Curate a collection of resources (articles, videos, infographics, text excerpts, etc.) for students to explore a topic.
Once the stage is set and your class is engaged, offer your students time to more thoroughly explore a topic by providing them with an exploration activity in your HyperDoc. You can start preparing for this portion of the lesson early on by collecting your favorite resource links that promote thought and ignite curiosity. As they explore, students will begin learning about the topic, forming their own opinions, and asking questions. And because student have countless resources readily available at their fingertips, they tend to dive into a rabbit hole and become so immersed in the information they're finding that they don't want to stop exploring. Of course, this excitement is also one of the many benefits of creating exploration time. Don't be too surprised if your students continue exploring the topic at their own pace at home or at school and begin finding their own favorite links to information about your topic to explore. In fact, you may even consider adding a section to your HyperDoc where students can share their newly discovered resources with one another. Allowing time for student to explore and share their ideas about a topic before launching into a specific learning objectives creates a curious classroom community that's willing to take risks and ask questions.
A multimedia text set is a collection of text about a topic that includes a variety of information sources such as websites, articles, videos, images, quotes, and infographics. Students explore the collection of resources and are immersed in the various perspectives presented on the same topic. Exploring a multimedia text set requires that students practice their digital literacy skills and build schema on the topic.
Share the Doc with students. When students click on the linked resources in the table, a new tab will pop up in the web browser with teacher-selected text. In the new tab, students read and explore the link. Students then record their notes in the Google Doc.
Through Google Classroom:
After students have read an article or text excerpt about a topic, give them visual content so they can explore further. Watching videos helps improve a student's understanding of the topic at hand, while offering students who need this type of visual and auditory support easier access to your curriculum. When you invite students to explore a topic through videos, it helps to pre-curate the content by creating a YouTube playlist. You can then link students to your playlist in your HyperDoc, allowing them to quickly access and explore the content on their own or with a classmate.
Include a link to your YouTube playlist in your HyperDoc. As students watch the videos, they will take notes in a notebook.
Depending on what you expect from the exploration time, you can collect student thinking in multiple ways:
To help students develop curiosity for learning, we must provide them with opportunities to explore their interests. Creating personalized Google MyMaps is one way to do just this. Using this web tool, you can actually "plant" content where it took place on a map and then post corresponding text, images, videos, and links to take students to the next portion of the assignment. For example, if you were to drop a pin on Mount St. Helens, your students could view a video of the volcano erupting and then zoom in on the map to see the actual scarring left on the earth. Google MyMaps pins encourage students to determine their learning's pace and path and engages their curiosity so they want to see what the next pin has in store. As students progress, you could add another layer to this powerful learning tool by having them create their own maps.
Embed your map or share its link on a Google Site or share a link to your MyMap via Google Classroom. Discuss how to explore the map to not only learn its content, but also how to view it as a mentor text.
After exploring the map, discuss the elements, discuss the topic with students and explain how to use MyMaps. This prepares students for an application step later on in the lesson should they choose to create their on MyMap.