Library & IT

Middle School Curriculum

| Information Literacy | Instructional Technology |

Students entering the Middle School from Bush's Lower School have had three years of weekly Instructional Technology classes in which basic typing skills, Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and use of Internet Explorer are taught, in conjunction with Information Literacy, which includes access, evaluation, and ethical use of information use, as well as reading enrichment.

Information Literacy (Grades 6-8)

In grades six, seven and eight middle school student work with information in a variety of formats. Information literacy curriculum is not taught in isolation but through a collaborative, project driven effort between the librarian and the middle school teachers. There are six essential questions that are used to help guide students through the ever-increasing complexity of an information dependent world:

• Why read?
• Why do I need information?
• What is the difference between information and knowledge?
• What are my rights and responsibilities as a consumer and producer of information?
• How does the world I live in affect the skills I need?
• Why and how do I use the library?

The primary mode of production and assessment for information literacy is the use of a research notebook that students use for an entire year. Each entry in the research notebook contains "five essential elements:" the date, a bibliographic citation, notes, page/paragraph numbers and a reflective paragraph. Print and non-print resources are used throughout the year to help students refine their note-taking skills. Students use three primary note-taking strategies (taking out the trash, paraphrasing and direct quotes) and a reflective paragraph to help build an understanding and appreciation for intellectual property.

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Instructional Technology (Grades 6-8)

Students entering the Middle School from Bush's Lower School have had three years of weekly classes in which basic typing skills, Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and use of Internet Explorer are taught. With the commencement of Sixth Grade, a student's time in the Computer Classroom increases to twice a week. We begin by reinforcing the skills developed in Lower School, as well as insuring that those students entering the Middle School from outside of Bush have technological skills on a par with their contemporaries. For the first two months, the focus is on keyboarding. If that skill is not in place, further development is stymied.

For the remainder of the year, the Technology Teacher collaborates with the Middle School classroom teachers to create integrated projects that engage the sixth graders (and 7th and 8th graders, as their schedules permit) and expand their technology skills.

Past units have included:

• Oral presentations, which included creating animation in MS PowerPoint
• Research culminating in the creation of a Famous Mathematicians Wax Museum
• Creation of floor plans using Visio of each student's dream home (enhancing the study of dimensions, ratios, etc.)
• Sixth Grade Environmental Film-making
• Rolling "pigs" (pink, small and plastic) and tracking the resulting data in MS Excel spreadsheets
• Using MS FrontPage and/or Dreamweaver to create web pages
• Internet research culminating in the creation of reports on Famous French sites
• Gathering scientific data and producing charts and graphs in MS Excel

These units take place either in the LS/MS Computer Classroom – seventeen networked personal computers with full Internet access and a rich offering of typing programs, graphics programs, and the latest Microsoft Office Suite – or in the Livengood Library, which has fifteen PCs with a comparable collection of software.

Historically, math classes have also employed a variety of additional computer programs, including graphing with the use of calculators and the PC.

In addition to the classroom-driven units, a variety of Technology Activities are offered throughout the year. In the past, these have included "Technology for Girls," "Keyboarding," "Building Computers," "VideoWorld," and the on-line Middle School magazine, Blazine, etc.

Please also see the Bush School Computer Use Guidelines for details on the rights and responsibilities of Bush School network users.

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