INFOhio provides resources and web tools at no cost to all Ohio's teachers. Articles, videos, eBooks, and learning modules are available to use in lesson plans and learning activities. To support educators integrating digital content into instruction and remote teaching, INFOhio has created Monday Mini Lessons—videos that showcase best practices for remote teaching using INFOhio's high-quality digital content.
Monday Mini Lessons focus on strategies educators need to connect with and engage students during this time of social distancing. These model lessons are practical approaches with learned best practices to support the use of digital content in instruction whether face-to-face or virtual. You can learn more about how to use and navigate INFOhio’s resources and web tools in INFOhio Learning Pathways, just one option for flexible PD from INFOhio Campus.
November is all about bringing inquiry into the classroom in INFOhio's Monday Mini Lessons. Learn more about how to use INFOhio's ISearch to support INFOhio's Dimensions of Inquiry for project-based learning, research, and critical thinking. INFOhio's ISearch is a discovery layer tool that allows users to search nearly all of INFOhio's digital content from one search box. If the school automates their school library with INFOhio, users can use ISearch to search the contents of their school library catalog.
In this ISearch mini lesson the standard focus is on the Ohio Learning Standards for English/Language Arts Writing and Reading Informational Text standards for Grades 9-10:
This lesson also features Best Practices for Digital Reading including:
Previous experience with INFOhio's ISearch will be helpful for students throughout this lesson. Students can benefit from an introduction to using keyword search strategies to help them understand the benefits of using precise keywords when using search engines and databases. INFOhio's Research 4 Success, Module 2 focuses on finding information. Preparing Your Search Strategy: Identify Key Concepts, a graphic organizer, from Kent State University Libraries, helps students develop a list of search terms to use to locate information about their topic.
Within Research 4 Success, Module 2, explore two videos from The University of Houston, Developing Keywords and Search Using Keywords for more strategies for developing keywords and performing keyword searches.
Watch the November Monday Mini Lessons: Using INFOhio's ISearch to Locate Information and reflect on how you can modify this lesson to use in your own teaching practice.
In this lesson, students complete the Research Planning Form with the teacher. The teacher developed the essential question, and the class worked together to develop the guiding questions and keyword search terms. The teacher demonstrated how to use limiters located on the Basic Sources tab to narrow search results. However, ISearch's tabbed interface allows users to search across different tabs. Each tab contains different types of resources and different limiters for narrowing search results. Consider using the following tabs in an extended version of this lesson.
Once students have located information, encourage the practice of evaluating information using Research 4 Success, Module 3: Selecting the Best. Students evaluate headlines and images to test their ability to distinguish real news from fake news.
There are other ways to connect INFOhio's ISearch to instruction. Explore other Teach with INFOhio blogs that provide integration ideas for this resource.
To learn more about INFOhio's ISearch, check out the ISearch for Inquiry class available within INFOhio's 6–12 Digital Content Learning Pathway.
Dig deeper into inquiry with the What is Inquiry? class. To learn more about how to help readers of any age comprehend and analyze digital text, take the Reading on the Screen class available within the K-5 Digital Content Learning Pathway.
A lesson plan for using ISearch with students in the classroom is also available. Check out Becoming a Researcher with ISearch lesson plan located in INFOhio's Open Space.
Join us for Monday Mini Lessons throughout the school year, focusing on new themes and practical applications for your teaching practice, using INFOhio's licensed digital content. If you have questions or comments, we are here to help! Please contact us at support.infohio.org.
Mary Rowland is a Senior Instructional Specialist with INFOhio. A former high school English teacher with 14 years of teaching experience, Mary is an accomplished leader who facilitated professional development in her previous district on integrating web-based tools into the classroom, Google Apps for Education, and writing across the curriculum. During her career, Mary mentored student teachers and served on both the district and building leadership committees. She has earned a BA in English, an MS in Education: Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment, and is a Google Certified Educator Level 2. Mary is passionate about supporting INFOhio’s mission to help Ohio’s educators integrate the tools and resources to strengthen education for Ohio’s students.
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