Activity Overview
The purpose of this activity is to have the students present their news reports to the class and to have the audience rate the presentations according to specific criteria. The criteria include newsworthiness, creditability, clarity, and interest.
Before the Activity
See the attached Activity PDF file for detailed instructions for this activity.
Print the appropriate pages from the Activity for your class.
Install the LearningCheck(tm) App on the students' graphing calculators following the attached instructions.
The LearningCheck(tm) resource file, Assessing a News Report.edc, contains a set of Likert Scale evaluation questions for the audience to use in evaluating the presentations using their TI-83 Plus or TI-84 Plus graphing calculators. If you use a TI-Navigator(tm) system, you can use it to distribute the file to the class using the TI-Navigator(tm) software.
During the Activity
Distribute the appropriate pages from the Activity to your class
Distribute the LearningCheck(tm) file(s) to your class using TI Connect(tm) and the appropriate TI Connectivity cable
Follow the procedures outlined in the Activity
Students will:
Build an understanding of news reporting and the media.
Brainstorm about issues and interests by generating questions.
Conduct research to gather new information.
Analyze and synthesize information.
Learn about biases and how to accurately describe a scene.
Practice their interviewing skills, which includes not taking skills.
Conduct an interview.
Work closely with technology.
Deliver a news report about an event or person in their school community.
Evaluate peers' news reports.
After the Activity
If you did not use the electronic evaluation form, then collect all assessment papers generated by the student reviewers. You can review the students' assessments of their peers and remove any author identifications prior to distributing these assessments to their respective groups. Also prepare your assessment of each presentation using the rubric provided to the students in the last activity.