Learning Links
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Demonstrators should be read from bottom to top, but need not be demonstrated sequentially.
Elementary Demonstrators
• Classify objects by characteristics.
• Gather, sort, and re-sort information into categories.
• Identify connections between new information and prior knowledge.
• Use data to modify, develop, and test concepts.
Middle School Demonstrators
• Gather information from multiple sources to derive meaning.
• Organize information into categories.
• Analyze the connections between new information and prior knowledge.
• Develop and test concepts based on new information and experience.
High School Demonstrators
• Analyze a concept to extract and identify supporting components.
• Assess the interrelationships between theories and concepts.
• Synthesize information to form a new concept and/or modify an old concept; test the concept with new information and modify.
Sample Teaching/Assessment Strategies
Collaborative Process: Cooperative Learning, Peer Tutoring / Continuous Progress Assessment: Portfolio Development / Graphic Organizers: Compare/Contrast Structures, Graphic Representations, Mapping/Webbing, Matrix, Storyboard, Story Map, Venn Diagram / Problem Solving: Formulating Models, Creative Problem Solving, Future Problem Solving, Debate, Simulating / Technology/Tools: Manipulatives, Computers, Games, Interactive Video, Multimedia, Puppets / Whole Language Approach / Writing Process
These sample strategies offer ideas and are not meant to limit teacher resourcefulness. More strategies are found in the resource section.
Ideas for Incorporating Community Resources
• Invite a computer programmer to discuss how information can be organized for different purposes.
• Contact Junior Achievement and the Kentucky Council on Economic Education for information on marketing programs.
• Interview a local reporter about gathering and organizing information to develop an idea for a news report.
• Visit a manufacturing plant to discuss its process for developing new products.
Core Concept - Conceptualizing
Sample Elementary Activities
• Redesign your classroom to make it more efficient. PE
• Publish a school directory of hobbies. Form networks of similar interest. PE, OE
• Design a new box for a favorite cereal so that it would more likely be bought by your peers. PE, OE
• Read a book and watch the movie version of it. Analyze how the two types of media support different understandings of the concepts. OE, P
Sample Middle School Activities
• Design and make a model of a city which includes a transportation network, emergency services, facilities, parks, and utilities (e.g., water, sewer). PE, OE
• Create a display for the school cafeteria based on a conservation theme. PE, OE, P
• Create a database of community artists/crafts people. Provide a variety of classification schemes to assist someone who uses the database. PE, OE, P
• Design a storyboard of a favorite story for an elementary classroom. PE, P
Sample High School Activities
• Analyze a local schoolyard or park for common plant and animal species. Make a model or other representation of what the area might look like in the year 3000 if ozone depletion, global warming, and increased ultraviolet radiation become realities. Explain your representation in terms of the concepts of adaptation, succession, and evolution. PE, OE, P
• Write and perform a play called "You Are What You Eat." Convey the concepts and relationships among diet planning, exercise, weight gain or loss, and calorie intake/utilization. PE, OE, P
• Choose a political system issue or philosophy and trace the underlying structures and principles which support it. Dramatize the development process. PE, OE, P
• Use a CAD program to create a building to meet specific zoning requirements. PE