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.

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Exploring patterns you can feel and hear
The following lesson will enable students to develop tactile and auditory patterns. As students observe, analyze, and make predictions about patterns they will enhance their problem-solving and reasoning skills.
Format: lesson plan (grade 3 Mathematics)
By Carlene M. White.
Understanding the complexities of setting
In order to address a variety of learning styles with emphasis upon the tactile learner, students will participate in a class project to construct a wall-sized, three dimensional mural of the setting of the novel, Where the Lilies Bloom. This project cannot be too large (an outside corridor wall is suggested.) The massive size of the mural makes the project distinctly different from similar art projects attempted in the past, it allows students enough space for all of the details desired in the end result of the mural, and it affords enough space for all students in the class to display their work.
Format: lesson plan (grade 8 Visual Arts Education and English Language Arts)
By Pam Altom.
Magic E: Decoding/encoding with CVC & CVCE
Students will participate in two activities involving the consonant-vowel-consonant-silent e (CVCE) pattern: a decoding activity involving attaching a clothes pin with the letter e printed on it to consonant-vowel-consonant words (CVC) and sounding the new CVCE words; and an encoding activity involving dictation of CVC and CVCE words from the first activity which students are to write using auditory and tactile strategies. These activities require that students have prior knowledge of consonant and long and short vowel sounds as well as blending of these sounds in CVC pattern words.
Format: lesson plan (grade 1 English Language Arts)
By Julia Huff Jerome.
Noodles away
This lesson will assist students to see angle relationships and the relationship of parallel lines and transversals. This exercise is good for visual and tactile learners since it is of a concrete nature. Students of all academic levels can enjoy this.
Format: lesson plan (grade 5 Mathematics)
By Melda Bullock.
Piggies
This activity is a fun, interactive lesson that integrates children's literature with math. (A great way to integrate author studies!) This activity allows students to be involved in all 4 learning styles (visual, auditory, tactile and kinesthetic). I spread this lesson out over two days.
Format: lesson plan (grade 1 Mathematics)
By Stephanie Hatcher.
Geometry charades
The students will physically act out and demonstrate the meanings of various given geometric terms.
Format: lesson plan (grade 7 Mathematics)
Rainbow spelling: A kinesthetic approach to encoding
The following lesson requires the students to spell words containing learned phonemes using a visual and kinesthetic learning approach.
Format: lesson plan (grade 2 English Language Arts)
By Wendy Parton.
Subtraction sticks
Using craft sticks, students will practice subtraction of 2 and 3 digit numbers with renaming.
Format: lesson plan (grade 3 Mathematics)
By Susan Fry.
Diamante poetry using environments: Day two
This lesson will introduce and reinforce learners' understanding of habitat components within an environment. This lesson was designed to be used after the lesson "Animal environments: Day one."
Format: lesson plan (grade 4 English Language Arts and Science)
By Cheri Cole.
Nothing exceptional
For teachers, the task is to determine which strategies will help students with learning disabilities succeed, both in our classrooms and beyond.
By Janet Ploghoft.
Paint tools & geometric figures
This lesson is meant to teach or review for third grade students the use of Paint tools. These tools are generic to many multimedia tools such as HyperStudio and Kid Pix. For the student who is unfamiliar with "Paint," it provides another tool of expression and illustration.
This lesson is also designed to reinforce geometry math skills. This ability to illustrate a three dimensional object on a flat one dimensional surface is important to enable the student to visualize geometry math problems.
Format: lesson plan (grade 3 Computer/Technology Skills and Mathematics)
By Barbara Waters.
Genesis Farm School
Visit this working farm and enter into a learning laboratory where students will have fun and a hands-on experience with nature.
Format: article/field trip opportunity
Get real!
When teaching computer proficiency to at-risk students, make classroom lessons relevant to their lives and take account of different learning styles.
By Skip Thibault.
Analyzing North Carolina's natural history
In Two worlds: Educator's guide, page 1.4
These two short activities will allow students to examine the changes that occurred as the earth formed and assess their impact on what is now North Carolina.
Format: lesson plan (grade 8 Science and Social Studies)
By Pauline S. Johnson.
Hands-on biology
Hands-on science exploration clarifies difficult concepts and engages learners who have difficulty in more traditional classrooms. This article looks at an inquiry-based classroom that meets the needs of all of its students.
Format: article/best practice
By Waverly Harrell.