The most effective vocabulary instruction teaches word meanings as concepts; it connects the words being taught with their context and with the students' prior knowledge. Six techniques have proven especially effective: Concept Definition Maps, Semantic Mapping, Semantic Feature Mapping, Possible Sentences, Comparing and Contrasting, and Teaching Word Parts. RI.9-10.4 word meanings/impact of choice

The aim of this video is to introduce high school students to the engineering concept of road construction and to the reasons why problems might arise in road construction. Presentation of this concept is made more accessible to students by comparing road construction to the art of baking a layer cake. This simple comparison can serve to emphasize how important it is to follow proper procedures and to use proper materials for successful road construction. [21:46]

Activities and factsheets exploring ratios and proportions in everyday life. Interactive, colorful, and fun.

Students will analyze interactions between ideas, events, and individuals by creating a graphic organizer. They will utilize "I Never Had it Made" by Jackie Robinson for this activity.

A teacher created lesson plan to help students conquer how to make connections between directions in an effort to create something. This activity will have students sharing recipes and understanding why recipes should be followed in sequence.

In this video, Paul Andersen explains the final AP Biology practice on connecting knowledge. The video begins with an introduction to interdisciplinary studies and how science is changing over time. He describes differences of scale in size, complexity, and timespan. He also explains who different domains are important in biology. [7:25]

In CK-12 Middle School Math Concepts – Grade 8, the learning content is divided into concepts. Each concept is complete and whole providing focused learning on an indicated objective. Theme-based concepts provide students with experiences that integrate the content of each concept. Students are given opportunities to practice the skills of each concept through real-world situations, examples, guided practice and explore more practice. There are also video links provided to give students an audio/visual way of connecting with the content.

This sample chapter from Hurst's book Picturing Math is an excellent resource for using picture books and activities for learning computation.

Engineers use a series of steps called the design process to solve a problem. In this resource, featuring video segments excerpted from DESIGN SQUAD, watch teams of kids work through each of the five steps of the design process: 1) identify the problem; 2) brainstorm; 3) design; 4) build, test, evaluate, and redesign; and 5) share solutions. [1:47]

In this 12-day Grade 2 module, students engage in activities designed to deepen their conceptual understanding of measurement and to relate addition and subtraction to length.  Their work in Module 2 is exclusively with metric units in order to support place value concepts.  Customary units will be introduced in Module 7.

Find the rest of the EngageNY Mathematics resources at https://archive.org/details/engageny-mathematics.

Designed to support a districtwide approach to teaching news literacy, this grade-band expectations document lays out expectations by grade band (PreK-2, 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12+) and by news literacy standards. This resource builds on the News Literacy Project's Framework for Teaching News Literacy, and was created with help from literacy experts and classroom practitioners.

Art School is a KQED web video series that introduces contemporary artists who discuss their careers and intentions, then demonstrate hands-on techniques or concepts. Art School provides resources for learning how to break dance, draw comic strips, create animations, and much more. Empower folks of all ages to engage with contemporary art, and discover new ideas for creativity from a variety of professional artists through this fun and engaging series. This Collection includes: Media Gallery (29), Video (93) for Grades All.

This QuickTime movie provides an opportunity to learn about the characteristics of a rectangle. As you watch and listen to the teacher and student interact it helps clarify the thinking behind applying this concept.

Expressions

Type of Unit: Concept

Prior Knowledge

Students should be able to:

Write and evaluate simple expressions that record calculations with numbers.
Use parentheses, brackets, or braces in numerical expressions and evaluate expressions with these symbols.
Interpret numerical expressions without evaluating them.

Lesson Flow

Students learn to write and evaluate numerical expressions involving the four basic arithmetic operations and whole-number exponents. In specific contexts, they create and interpret numerical expressions and evaluate them. Then students move on to algebraic expressions, in which letters stand for numbers. In specific contexts, students simplify algebraic expressions and evaluate them for given values of the variables. Students learn about and use the vocabulary of algebraic expressions. Then they identify equivalent expressions and apply properties of operations, such as the distributive property, to generate equivalent expressions. Finally, students use geometric models to explore greatest common factors and least common multiples.

Students critique the work of other students and revise their own work based on feedback from the teacher and peers.Key ConceptsConcepts from previous lessons are integrated into this unit task: rewriting expressions, using parentheses, and using the distributive property. Students apply their knowledge, review their work, and make revisions based on feedback from you and their peers. This process creates a deeper understanding of the concepts.Goals and Learning ObjectivesApply knowledge of expressions to correct the work of other students.Track and review the choice of strategy when problem solving.

Algebraic Reasoning

Type of Unit: Concept

Prior Knowledge

Students should be able to:

Add, subtract, multiply, and divide rational numbers.
Evaluate expressions for a value of a variable.
Use the distributive property to generate equivalent expressions including combining like terms.
Understand solving an equation or inequality as a process of answering a question: which values from a specified set, if any, make the equation or inequality true?
Write and solve equations of the form x+p=q and px=q for cases in which p, q, and x are non-negative rational numbers.
Understand and graph solutions to inequalities x<c or x>c.
Use equations, tables, and graphs to represent the relationship between two variables.
Relate fractions, decimals, and percents.
Solve percent problems included those involving percent of increase or percent of decrease.

Lesson Flow

This unit covers all of the Common Core State Standards for Expressions and Equations in Grade 7. Students extend what they learned in Grade 6 about evaluating expressions and using properties to write equivalent expressions. They write, evaluate, and simplify expressions that now contain both positive and negative rational numbers. They write algebraic expressions for problem situations and discuss how different equivalent expressions can be used to represent different ways of solving the same problem. They make connections between various forms of rational numbers. Students apply what they learned in Grade 6 about solving equations such as x+2=6 or 3x=12 to solving equations such as 3x+6=12 and 3(x−2)=12. Students solve these equations using formal algebraic methods. The numbers in these equations can now be rational numbers. They use estimation and mental math to estimate solutions. They learn how solving linear inequalities differs from solving linear equations and then they solve and graph linear inequalities such as −3x+4<12. Students use inequalities to solve real-world problems, solving the problem first by arithmetic and then by writing and solving an inequality. They see that the solution of the algebraic inequality may differ from the solution to the problem.

Students explore the effects of wind on a plane's time and distance and represent these situations using algebraic expressions and equations. They use terms with positive, negative, and zero coefficients.Key ConceptsIn this lesson, students show what they remember from Grade 6 about writing expressions and solving one-step equations. They use what they learned earlier in Grade 7 about adding and subtracting integers. They extend these concepts to write and interpret an expression with a negative coefficient.Goals and Learning ObjectivesReview addition and subtraction of integers.Review the relationship between distance, time, and speed.Write an algebraic expression for distance in terms of time, t.Write a term with a negative coefficient.Review solving a one-step equation using the multiplication property of equality.

Zooming In On Figures

Unit Overview

Type of Unit: Concept; Project

Length of Unit: 18 days and 5 days for project

Prior Knowledge

Students should be able to:

Find the area of triangles and special quadrilaterals.
Use nets composed of triangles and rectangles in order to find the surface area of solids.
Find the volume of right rectangular prisms.
Solve proportions.

Lesson Flow

After an initial exploratory lesson that gets students thinking in general about geometry and its application in real-world contexts, the unit is divided into two concept development sections: the first focuses on two-dimensional (2-D) figures and measures, and the second looks at three-dimensional (3-D) figures and measures.
The first set of conceptual lessons looks at 2-D figures and area and length calculations. Students explore finding the area of polygons by deconstructing them into known figures. This exploration will lead to looking at regular polygons and deriving a general formula. The general formula for polygons leads to the formula for the area of a circle. Students will also investigate the ratio of circumference to diameter ( pi ). All of this will be applied toward looking at scale and the way that length and area are affected. All the lessons noted above will feature examples of real-world contexts.
The second set of conceptual development lessons focuses on 3-D figures and surface area and volume calculations. Students will revisit nets to arrive at a general formula for finding the surface area of any right prism. Students will extend their knowledge of area of polygons to surface area calculations as well as a general formula for the volume of any right prism. Students will explore the 3-D surface that results from a plane slicing through a rectangular prism or pyramid. Students will also explore 3-D figures composed of cubes, finding the surface area and volume by looking at 3-D views.
The unit ends with a unit examination and project presentations.