LEARNZILLION a FREE resource for the Common Core · PDF file2 LEARNZILLION – a FREE resource for the Common Core While I was researching the Common Core Learning Standards on the

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LEARNZILLION – a FREE resource for the Common Core

As explained by Barbara Knab, MTRACT a NYS Teacher Center Director

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LEARNZILLION – a FREE resource for the Common Core

While I was researching the Common Core Learning Standards on the EngageNY website, I

found a site called LearnZillion in the math resources. I was very impressed and

recommended the site to math teachers. It has since grown to include ELA as well.

Eric Westendorf, founder of LearnZillion explains that he started this venture as a solution to

a problem in his school. Teachers created video of lessons that were posted on a website

as a resource for their students. Today the LearnZillion site has nearly 2000 lessons (and

growing), that are common core aligned and created by teachers for teachers. The Gates

Foundation worked with Learn Zillion over the summer in establishing “The Dream Team”,

123 teachers from public, private and charter schools who worked together to create the

resources which include video, lesson guides, guided practice and coach’s commentary.

At this time, lessons are available for grades 3 – 8 but K-2 and secondary will be coming. In

fact, Learn Zillion will be recruiting more teachers in the spring so be on the look out!

Learn Zillion’s Philosophy (taken directly from their website)

It's hard to teach a lesson; it's harder to teach it well; and it's really hard to teach it in a way that

resonates and sticks with students. Teachers not only have to understand their content, they

have to know the best way to teach it. This idea of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) -

knowledge of the content and the way to make it accessible to students - is at the heart of

LearnZillion. PCK has become even more important with the depth that is now required by the

Common Core State Standards. Our goal is to help get you started with lessons that were

designed from the ground up with PCK in mind. These lessons were built by teachers just like

you. They're not perfect, but they're a great starting point. With your help, we will build upon

these lessons, building more practical resources and PCK as we go. We would love for you to

provide feedback or tell us how you're using our lessons!

The URL: www.learnzillion.com

To create an account, look all the way to the right and you’ll see a sign-up icon.

Obviously, you will choose Teacher – you may create a new

password OR you can sign in your Google email and password.

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The Site Menu

Below is a screenshot of what you’ll see when you click on Explore lessons and choose

Math. You can search for a particular topic in the top textbox, choose a particular grade

levels by clicking on the checkbox, choose a domain and standard using the dropdown

box

For example, if I chose Grade 4, Number and Operations – Fractions, Compare two

fractions with different denominators, I would find 30 lessons (4.NF.2)

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Click on the lesson and you’ll be taken to the following screen:

Note there is a short video explaining the concept, lesson slides that can be previewed or

downloaded as a Power Point (they include extension activities and quick quiz slides), the

coach’s commentary which is an explanation to the teacher from the teacher who

created the lesson.

It begins with a narrative of what students will learn:

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Followed by a review:

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Common Mistakes Slides:

The Core Lesson Slides

And a Guided Practice slide. The student is encouraged to press pause and solve the

problem then press play for the narrator to give an in-depth explanation of the problem’s

solution.

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The bottom of the screen gives you suggestions on how you can use the lesson.

Click on the quick code for the following screen:

Click on take notes for a downloadable word document

There is a copy of the notes document on the following page

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Directions

1. Go to www.learnzillion.com and type LZ code_____ into the search bar

2. Watch the lesson and take notes, using the form below. Stop, rewind, and

rewatch as many times as you want.

3. Complete the guided practice video on the back of this page.

4. Turn your notes into your teacher.

Name: Date:

:

What is this lesson about?

Review

1. Go to www.learnzillion.com and type LZ code_____ into the search bar

2. Watch the lesson and take notes, using the form below. Stop, rewind, and rewatch as

many times as you want.

3. Complete the guided practice video on the back of this page.

4. Turn your notes into your teacher.

Mistakes to Avoid

Core Lesson (Write or Draw Pictures)

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:

Guided Practice Notes (after seeing teacher demonstrate)

Guided Practice Notes (before seeing teacher demonstrate)

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The downloadable word document to the parents:

Parents and Guardians,

Many of you have asked how you can support your student’s learning at home. Here is an

important way you can do that.

Go to www.learnzillion.com. LearnZillion is a website that provides teachers and parents with

video lessons showing what your student needs to learn each year. The videos include a 3-5

minute "teaching" video and a short “practice” video where students can see if they understand

the lesson.

When you get to the site, type the following lesson codes into any search bar on the site. The

codes will bring you directly to the lessons for your student.

Place LearnZillion Codes here (You can find the LZ Codes on each lesson page when you click on

“assign”). It’s recommended that you include 2-3 codes for the upcoming week.

Your student can watch the videos alone or with you. Have your student take notes while

watching. I have provided a notes sheet to help. If your student doesn’t have the notes sheet with

them, he/she can recreate it by taking a piece of paper and breaking the front page into the

following sections:

What is this lesson about?

Review

Mistakes to avoid

The main thing to learn He/she can use the back of the paper to work on the practice problem in the “guided practice” video.

Thank you for supporting your student’s learning at home. Let me know if you have any questions. Sincerely,

Guided Practice Notes (after seeing teacher demonstrate)

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And then there’s the Deep Dive (PERFECT for a Collegial Circle – those of you who are

looking for opportunities for you 175 hours may be interested in this)

Professional Learning Community Common Core Deep Dive

(can be adapted to meet your team’s needs) Preparation

Facilitator chooses a standard for focus

Facilitator prints out standard

Facilitator finds the lesson set on LearnZillion.com and chooses one of the lessons for focus

Facilitator completes and prints optional discussion worksheet for participants

Facilitator reminds teachers to bring any student data/work related to this standard Discussion

Step 1: Protocol Review (10 minutes)

Facilitator sets the context; reviewing the protocol with participants

Facilitator asks for a notetaker and timekeeper

Faciltiator hands out a copy of the standard and worksheet Step 2: Standard Review – Individual Reflection (5 min)

Participants read the standard and reflect on the questions, “What are the key components of this standard? What questions do you have about this standard?”

Participants respond independently to the questions, writing their thoughts on a piece of paper Step 3: Standard Discussion (5-10 min)

Participants discuss the standard and their answers to the two questions.

Participants should strive for substantive discourse. They should not engage in a round-robin discussion, but rather focus on and develop one idea at a time.

Step 3b: Individual Data Reflection (if applicable) (5-10 minutes)

Participants review student data/work related to the standard answer the question, “What do my students understand? Where are the gaps in understanding? What components of the standard are missing?”

Step 4: LearnZillion Review (3 min)

Facilitator introduces LearnZillion and reminds participants that this is not “the” answer but should be seen as a jumping off point or a way to accelerate the deep dive into the standard. The goal is to build Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) – an understanding of what the standard means and what the best way to help students understand it. There is no perfect answer but a process of getting deeper and deeper PCK.

Facilitator directs participants to the lesson set and lesson for focus.

Facilitator poses one or two of the suggested questions for discussion (see below)

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The participants spend time reviewing the set and the lesson for focus. They reflect independently to the key questions, writing their thoughts and any additional reactions to the video lesson. This step helps each participant focus and have something to say during the participant discussion.

Step 6: Participant Discussion (15 minutes)

Participants discuss the lesson set and the lesson for focus, reflecting on the key questions posed by the facilitator.

Participants should strive for substantive discourse. They should not engage in a round-robin discussion, but rather focus on and develop one idea at a time.

The goal of the discussion is to arrive at next steps for planning instruction around this standard. How can participants effectively prepare to teach this standard? For example, the group may discuss and brainstorms additional learning activities, projects, and extension activities that build on the concepts in the video and reinforce the standard.

Step 7: Debriefing (5 minutes)

The facilitator discusses how well the protocol worked and thanks the participants for their work.

Participants discuss how well they think the protocol worked and thank the facilitator for bringing the work to them to be tuned.

Suggestions for questions

How does the teacher in the video reinforce the concepts of the standard through visuals? Through animation, narration, or other tools?

How does this lesson relate to the other lessons in the set? Given the standard(s), would you have structured this set of lessons differently? Why?

Would the approach modeled in the lesson benefit some learners more than others? How so?

After watching the video and the Coach’s Commentary, what questions remain? What would you like to ask the teacher who created this lesson?

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And now for ELA

You can search for lessons by topic:

Grammar and Idioms

Phonics

Reading

Writing

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OR you may choose to search by Strand and Standard

The lesson that we’ll look at is 4th grade, Reading Informational Text, Determine the main

idea of a text and explain how it is supported by key details; summarize the text. (RI.4.2)

The strategy

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Review Slides

Common Mistake Slides

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The narrator reads the section of the article and then chooses the key details:

Now the narrator starts to pull the main idea

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Narrator reviews the steps from the previous slide

The summary of the lesson

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The How Do I use this lesson is the same as math so take a look at page 7 for details

Coach’s commentary

The teacher explains her rationale for creating the lesson as well as the use of the finger

and palm strategy. In the video, she uses a post-it but could have students use their

fingers for the key details down to the palm which is the main idea.

Resources

You’ll find resources along the right side of the screen.

As you can see, there are options for students to have the text

read aloud, pdfs of the anchor text (the article used for the

lesson), text for practice and text for assessment (these are

articles you can use to extend the lesson).

Note that in the ELA section, links to resources are duplicated in

the bottom half of the screen. I don’t know why – just wanted

you to be aware.

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Click on Common Core to find out what students need to know by domain and grade

level

Click on the grade band then you can click on a particular standard to see the full

narrative or on the folder for lessons that address that particular standard.

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ELA Common Core screens are a little different than the math screens

Click on the grade band and you will see folders with lessons at the top

Scroll down for the standards – Note that I clicked on the plus sign for RI.4.2 for Key Idea

and Details

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The dashboard allows you to create classes, assign lessons to your students and track

their progress. Click on New Class

The Create a Class interface will display. Enter the class name as well as your students

names separated by commas

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Once you create your class, the following screen displays with all student names as well as

their enrollment codes that will be used to create their accounts. There are options to add

students as well as print enrollment codes here.

Create a playlist to assign lessons to students

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When you click on Assign to Students, you will be presented with the following screen.

Assign a due date, check if you have chosen to make the lesson required (It is optional

by default) and assign to students. If your students have not yet created accounts, you

will only have an option to assign to all students. Once your students create their

accounts you may choose them individually (talk about differentiation!)

After entering the name of the playlist, the due date and the selection of students,

click on Assign Playlist and you will be directed to the screen on the next page.

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Doesn’t look like much? Well, that’s because there are no students in my class as yet.

Why did I include it? I wanted you to see what will be visible when you first begin so you

understand what’s going on.

Once again, since my students have not yet registered, no students are displayed. If

you click on Download CSV, it will open an Excel file – see below. Right now it’s not

showing much but once your students work on the lesson, the spreadsheet will

automatically populate.

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Can we talk differentiation? What do YOU think?

Forgot to assign to a student? Go to your dashboard, click on the lesson and click on

Manage Lessons

Any lessons that you marked as a Favorite by clicking on the STAR will appear here

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Clicking on Calendar displays any assignments with a color bar from the start date to

the due date

And then, of course, what would we do without…

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I have never been so impressed by a FREE set of resources for teachers. Be sure to

follow on Twitter, join on Facebook and follow the LearnZillion blog.

So now, to finish up, let’s look at the student side. We’ll start with the student

registration. Remember to give your student the invitation code provided to you and

then they can choose their own username and password. You may want to give them

a username so you don’t need to look up the code. In other words, if my student chose

skywalker as a username would I know that this student was Nancy Mazzella?

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Once a student creates his/her account, a welcome screen will be displayed. Notice

that Stu Two has an assignment already posted and Stu know that this assignment is

optional. Remember to check Required when assigning as Optional is the default! Stu

Two also knows that he/she has 3 days to complete the assignment.

Your student can click on the lesson right from here and will be brought directly to the

student screen:

Note that the student doesn’t have that area on the right with resources. What they do

have is a lesson tab and a practice tab.

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And finally……

Once the student submits their responses they will be greeted with one of two screens.

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OR

Note that the student is given the correct answer and an opportunity to go back to the

lesson, guide practice or more assessment questions

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What the teacher sees in their dashboard after the student completes assignments:

Note the visual – I immediately know that Stu Three was not successful because his bar

is red and Stu Two was successful because her bar is green

Results have automatically populated the CSV file that opens in a spreadsheet.

When I started to write an informational “sheet” for you, I had no idea it would take 32

pages to complete but as you can see, there is SO much in LearnZillion I just had to

keep writing.

I believe that LearnZillion will help to lighten your load. I know it keeps getting heavier

and, of course, the fact that it’s FREE, how could I not keep going.

Go to http://www.learnzillion.com create an account and explore.