25 Things You Didn't Know
Grade K-12
Big Idea
Open any entertainment magazine and you will inevitably find a page that shares "25 things you didn't know" about a certain celebrity. They often reveal surprising facts that give you a better idea of who they are as a person. In a world where students are constantly surrounded by different types of information, a 21st century learner must be able to filter information. The purpose of this strategy is for students to select and share what details are most important about an aspect of the topic.
Directions:
Materials:
large pieces of paper, markers, collection of digital media relating to a current topic in your curriculum
- Explain to students that they will be creating and collaborating on a "25 things you didn't know" list about a unit of study. Emphasis that the list they will be creating should contain facts that are new pieces of information – not information that they already know.
- Divide students into five groups. Assign each group one topic related to the unit of study. Provide groups with a series of images, videos and articles about their topic.
Hint: You may want to create folders for the assets. After adding videos, images, and articles to the content folders, you can assign the created folders to a student or a group of students. - Using their assigned resources, each group will develop a list of five 'things you didn't know' about their assigned topic. To create their lists, students can use large sheets of paper and markers.
- When groups finish creating their lists, ask each group to share their five facts. Ask groups to provide evidence as to why the facts they chose are important to know.
- Combine each group's list of five 'things you didn't know' to create a collaborative list of 25 Things You Didn't Know.
Sum it up:
This strategy is a great way for students to explore resources and filter out what information is most important.
Strategy Variations:
Once you have the list of 25 things, you can have students put the list into priority order.