Launching Type III Projects
This month’s Best Practice comes from Mrs. Brittany Motes, a 3-5th Grade Gifted and Talented Teacher, Vernon CT
My students frequently work on Type III Independent or Small Group Investigations as part of our instructional time together. Students love exploring topics of interest and passion, but often have no idea where to start! I have my students begin by topic shopping in their Enrichment Activities. Since Enrichment Activities come directly from your students’ profiler results this is a great place to start! Virtual Field Trips let students visit some “real world” places that they may find interesting! My students then organize their topics of interest into a chart. Once students have narrowed down their topics they can start to think about subtopics!
Research Sites is a great place to have students start to browse for more in-depth information on their topics of interest! Students can also use the Advanced Search Section to type in keywords that may be associated with their topic in order to determine additional resources they can check out!
These are some great first steps to getting your students to create amazing Type III Projects! A strong foundation helps students stick with more in-depth and long term projects.
Good Luck! ~ Mrs. Motes