GATEWAY GROUP CURRICULUM UNIT PLAN OVERVIEW Content Area:
Reading Study Skills Cycle Executive Functions / S.O.A.R. Unit Title: Primary Interdisciplinary Connections:
Grade Level:
7/8
Pacing Guide:
6 Weeks
ELA: Students will read and analyze informational texts and use literacy skills to improve study skills. Science: Students will understand aspects of brain function to strengthen learning, achieve automaticity, and make connections. 21st Century Themes: Life and Career Skills: All students will demonstrate the creative, critical thinking, collaboration, and problem-solving skills needed to function successfully as both global citizens and workers in diverse ethnic and organizational cultures.
Communication and Collaboration: Determine an individual’s responsibility for personal actions and contributions to group activities. Demonstrate the use of compromise, consensus, and community building strategies for carrying out different tasks, assignments, and projects. Creativity & Innovation/ Critical Thinking & Problem Solving: Develop strategies to reinforce positive attitudes and productive behaviors that impact critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Design and implement a project management plan using one or more problem-solving strategies. Use multiple points of view to create alternative solutions. Demonstrate how productivity and accountability contribute to realizing individual or group work goals within or outside the classroom. UNIT SUMMARY In this cycle class, students will learn about executive functions, which are brain processes that enable you to regulate the world around you, utilizing organizational and higher-order thinking skills. Organizational skills, or foundational skills, include organizing materials, managing time, initiating, and inhibiting. Higher-order thinking skills include goal setting, decision making, and self-monitoring. Students will learn to troubleshoot problems and maintain optimal conditions for studying. Students will self-assess their learning styles, and gain knowledge of tools to help them success in school. LEARNING TARGETS ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS
ENDURING UNDERSTANDINGS
How can I manage materials?
Learning how to keep track of papers and grades is essential to academic success.
How do I plan and manage time wisely?
Students lead busy lives, and becoming aware of how one spends one’s time, as well as effectively managing one’s time, will facilitate independence and a sense of control.
What are effective study strategies? How do I set goals and create a map to achieve them? What are my learning strengths?
Study strategies will allow one to apply techniques to new content, allowing one to have efficient and adequate test preparation.
How can I make better decisions and problem-solve the best solutions?
Setting SMART goals helps achieve what is desired. Making decisions requires careful research and evaluation so that optimal solutions can be found. Students can use learning strengths in various content areas and optimize academic performance.
REV & BOE approved Sep 2014
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STANDARDS Common Core State Standards: College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading Key Ideas and Details: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1 Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2 Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.3 Analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text. Craft and Structure: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.4 Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.5 Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.6 Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text. Integration of Knowledge and Ideas: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.7 Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.1 CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.8 Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.9 Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take. Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.10 Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently.
REV Sep 2014
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21st Century Life and Career Skills – Grade 8 Standard 9.1 21st-Century Life and Career Skills: All students will demonstrate the creative, critical thinking, collaboration, and problem-solving skills needed to function successfully as both global citizens and workers in diverse ethnic and organizational cultures. Standard 9.1 describes skills that prepare students to fully engage in civic and work life. The standard includes six strands, which reflect the Framework for 21st Century Learning: • _Critical Thinking and Problem Solving • _Creativity and Innovation • _Collaboration, Teamwork, and Leadership • _Cross-Cultural Understanding and Interpersonal Communication • _Communication and Media Fluency • _Accountability, Productivity, and Ethics Standard 9.2 Personal Financial Literacy: All students will develop skills and strategies that promote personal and financial responsibility related to financial planning, savings, investment, and charitable giving in the global economy. Standard 9.2 describes skills that prepare students for personal and civic financial literacy. The inclusion of Personal Financial Literacy as a standard, rather than as a strand, reflects the growing need for 21st-century citizens to be financially literate, particularly in light of the increasing number of financial choices they face due to the global economy. Financial literacy includes the application of knowledge, skills, and ethical values when making consumer and financial decisions that impact the self, the family, and the local and global communities. Standard 9.2 is aligned to the Jump $tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy’s National Standards in K-12 Personal Finance Education and includes seven strands: • _Income and Careers • _Money Management • _Credit and Debt Management • _Planning, Saving, and Investing • _Becoming a Critical Consumer • _Civic Financial Responsibility • _Risk Management and Insurance Standard 9.3 Career Awareness, Exploration, and Preparation: All students will apply knowledge about and engage in the process of career awareness, exploration, and preparation in order to navigate the globally competitive work environment of the information age. Standard 9.3 describes skills that prepare students for career pursuits and lifelong learning. The three strands in Standard 9.3 reflect the requirements outlined in New Jersey Administrative Code (N.J.A.C. 6A:8-3.2): • _Career Awareness (grades K-4) • _Career Exploration (grades 5-8) • _Career Preparation (grades 9-12) Standard 9.4 Career and Technical Education: All students who complete a career and technical education program will acquire academic and technical skills for careers in emerging and established professions that lead to technical skill proficiency, credentials, certificates, licenses, and/or degrees. Standard 9.4 describes knowledge and skills that prepare students for postsecondary education, training, and employment in a chosen career pathway. Unlike Standards 9.1, 9.2, and 9.3, which apply to all students from grades K-12, Standard 9.4 applies only to high school students enrolled in career and technical education programs.
REV & BOE approved Sep 2014
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EVIDENCE OF LEARNING Assessment
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Students will create an organizational system for filing papers and managing school materials. Students will use a long-term storage system for completed work, tests, and notes. Students will use monthly and weekly calendars to track assignments, important school and personal dates. Students will prioritize assignments according to importance, difficulty, and time constraints. Students will break down long-term assignments into manageable tasks and develop a schedule for completion. Students will follow oral and written instructions using strategies such as analyzing key words. Students will preview reading materials and explore purpose for reading. Students will apply a variety of reading strategies to increase comprehension of fiction/nonfiction. Students will use prewriting strategies including brainstorming and graphic organizers. Students will use editing strategies to refine writing. Students will select and use a variety of memorization techniques and note-taking strategies. Students will identify methods effective in preparing for, taking, and reflecting on tests. Students will brainstorm short- and long-term goals Students will create goals with SMART characteristics. Students will explore and apply a series of steps for reaching SMART goals. Students will articulate a problem and evaluate options when making a decision Students will identify sources for gathering information to aid in the decision making process, and decide and implement the appropriate option. Students will predict possible outcomes and consequences. Students will identify learning strengths and areas for improvement. Students will understand the relationship between learning strengths and various academic content areas and reflect on how to use learning strengths to optimize academic performance. Classroom activities, classroom discussions, handouts, critical thinking questions, performance & written tasks
Equipment Needed:
Teacher Resources:
LCD Projector Appropriate texts Computer Lab Smartboard Handouts Notebooks, etc.
Rush Neurobehavioral Center – Executive Functions: A Blueprint for Success Guide
REV Sep 2014
S.O.A.R. program
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