LEARN NC

K–12 teaching and learning · from the UNC School of Education

CEU courses open for enrollment

The Civil Rights Movement in Context
Investigate the precursors to the Civil Rights Movement, its leadership, its opposition, and its legacy, including lesser-studied events of the movement and primary sources.
Take this course: Begins February 2.

From the education reference

service learning
Intentional combination of community service objectives and learning opportunities that benefits both the recipient and provider of the service. Student service learning projects should be structured to link learning tasks to self-reflection so that they enrich learning, strengthen communities, and teach civic responsibility.
discovery learning
Learning that takes place, not through instruction, but through examination, analysis, or experimentation.
cooperative learning
Instructional method in which students work together in small, heterogeneous groups to complete a problem, project, or other instructional goal, while teachers act as guides or facilitators. This method works to reinforce a student’s own learning as well as the learning of his or her fellow group members.
collaborative learning
An umbrella term for the variety of approaches and models in education that involve the shared intellectual efforts by students working in small groups to accomplish a goal or complete a task.
learning contract
An agreement between a teacher and a student regarding how that student will achieve specified learning goals or objectives.
learning disability
A discrepancy between expected achievement and observed achievement, also known as "unexpected underachievement."
Dimensions of Learning model
Model of learning developed by Marzano et al (1988) that links content area knowledge, metacognition, and critical and creative thinking with a taxonomy of thinking skills and thinking processes.
project-based learning
Teaching approach that engages students in sustained, collaborative real-world investigations. Projects are organized around a driving question, and students participate in a variety of tasks that seek to meaningfully address this question.
problem-based learning
Model of instruction in which the teacher poses an authentic problem for student resolution. PBL may be one among many strategies in a classroom or an entire curricular and instructional approach. In the course of problem-solving, students work cooperatively in groups to learn content and skills related to real world problems. The teacher acts as a facilitator to learning.
digital game-based learning
Instructional method that incorporates educational content or learning principles into video games with the goal of engaging learners. Applications of digital game-based learning draw upon the constructivist theory of education.

Didn't find what you were looking for?

Finding resources for students
On the LEARN NC website, resources that can be used by students are called "learning materials." You can access them in a number of ways: 1. Site navigation menu On the site navigation menu in the left sidebar, select "Learning...
Format: article/help
Co-op
The co-op structure is more complex than many of the other cooperative learning structures. This ten-step process engages students in the development of a product or project. Students work individually on a single task to contribute to their team, and the...
Format: article
By Heather Coffey.
The learning cycle
A three-part model of scientific inquiry that encourages students to develop their own understanding of a scientific concept, explore and deepen that understanding, and then apply the concept to new situations.
Format: article/best practice
By David Walbert.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Online Visitor Information Center
Maintained by the National Park Service this web page is useful for anyone planning a trip to the King historic site in Atlanta, GA or interested in the life of the civil rights leader.
Format: article/field trip opportunity
Giving meaning to volume and surface area
This lesson is designed to help students give meaning to volume and surface area by solving problems using a meaningful situation rather than formulas.
Format: lesson plan (grade 8 Mathematics)
By Grayson Wheatley.
Registering for an online course
Instructions on how to register for LEARN NC's online courses for teachers and students.
Format: article/help
Finding lesson plans on the LEARN NC website
This document explains how to find lesson plans by browsing the collection, by goal & objective of the North Carolina Standard Course of Study, and by searching.
Format: article/help
Cooperative learning
Cooperative learning is an instructional method in which students work together in small, heterogeneous groups to complete a problem, project, or other instructional goal, while teachers act as guides or facilitators. This method works to reinforce a student's...
Format: article
By Heather Coffey.
Learning styles: An introduction
Students will read about and discuss learning styles. They will take a pencil and paper assessment to investigate their own learning styles, and practice determining the learning style of others with a story telling activity.
Format: lesson plan (grade 6–8 Guidance)
By Pat Nystrom.
Biome basics
This project involves the creation of a simple, yet effective display of the different biomes found on earth.
Format: lesson plan (grade 9–12 Science)
By B. Carl Rush.
Dictionary guide words: How do they guide us?
Students have difficulty locating words in a dictionary. This lesson will allow students to learn how to use guide words in a dictionary to locate words.
Format: lesson plan (grade 4 English Language Arts and English Language Development)
By Anne Campbell and Carol Troutman.
Formative assessment
This reference article discusses the history, concept, and application of formative assessment.
Format: article
By Heather Coffey.
The Learning Page: Community Center
In American Memory: North Carolina educator's guide, page 8
This installment of the American Memory Guide explores the Learning Page's Community Center, highlighting features of particular interest to teachers.
Format: article
By Melissa Thibault.
Moodle - Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently asked questions about Moodle, LEARN NC's new learning management system.
Let's hunt for vivid vocabulary!
This activity will be used to encourage students to focus on using an enriched vocabulary. During an oral reading of the book A Bad Case of Stripes, the students will search and identify various nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, dialogue tags, and transition words.
Format: lesson plan (grade 3–4 English Language Arts)
By Susan Byrd.
Instructional assessment: Finding teaching points
In Ongoing assessment for reading, page 1.8
Over time, running records can show patterns in student use of cuing systems and self corrections. But individual running records can also be useful in instruction. After each running record, a teacher can choose a teaching point, using the student's...
By Jeanne Gunther.
Thanksgiving cornucopia
Students will create a cornucopia using pages from magazines to cut the fruit, vegetables and nuts to fill the cornucopia.
Format: lesson plan (grade 3–4 Visual Arts Education)
A successful day? Engaging your students may not be enough
In The First Year, page 2.1
To ensure that you meet your objectives, plan backwards from what you want students to learn.
By Kristi Johnson Smith.
Tobacco bag stringing: Secondary activity five
In this activity for grades 7–12, students will evaluate primary source photographs from the tobacco bag stringing collection and some of Lewis Hine's photographs from the George Eastman House collection.
Format: lesson plan (grade 8 and 11–12 Social Studies)
By Pauline S. Johnson.
LEARN NC Blackboard hosting
This page explains the changes made as a result of switching from Blackboard to Moodle, LEARN NC's new learning management system.
Format: article/help