Classroom environments can have diversity culturally and socially. Within the environment each student has a unique family and family history. Students will investigate, learn, and share information about their own families and heritages including family traditions, cultural traditions, languages, and generational family history (past two generations).

After this unit, students will be able to:
- Demonstrate chronological thinking by distinguishing among past, present, and future using family or school events.
- Investigate a family history for at least two generations, identifying various members and their connections in order to tell a narrative about family life.

The teacher will engage in a read-aloud with the picture book "Me and My Family Tree" by Joan Sweeney or a similar text. As the teacher reads through the story, they will share information about their own family and allow students to share short stories about their families. This project will be done in the Fall while the students are just starting to get to know each other.

Students will interview their families to complete a family questionnaire, a family tree template, and an interactive family timeline. The final product will be a family tree digital book.

The tools that could be used are Google Slides, Padlet, Book Creator, or a Google Docs page with the student work imported. They can also use Powtoons or Adobe Spark to include sound with storytelling.

PenPal Schools is a global learning community where teachers can foster global awareness and understanding of a variety of cultures. Students are able to practice reading and writing skills, learn more about digital literacy, and gain social and emotional learning skills. PenPal Schools connects students from over 144 countries to learn together through collaborative online projects! The website is a safe environment that only registered students and teachers can take part in.

PenPal Schools connects students from 144 countries to learn together through collaborative online projects. Once you log in and select a topic and grade level, PenPal Schools connects each student with a group of PenPals from multiple classrooms around the world, so that students can collaborate with newfound international friends. The possibilities are endless!!!

Production of Educational Videos is an introduction to technical communication that is situated in the production of educational videos; the assignments are all focused on the production of videos that teach some aspect of MIT's first-year core curriculum. The objective of these assignments is improvement in both communication ability and communication habits; these improvements are effected by providing participants with instruction, practice, feedback, and the opportunity for reflection. In addition to improvements in communication skills, improvement is expected in students' attitude towards writing, oral presentations, and collaboration; as the semester progresses, students should feel confident of their ability to write, present, and collaborate.

This course examines the issues, principles, and challenges toward building relational machines through a combination of studio-style design and critique along with lecture, lively discussion of course readings, and assignments. Insights from social psychology, human-computer interaction, and design will be examined, as well as how these ideas are manifest in a broad range of applications for software agents and robots.

Google Drive is a web based application that incorporates a system of file sharing. Word processing documents, spreadsheets, and slideshow presentations can be shared and edited with users whether they have a Google account or not. Document owners set the level of access for regulating permission for others to view, comment and/ or edit documents that are shared.

As in Lesson 10, students continue to learn about paleontologists and the work they do. Students participate in a focused read-aloud of the text Paleontology: The Study of Prehistoric Life by Susan H. Gray during Work Time A. Students then continue to co-create the Tools Paleontologists Use anchor chart as a resource for their writing during Work Time B.
Similar to Lesson 10, students collaborate to write a paragraph about the tools paleontologists use to study fossils during Work Time B.

Explore a list of resources that support students building skills with collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and research -- while learning curriculum.

Focuses on the production of visual art for public places outside the gallery/museum context. Readings and discussions that engage aesthetic, social, political, and urban issues relevant to this expanded public context complement studio production. Traditional approaches of enhancement and commemoration are contrasted to more temporal and critical methodologies. Historical models are studied and discussed, including Russian Constructivist experiments, the Situationists, Conceptual Art, and more recent interventionist tactics.

You know how the old adage goes—two heads are better than one. This applies to data inquiry teams as well. When  a team of professionals meets regularly to analyze student data, to reflect on student progress, and to create action plans, magic can happen. Through this process, teachers can accelerate their ability to improve instructional effectiveness, as well as meet the ever-changing needs of their students. This isn't as easy as it sounds. To do great work, data inquiry teams need the support of school leaders as well as school-wide practices and structures.

ViSH is a social and collaborative site for creating and sharing knowledge resources for the realization of educational activities. It provides a collection of tools and services for facilitating the creation of high quality courseware and maximizing technology enhanced learning both in the classroom and in Virtual Learning Environments and Learning Management Systems. ViSH is also a community for teachers and educational professionals who want to meet new educators, create, share and discover novel educational resources, and get access to tools for maximizing technology enhanced learning.

Fourth grade is a perfect time for students to have an ePal! Students will be assigned a project to work on with a student from another town, state or country, practice their writing and language skills and work on problem solving skills.