Text Box:     G r a d e   1 Information Technology

Instructional

Guide

 

 

 

  aligned to the

 

  Vermont Technology Grade   Expectations

  &

  Technology

  Performance

  Assessment Tasks

 

 

 

Published by

The Vermont Department of Education

 

 

Introduction

 

 

This document outlines the Information Technology Integration for Grade 1. It is divided into two sections:

 

Section one- The Instructional Guide - specifies those Technology Grade Expectations which should be introduced in grade 1, the ones that should be practiced at this grade, and those that should be assessed.

 

Section two – Technology Performance Assessment Tasks – There are no performance Tasks in Grade 1

 

Combined, these documents cover the minimum level of technology integration expected at grade 1.

 

Grade One

 

 

Information Technology

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Instructional Guide
Preface

 

The Information Technology Guide to Instruction has been created as a support document to accompany the Information Technology Grade Expectations. The Grade Expectations define where students should be assessed.  The premise of this document is that prior to assessment, intentional instruction and opportunities for practice must take place. Consequently, this document outlines at which grade each Expectation should be introduced, practiced and assessed.

 

Format

 

This document defines by specific grade level (not cluster) where particular Technology Expectations might be Introduced, Practiced, and Assessed. Generally, it follows a three grade sequence: an Expectation is introduced at one grade level, practiced at the next grade level and assessed at the following grade level. Throughout the document, there are several exceptions to this rule. For example, there are times when Expectations are introduced at one grade level and assessed at the next.

Flexibility

 

Even though this document specifies the precise grade level where Introduction, Practice and Assessment should occur, it is intended to be very flexible.  Schools/districts should make changes based on their particular needs and circumstances which might include access constraints. What is important is that Introduction, Practice and Assessment will occur and the person responsible for it is identified.

 

Pre-Assessment

 

When something is introduced, the implication is that it is new to students.  This may or may not be the case.  We strongly urge teachers to pre-assess their students prior to instruction. The same is true for practice as it is possible that some students may not have been introduced to a skill. As with other subject matter, it is likely that a teacher will find students of varying skill level in their classes and we encourage them to differentiate their instruction based on their pre-assessment.

 

 

 

 

What is an Introduction?

 

            When an item appears under Introduction, the presumption may be that this is the first time the students have had an experience with that particular concept or skill.  This may or may not be the case. First, it is important to consider what the students have had for previous experiences.  This can be accomplished by scanning through the previous grade clusters in the Technology Grade Expectations document to see what may have been Introduced, Practiced, and/or Assessed at previous grade levels.  If a database of student performance on past assessment tasks exists, this would be an ideal source of information. Once the teacher has this basic information, they may decide to pre-assess their students. This could be done formally through some type of “test” be it written, oral, or performance. It could also be accomplished more informally through a conversation with the individual students.

            Once it is determined what previous experience students have had with the skill or concept, instruction can be planned.  If it is the first time, the teacher may need to adjust the instruction based on the difficulty of the task. One might approach “navigates between open windows and applications” quite differently than “creating a spreadsheet from scratch.”  In the first example, an obvious need must exist or be created. Once students see the need, a demonstration with several opportunities for practice in “real life situations” would seem appropriate. In the second example, students must make a connection with what they already know.  They must understand what a spreadsheet can and can’t do and how that might apply to their own learning experiences. They might start by looking at examples of existing spreadsheets and discuss how they work and the benefits of using them. This might be followed by students inputting data into an existing spreadsheet to test “if/then” scenarios. Finally, students might construct a very simple spreadsheet of their own while under direct supervision of the teacher. It would be important that students see a direct connection to the spreadsheet they are creating and what they are presently learning in their curriculum.  In other words, it must be integrated in a fashion that makes sense to the students and allows the students to connect it to previous learning.

 

 

What is Practice?

 

            Like the Introduction, when teachers begin the Practice lesson, they must be aware of what experiences students have had in the past, prior to presenting the new lesson. The same process and sources can be used at this point as were used in the Introduction section. And just as above, some type of pre-assessment may be called for.

            Once the teacher ascertains the previous level of experience s/he can create learning opportunities for each student based on that data. It will be important to consider some basic differentiation at this point as it is quite possible that some students need a refresher while others are ready to move to the next level.

            Let’s use the examples from above and see what might happen at the Practice level. Giving practice in “navigates between open windows and applications” might look quite similar to what happened during Introduction.  Since the task is not particularly complex, students need multiple opportunities to practice with at least some of these practice sessions on their own with someone giving feedback. This might be an excellent opportunity for small cooperative learning groups. As students demonstrate their readiness, the teacher could increase the complexity of the task by having students navigate between multiple open windows and/or applications.  For example, they might copy a (un-copyrighted) graphic from the Internet using a Browser, paste it into an open Paint program, modify it in the Paint program and paste it into a Word Processing document that they have open and were working on.

            In the example of “creating a spreadsheet from scratch,” the lesson should provide ample opportunities to create at least two different spreadsheets. The first one could be with the assistance of the teacher or peers but at least one should be done by the student on their own. They should receive formative feedback on their creation by their teacher. Based on the formative assessment results, a plan could be developed for more instruction and practice or the teacher may find that the students’ skills are adequate.

 

What is Assessment?

 

            It is appropriate to give students some practice prior to the assessment, it should not be constructed to practice one minute and assess the next. The goal at this point is summative, not formative assessment. The purpose is not to give the students feedback so that they can increase their ability (this should have already been done) but rather to determine if the student possesses the skill or concept. Typically, we would assess the student individually by observing a product or performance on which they have worked. It is possible to do a summative assessment while students are working in pairs or small groups but it presents certain challenges that must be overcome. The teacher must be certain that the work that is being assessed has been done independently by the specific student s/he is assessing. 

            In both examples above, the clearest way to determine if a student has the skill/concept may be to physically observe the student. At this point it wouldn’t matter if students were working in pairs or small groups as the teacher would be observing each student demonstrate what they know/can do without assistance or prompting. Another way to assess this would be for the teacher to give the students an on-demand task that required them to carry out the skill/concept. The teacher would not have to observe all the students but instead would observe the product.  This would only work if the students were in a controlled situation. For example, the students could not take the task home or work on it outside of class because the teacher couldn’t guarantee that someone else didn’t assist the student or do the work for them.

           

 

 

 

What happens during a task when students don’t have the skill/concept?

 

            Introducing, practicing and assessing both the students’ understanding of content and technology grade expectations can take some careful maneuvering. When technology is embedded deeply into the curriculum, students may come to a point where they can not move forward with the content part of the lesson if they don’t have a particular technology skill or concept. For example, if students were trying to analyze the relationship between certain demographic information and voting patterns and they don’t have the skill to query a database containing the data they may come to a dead end. Conversely, if the student lacks the content knowledge or skill they may not be able to proceed even though they were capable of the technology expectation.  If this occurred during the introduction or practice stages of student work, teachers would monitor a student carefully to determine if they can move forward with the skill or if they need assistance and react accordingly.  When assistance is needed it would be provided in a timely manner. More instruction and/or more practice would be provided so that the student can “move on.”  In the assessment stage, and especially if the teacher has the students doing Performance Assessment Tasks, the teacher must make a critical decision as to when to step in and provide assistance so that the student may continue the remainder of the task. If the student is working in pairs or a small group, the timing is even more critical. When to intervene is clearly a judgment call. But at some point, before the student (or group) hits a stage of high frustration, the teacher must move in and assist the student so that s/he can move forward with the remainder of the task.  In this case, the teacher would simply note that the student did not meet the particular technology standard because they needed assistance.

 

Connecting Classroom to Real-Life Experiences

 

Throughout Introduction, Practice and Assessment it is important for teachers to make certain that students have ample opportunity to make connections between classroom and  real life experiences.  In the examples above that relate to “navigating between open windows and applications” students may not immediately recognize it in the format presented but may have experienced it in other ways. Often when students are “chatting” or Instant Messaging they are doing exactly what the Expectation is requesting.

 

 

Technology Performance Assessment Tasks

 

This document aligns with the Technology Performance Assessment Tasks-Version 3.

See Appendix A.

 

Information Technology Instructional Guide

Based on Vermont Technology Grade Expectations

 

Level – Grade 1

 

Basic Operations

 

Introduction

 

 

·        Navigating between open windows

·        Locating files and folders using the Find command.

 

Practice

 

 

·        Minimizing applications

 

·        Creating, opening, saving, and printing a document

·        Cutting, copying, and pasting within a document.

 

Assessment

 

Human, Social & Ethical Issues

 

Introduction

 

 

 

Practice

 

 

 

Assessment

 

 

 

 

 

Productivity Tools

Word Processing

 

Introduction

 

 

Practice

 

·        Entering, selecting, deleting text

 

Assessment

 

 

 

 

 

Productivity Tools

Databases

 

Introduction

 

·        None

 

Practice

 

 

 

Assessment

 

 

Productivity Tools

Spreadsheets

 

 

Introduction

 

·        None

 

 

Practice

 

 

 

 

Assessment

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Productivity Tools

Paint/Draw

 

Introduction

 

 

 

 

Practice

 

·        Illustrating a simple concept using a paint application

 

Assessment

 

Productivity Tools

Visual Organizer

 

Introduction

 

·        Entering information into a teacher created template (e.g. concept map).

 

 

Practice

 

·        None

 

 

Assessment

 

 

 

 

Productivity Tools

Calculators

Introduction

 

·        None

 

Practice

 

 

Assessment

 

 

Communications

Multi-media

Introduction

 

·        None

 

Practice

 

 

Assessment

 

 

Communications

World Wide Web

Introduction

 

 

Practice

 

 

Assessment

 

 

Communications

E-Mail

Introduction

 

·        None

 

Practice

 

 

Assessment

 

 

Research, Problem Solving and Decision Making

Digital Resources

Introduction

 

 

·        None

 

Practice

 

 

Assessment

 

 

Research, Problem Solving and Decision Making

Searching & Search Engines

Introduction

 

·        None

 

Practice

 

 

Assessment

 

Research, Problem Solving and Decision Making

Using a Browser

 

Introduction

 

 

·        None

 

 

Practice

 

 

 

 

Assessment

 

 

 

 

Research, Problem Solving and Decision Making

Problem Solving & Decision Making

 

Introduction

 

 

·        None

 

 

Practice

 

 

 

 

Assessment

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix  A

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix A

 

The following table shows the alignment of the Technology Performance Assessment Tasks to the Technology Grade Expectations and this document.  Specifically, based on the Information Technology Grade Expectations placement in this document, it shows the specific grade level where each task in each grade cluster is assessed. It is only intended to be a guide and schools/districts are encouraged to make adjustments in order to meet their particular needs.

 

Grade Cluster

Task #

Grade Assessed

 

Cluster 1-2

Task 1

Grade 2

Cluster 1-2

Task 2

Grade 2

 

Cluster 3-4

Task 1

Grade 3

Cluster 3-4

Task 2

Grade 3

Cluster 3-4

Task 3

Grade 4

Cluster 3-4

Task 4

Grade 4

Cluster 3-4

Task 5

Grade 3

 

Cluster 5-6

Task 1

Grade 5

Cluster 5-6

Task 2

Grade 5

Cluster 5-6

Task 3

Grade 5

Cluster 5-6

Task 4

Grade 6

Cluster 5-6

Task 5

Grade 6

Cluster 5-6

Task 6

Grade 5

 

Cluster 7-8

Task 1

Grade 7

Cluster 7-8

Task 2

Grade 8

Cluster 7-8

Task 3

Grade 8

Cluster 7-8

Task 4

Grade 8

Cluster 7-8

Task 5

Grade 7

 

Cluster 9-12

Task 1

Grade 10

Cluster 9-12

Task 2

Grade 9

Cluster 9-12

Task 3

Grade 10

Cluster 9-12

Task 4

Grade 9

Cluster 9-12

Task 5

Grade 10

Cluster 9-12

Task 6

Grade 9