only 24 unique slides. Each content slide has multiple versions, that add new pieces of information, one or two at a time, so that I can ask one or two questions on each piece of new information.

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The dialog with students begins with the very first slide, even though it is only a title slide. I ask, "What is this a picture of?" After they answer, "the sun" I ask, "Why am I showing a picture of the sun for a lesson on nuclear reactions?" They guess, "Because there are nuclear reactions on the sun?" allowing me to expand the concept by replying that the sun is a huge ball of nuclear reactions that are responsible for all of the light, heat and energy we get on earth.

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Examine slides 2 to 10, which are different versions of one slide on isotopes. With the 9 individual slides I can explain the concept of isotopes and ask one or two questions on each of the individual slides. On slide two I explain that three isotopes of carbon are shown, and that isotopes are atoms of the same element with different numbers of neutrons. On slide 3 I ask how many protons they have. They answer 6, which is confirmed on slide 4, and I ask what element it this? They consult their periodic tables and answer carbon, which is confirmed on slide 5, and on slide 6 I ask how many neutrons are in each isotope. They answer, their answers are confirmed on slide 7, and on slide 8 I ask what is the atomic mass number (the sum of protons and neutrons). They answer, their answers are confirmed on slide 9, and with slide 10 I complete this series of slides and move on. Slides 20 to 37 are another example of a series of slides that build the content, one piece at a time, allowing me to ask many questions to keep students engaged, and also allows me to show them each answer, rather than just saying it. Seeing and hearing each answer reinforces the idea and also helps the English Learners.

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Practice Exercise with Automatic Feedback

Practice with immediate feedback helps students understand, learn and retain skills. To give them a practice opportunity with immediate, automatic feedback I created a Google Sheet with 20 nuclear equations to complete. Formulas in hidden columns in the sheet check the answers and let the students know immediately if the answer is incorrect. The video below shows the sheet in action.

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