Online Research Using Google Classroom

Again this year, 4th and 5th graders at Dallas Center Elementary worked on a research and presentation project. It was a multiple-step project lasting several weeks, but students' presentations are now complete and they're working on reflections related to the projects.

Step 1: Choose a Topic
Students looked at four of our AEA databases and two websites for a topic to research. The only requirement? Students' topics must be in two of the six options. Students accessed sites from our library Symbaloo and completed a ticket out including the topic and location of their articles.

Step 2: Note Taking

After determining a topic, students accessed a note taking page in Google Classroom and recorded their work to come back to later. The note taking page related directly to students' non-fiction reading in their own classrooms, asking them to write about their new learning, inferences, questions/wonderings, and text features.

Step 3: Presenting the Information

Once students gathered their information, the next step was to organize all of it into a Google Presentation. Requirements included adding at least one image, so this led to a conversation about citing sources and using the EasyBib add-on in Google Drive. As a part of their presentations, students created a works cited slide that also included the citation information from the databases and websites they accessed for information.

Animals were popular topics, especially ocean and rainforest animals; however, other topics such as national parks and monuments, forces and motion and magnetism, and sports were popular as well. Below are a few slides from different presentations. 

Step 4: Reflection

On our final day of the project, students viewed at least three presentations and completed a reflection page inside Google Classroom.