Authentic Lessons for 21st Century Learning
In this session, participants will reinforce their understanding of authentic teaching and learning using the instructional strategy QC2E (question, claim, evidence, and explanation). They also will work in content areas to create meaningful questions related to their disciplines. Read more »
Created by: Lindsay Hawkins
Date Updated: November 30th, 2021
In this professional development session, participants will engage in embedded instructional strategies that will allow them to examine the criteria for authentic assessments. Participants also will explore connections between the “why's” and “how's” of creating and using rubrics for authentic assessment... Read more »
Created by: Lindsay Hawkins
Date Updated: November 4th, 2021
This professional development session focuses on the components of authentic learning. Participants will connect the components of authentic learning to a Rumpelstiltskin lesson. Read more »
Created by: Lindsay Hawkins
Date Updated: November 8th, 2021
This professional development session focuses on the components of authentic learning. The session is designed to have a minimum of eight participants. Participants will connect the components of authentic learning to a Rumpelstiltskin lesson and explore ways to make their own lessons more authentic... Read more »
Created by: Lindsay Hawkins
Date Updated: November 8th, 2021
The "Reading Realities: Using E-Readers to Engage and Support Students' Critical Reading Skills" professional development focuses on using Kindle e-readers and Google Expeditions to support student reading engagement. Research suggests that students are more eager to read when using an e-reader or mobile... Read more »
Created by: Lindsay Hawkins
Date Updated: September 14th, 2020
In this session, participants will explore authentic strategies that promote comprehension across content areas. They will then make connections to these strategies and opportunities in their own classrooms to support college and career readiness. Read more »
Created by: Lindsay Hawkins
Date Updated: August 10th, 2021
The "Embedded Literacy Across the Disciplines (2019)" professional development focuses on defining and promoting literacy strategies across all subject areas. Participants will examine how literacy components are necessary for their subject areas, identify the specific literacy strategies appropriate... Read more »
Created by: Keristy Nieto
Date Updated: September 14th, 2020
Participants in this activity immerse themselves in the K20 LEARN website and design process. Working with a peer collaborator, they complete the planning, design, and development stages of lesson building, and at the conclusion of the activity their lesson will be published. Read more »
Created by: Lindsey Link
Date Updated: July 27th, 2021
Productive student conversations are a vital part of deep, flexible understanding of content. During this session, participants will increase their awareness of productive and scaffolded student conversations in the classroom or within a synchronous online learning platform, such as Summit or Odyssey. Read more »
Created by: Lindsey Link
Date Updated: January 5th, 2021
This professional development activity is designed to introduce participant educators to the components of project-based learning (PBL). The professional development immerses the participant in a mini-project based learning and then introduces the essential components. Participants are also given... Read more »
Created by: Susan McHale
Date Updated: December 18th, 2020
The Creating 5E Lessons PD focuses on familiarizing participants with the 5E instructional model. The goal of the session is to immerse participants in an authentic 5E activity with an emphasis on each element of the 5E model. Participants will identify and describe the components of a 5E lesson and... Read more »
Created by: Robyn Hilger
Date Updated: July 15th, 2021
Do you like to disrupt the status quo? Do you want new ways to assess students by using their favorite form of literacy: speaking and listening? Dive into the use of Flipgrid as an alternative formative assessment tool. The #Flipgridfever for Formative Assessments PD session focuses on using Flipgrid... Read more »
Created by: Teresa Randall
Date Updated: February 2nd, 2022
This professional learning session focuses on providing teachers with foundational knowledge and strategies they can use to promote cognitive student engagement in the classroom. Participants will explore research on student engagement, analyze engagement scenarios, and generate strategies for generating... Read more »
Created by: Shayna Pond
Date Updated: January 19th, 2021
This professional learning session focuses on providing teachers with foundational knowledge and strategies they can use to promote affective student engagement in the classroom. Participants will explore research on student engagement, analyze engagement scenarios, and generate strategies for improving... Read more »
Created by: Matthew McDonald
Date Updated: January 12th, 2021
This professional learning session focuses on providing teachers with foundational knowledge and strategies they can use to promote student behavioral engagement in the classroom. Participants will explore research on student engagement, analyze engagement scenarios, and generate strategies for generating... Read more »
Created by: Matthew McDonald
Date Updated: January 12th, 2021
This professional learning session focuses on providing teachers with foundational knowledge and strategies they can use to promote emotional student engagement in the classroom. Participants will explore research on student engagement, analyze engagement scenarios, and generate strategies for improving... Read more »
Created by: Shayna Pond
Date Updated: January 19th, 2021
The Level Up for esports Professional Development Session will introduce the concept of esports clubs. Participants will explore resources and information on how esports clubs can promote college and career readiness, address potential challenges, and discover potential social/emotional benefits for... Read more »
Created by: Lindsay Williams
Date Updated: August 24th, 2021
Workshop offered to all 10th to 12th-grade students interested in understanding the ACT and increasing their composite scores. Students engage in specific content through instructional strategies for seven two-hour ACT prep sessions. These research-based instructional strategy examples are designed... Read more »
Created by: Lindsay Hawkins
Date Updated: July 27th, 2021
Workshop offered to all 10th to 12th-grade students interested in understanding the ACT and increasing their composite scores. Students engage in specific content through instructional strategies for seven two-hour ACT prep sessions. These research-based instructional strategy examples are designed... Read more »
Participants will experience a workshop session that provides the fundamentals of Essential Questions. They will then discover how they can use Essential Questions as a focus when lesson planning by creating their own content specific Essential Questions. Read more »
Created by: Lindsay Williams
Date Updated: August 4th, 2021
This professional development will provide participants with literacy strategies to use in their classrooms as they implement document-based questions (DBQs). Read more »
Created by: Daniel Schwarz
Date Updated: January 12th, 2022
This activity aims to prepare faculty to design effective, technology-integrated project-based learning (PBL) experiences that leverage the opportunities afforded by a robust Makerspace or STEM lab. It is based on the "Design a Project" Project-Based Learning PD, which introduces participants to the... Read more »
Created by: Christina Naruszewicz
Date Updated: July 21st, 2021
Participants will actively engage in formative assessments that are in lessons on Learn and reflect on how those assessment strategies can be used in their specific content area and with their students. Read more »
Created by: Lindsey Link
Date Updated: October 29th, 2021
During this interactive professional development session, participants will explore what makes an instructional strategy effective and student-centered. The instructional strategies highlighted in this session promote authentic learning by encouraging student ownership of the learning process. Participants... Read more »
Created by: Mariana DeLoera
Date Updated: March 14th, 2022
This professional learning session will focus on how to incorporate a love of reading and student choice into all classes. Participants will explore a variety of authentic strategies that support reading comprehension, substantive conversations, and student choice to gain a deeper understanding that... Read more »
Created by: Patricia McDaniels-Gomez
Date Updated: February 16th, 2022
Created by: Mary Braggs
Date Updated: May 17th, 2023
Students engage in activities that explore the characteristics of good college admission/scholarship essays. Then, using the list generated, they create a personal outline for a college admissions essay. Read more »
Created by: Lindsay Hawkins
Date Updated: September 14th, 2020
This workshop prepares student for the ACT test by utilizing several K20 Instructional Strategies. The workshop is designed to be an after-school program lasting for seven weeks and including one 2-hour session each week. Sessions will be broken up into reading/ELA and science/math. This resource provides... Read more »
Created by: Lindsay Hawkins
Date Updated: July 15th, 2022
Through small-group activities, research, and discussion, students will be exposed to a variety of careers, along with their average salaries, educational institutions, and postsecondary requirements. Students will learn about a variety of jobs in eight career clusters and the educational institutions'... Read more »
Created by: Patricia McDaniels-Gomez
Date Updated: April 14th, 2023
Students will look at two accounts from opposing sides of the Civil War in order to analyze how Abraham Lincoln’s election fueled the decision to join the war effort. To demonstrate their understanding of the readings, students will use the writing strategy, RAFT (Role Audience Format Topic), where... Read more »
Created by: Susan McHale
Date Updated: November 17th, 2022
Civil War Era
After reading a poem and article about the death of an African American man, students read an article about the death of an African American boy and write an elegy for him in response. While this lesson is currently aligned only to 9th grade standards, it would be appropriate to teach in grades 9th... Read more »
Created by: K20 Center
Date Updated: April 4th, 2023
Reading & Writing Poetry
This lesson is designed to take place after completion of another K20 lesson, "Arguing With Evidence." Students will read an article from the New York Times and integrate knowledge of key terms to construct an argument based on a claim, evidence, and reasoning. Read more »
Created by: Keristy Nieto
Date Updated: June 5th, 2023
Part 2: Constructing Arguments
Elements of an Essay
In this lesson students will engage in multiple independent and group strategies to both identify and analyze essential structural elements of an essay. By doing this, students will both practice and gain a clearer perspective of how to write with greater clarity and effectiveness. Read more »
Created by: Jane Baber
Date Updated: November 8th, 2022
This lesson provides an overview of the key events and concepts of the Vietnam War. Using hands-on activities and discussions, students are able to explore the vocabulary and multiple perspectives of the war. This lesson is meant to be taught after this era and subject have been introduced to students.... Read more »
Created by: Chelsee Wilson
Date Updated: June 13th, 2022
The Vietnam War
In this lesson about Greek and Latin roots, students will explore word origins by discovering root words and applying them to their own writing. Students will work in groups and use learning strategies to recognize Latin and Greek roots, then complete a reading and annotation activity to identify English... Read more »
Created by: Margaret Salesky
Date Updated: September 13th, 2022
Greek and Latin Roots
Language, Character Motivation, and Theme
In this lesson, students will interactively explore Acts 3 and 4 of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Students will engage in various strategies, focusing on thematic elements of the play in consideration of language and character motivation. Students will engage in during-reading strategies designed... Read more »
Created by: Jane Baber
Date Updated: May 24th, 2023
Language, Character Motivation, and Theme
Students will analyze primary documents to better understand the colonial resistance to British rule and how this resistance influenced the American Revolution. Read more »
Created by: Brandi Graham
Date Updated: May 31st, 2022
Colonial resistance and movement towards revolution
In this lesson, students will learn to effectively identify and analyze themes through and across a variety of texts through a variety of engaging activities. Students will explore universal theme sets through the Four Corners and Always, Sometimes, Never strategies before composing their own theme... Read more »
Created by: K20 Center
Date Updated: March 14th, 2023
Theme
In this lesson, students will critically examine how literary elements contribute to the theme of a text. Students will explore universal theme sets by examining pictures and engaging in the Four Corners strategy. Students will then identify a universal theme within a text by using the Why-Lighting... Read more »
Created by: K20 Center
Date Updated: June 5th, 2023
Picture The Theme
Students need strategies to help them read informational texts and sort out the details that are important in contributing to the overall main idea of the text. This series of activities is designed to give students practice first with visual advertisements, then shorter texts, and then finally, a longer... Read more »
Created by: K20 Center
Date Updated: May 22nd, 2023
Identifying the Main Idea
How do you persuade others? How did the characters in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" use ethos, pathos, and logos to sway the minds of the Roman people? This lesson explores the three modes of persuasion and invites students to analyze and notate the speeches in Shakespeare's tragedy for ethos, pathos,... Read more »
Created by: Chelsee Wilson
Date Updated: March 13th, 2023
Julius Caesar
Students will use close reading strategies to analyze an author’s tone within nonfiction texts. The class will begin with modern music lyrics, then shift to famous passages of nonfiction writers. Through collaborative exercises, students will scaffold knowledge of word choice and structure to analyze... Read more »
Created by: K20 Center
Date Updated: June 2nd, 2022
tone analysis through music and nonfiction
Centered on the phenomenon of the Blue Fugates, students will explore how recessive traits increase in a population using a Punnett square activity, genotype/phenotype ratios and allele frequency calculations, and pedigree analysis. By the end of the lesson they will be able to explain how social, genetic,... Read more »
Created by: K20 Center
Date Updated: June 21st, 2022
Recessive Gene Inheritance
This lesson is intended to be either an introduction or a refresher of Darwinian fitness. Students think about what it means to be 'fit' and the impact humans have had on this natural mechanism. Read more »
Created by: K20 Center
Date Updated: June 8th, 2022
Darwinian Fitness
Inferencing - reading between the lines - is a challenging, yet important, close reading skill. In this lesson, students practice making inferences in a variety of contexts. Through films, picture books, short stories, and works of literature, students make inferences about character, setting, plot,... Read more »
Created by: K20 Center
Date Updated: May 18th, 2022
inferencing: A close reading strategY
The Great Gatsby and the Sense of Sound
This lesson is to be taught after reading Chapter 6 where Gatsby throws another one of his famous parties, this time with Daisy in attendance. In this lesson, students will explore the essential question "How can music help establish mood and tone?" to create a playlist that explores the sense of sound... Read more »
Created by: Jane Baber
Date Updated: March 15th, 2023
The Great Gatsby and the Sense of Sound
This lesson focuses on scaffolding the use of the Get a Life college and career simulation game in the classroom, specifically targeting career awareness in middle school students. Participants will play the game and experience classroom activities designed to process the gameplay and facilitate discussion... Read more »
Created by: William Thompson
Date Updated: April 6th, 2023
Students will examine evidence for glacial theory and other competing theories of the early 1800s. Students will read field journal excerpts from geologists as well as analyze the data collected from early Alpine expeditions. Read more »
Created by: K20 Center
Date Updated: May 3rd, 2023
Glacial Theory
Students will model Mendel’s Law of Segregation and Independent Assortment using Popsicle sticks to represent diploid autosomes and sex chromosomes. By the end of this lesson students will produce unique paper baby dragons. Read more »
Created by: K20 Center
Date Updated: May 18th, 2023
Biology: Genetic Traits
This is a quick and simple twist or extension of the lesson "Sweet and Savory Writing" that can be found in the K20 LEARN lesson repository. In this lesson, students will apply knowledge of the five senses to enhance descriptive writing. Students review the five senses, utilize that practice to rewrite... Read more »
Created by: Jane Baber
Date Updated: May 24th, 2023
Descriptive Writing
Students will identify public services provided through taxes. They will read and present information about local, state, and federal revenue sources that become our tax-based funding for services and programs. Read more »
Created by: Susan McHale
Date Updated: January 24th, 2023
Standard 2: Taxes
Students will use DNA processes such as replication, transcription, and translation to study the differences between healthy individuals and those with a genetic disorder (in this case, cystic fibrosis). Students will apply this knowledge to the inheritance of traits through the use of Punnett squares. Read more »
Created by: Danny Mattox
Date Updated: May 18th, 2023
DNA Processes
Students model population growth across continents to discover the difference between linear and exponential models. Students should already be familiar with both linear and exponential functions and equations. Read more »
Created by: K20 Center
Date Updated: November 18th, 2022
Linear Vs. Exponential Growth
In this lesson, students will move through a series of primary source documents, maps, and graphs to explore the underlying causes of World War I. After analyzing the documents, students will use a graphic organizer to connect new information to historical concepts: militarism, alliances, imperialism,... Read more »
Created by: K20 Center
Date Updated: November 3rd, 2022
World War I
In this lesson about the growth and development of organisms, students will gather evidence from research about specific plant phenomena, then use research and in-class investigations to explain the relationship between environmental conditions and plant growth. Activities throughout the lesson will... Read more »
Created by: Heather Shaffery
Date Updated: April 17th, 2023
Growth and Development of Organisms
In this lesson, students will examine the three East Asian religions of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism using the traditional painting "The Vinegar Tasters" as a visual guide. Students will work in groups to read about these religions and teach the class what they learned. After completing a Venn... Read more »
Created by: Chelsee Wilson
Date Updated: July 15th, 2022
East Asian Religions
Students will analyze the "Worcester v. Georgia" United States Supreme Court case, then work together to summarize and categorize actions that protected the sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation or undermined it. To extend knowledge, students will watch a video of a judge discussing the powers of the judicial... Read more »
Created by: Sarah Brewer
Date Updated: February 27th, 2023
Cherokee Sovereignty and Actions of the U.S. Government
In this lesson about the Emancipation Proclamation and expanding the goals of the Civil War, students will analyze the Emancipation Proclamation in comparison to an excerpt from President Lincoln's first inaugural address. Students will work in groups using a Card Sort strategy and Paired Text Analysis... Read more »
Created by: Sarah Brewer
Date Updated: April 12th, 2023
Expanding the Goals of the Civil War
In this lesson, students explore the essential question, "How do mood and tone contribute to the reader's experience of a piece of literature?" through reading and analyzing the short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce. Read more »
Created by: Jane Baber
Date Updated: March 17th, 2023
Mood and Tone
This lesson, used in conjunction with Ray Bradbury's short story "A Sound of Thunder," guides students to determine their own definitions for cause, effect, and foreshadowing, find examples of these concepts in the text, and create a brochure based on the story's fictional Time Travel, Inc. This lesson... Read more »
Created by: Chelsee Wilson
Date Updated: April 12th, 2023
Analyzing Short Stories
In this lesson, students reflect on the diversity of the churches in their community before exploring the causes and key figures of the Protestant Reformation and making connections to how the Reformation affected what they see in their community today. Read more »
Created by: Chelsee Wilson
Date Updated: July 15th, 2022
Global Age
In this lesson, students analyze a variety of primary source documents in an effort to determine why the Southern states seceded from the Union to form the Confederate States of America. Using the evidence they compile, students craft Claim, Evidence, Reasoning statements to explain the Southern states'... Read more »
Created by: Sarah Brewer
Date Updated: April 18th, 2023
The Civil War
While Shakespeare is the king of the British play, Shakespearean language is often difficult for students to understand. In this lesson, students employ music and critical thinking strategies as they learn to better understand the language of the Bard. It would be best to teach this lesson when starting... Read more »
Created by: Chelsee Wilson
Date Updated: November 22nd, 2022
Understanding Shakespeare
This lesson focuses on comparing and contrasting fiction and nonfiction, writing a researchable inquiry question, and developing justice-based research questions. Students will familiarize themselves with the Tulsa Race Massacre and then read an excerpt from the novel "Dreamland Burning," followed by... Read more »
Created by: Polly Base
Date Updated: March 14th, 2023
Guided Inquiry Research
Students will evaluate what motivates people, especially as it relates to the main characters in “The Gift of the Magi.” As they read and listen to the story, students will identify thoughts and feelings that relate to the motivations and actions of the main characters. Students will also look for and... Read more »
Created by: Margaret Salesky
Date Updated: March 17th, 2023
Motivation in Characters
In this lesson, students explore the patterns of rhyme and syllables in Shakespearean sonnets in order to understand iambic pentameter. Students compose their own original sonnets. Read more »
Created by: Jordin Carmichael
Date Updated: December 8th, 2020
Shakespearean Sonnets and Iambic Pentameter