Student-facing Performance Task Guides
Each studio culminates in a performance-based assessment or “Performance Task” that gives students the opportunity to demonstrate evidence of their new knowledge and skills. Check out these student-facing guides designed to help students build and practice key learning skills and strategies, developed in collaboration with reDesign.
Learning Activity Guides and Templates
Learning activities are purposeful tools that help students process and organize new information, practice new skills, and apply learning strategies. Check out our bank of learning activity guides and templates, developed in collaboration with reDesign.
Student-facing Studio Guides
Student-facing “Studio Guides” support students as they engage in a studio. Studio Guides help students identify where they are in the learning cycle, choose activities based on their needs and interests, and complete scaffolded “formative tasks” that help them build toward the culminating performance task. Check out our exemplar studio guides.
Learning Activity Template: Question the Text
Description Books--and textbooks especially--have lots of features to help readers understand the text. Titles, headings, tables, and pictures are just some of the text features readers encounter. If you’re the kind of reader who just skips over an example or doesn’t look ahead at bolded text, you’re missing a lot of clues [...]
Learning Activity Template: THIEVES Template
Description Books--and textbooks especially--have lots of features to help readers understand the text. Titles, headings, tables, and pictures are just some of the text features readers encounter. If you’re the kind of reader who just skips over an example or doesn’t look ahead at bolded text, you’re missing a lot of clues [...]
Student Guide: Informational Writing
Description This student-facing performance task guide describes the distinguishing characteristics of informational texts, provides examples and exemplars to analyze, and illustrates various text structures used for different purposes. Finally, this task guide provides a step-by-step process that students can use to write their own informational text. Author: Created by reDesign LLC [...]
Learning Activity Template: Cornell Notes
Description Note taking is an important skill for recording recording information--and your response to that information--for later review. When you take notes, you actively process information as you read, listen, or watch. You make meaning as you ask questions, jot down reactions, and summarize. Author: Created by reDesign LLC in [...]
Learning Activity Template: Text Annotation
Description It is often helpful to "code" the text as you read to enhance close reading. In other words, this will help you remember important pieces of information from the text. Author: Created by reDesign LLC in partnership with B-21 © 2017
Learning Activity Template: One-Sentence Summaries
Description To help you focus on the most important information, it might be helpful to summarize the main ideas with one sentence. Author: Created by reDesign LLC in partnership with B-21 © 2017
Learning Activity Guide: Cornell Notes
Note taking is an important skill for recording recording information--and your response to that information--for later review. When you take notes, you actively process information as you read, listen, or watch. You make meaning as you ask questions, jot down reactions, and summarize. Author: Created by reDesign LLC in partnership with [...]
Studio Guide: It’s Alive! Well…Maybe
Description One thing that scientists do to make their work known is publish their work. By doing this, it lets other people know about the work that they are doing, and gives other people the opportunity to research further and complete their own work on the topic. In this studio you will [...]
Studio Guide: The Spread of a Pathogen
Description This student-facing studio guide... Author: Jim Novak
Learning Activity Guide: Assess Credibility of Sources
Description Today we have more information available to us than ever before. But, not all that information is created equal. Before you put your academic reputation on the line, it important to consider the credibility--the trustworthiness and believability--of the information you find. With the CRAAP Test you’ll be able to identify reliable [...]
Learning Activity Guide: Inquiry Chart
Description To get the most out of your reading, listening, or watching, you’ll want to have strategies for comparing the information you find in multiple sources. The INQUIRY CHART allows you to record your questions and the answers you discover. Author: Created by reDesign LLC in partnership with B-21 © [...]
Learning Activity Guide: Preview a Text
Description Previewing a text allows you to find the important clues that authors use to communicate meaning to their readers. It also help you zero in on where exactly you can find the information you need in a book, chapter, or article. When you spend a few minutes previewing a text, you’ll [...]
Learning Activity Template: Inquiry Chart
Description An INQUIRY CHART helps you to compare the information you find in multiple sources. Author: Created by reDesign LLC in partnership with B-21 © 2017
Studio Guide: Climate Change
Description In this studio, students explore multiple perspectives of climate change, then take a position based on the evidence, and work to persuade an audience to take action. Author: Created by reDesign LLC in partnership with B-21 © 2017
Student Guide: Mathematical Problem-solving
Description This task guide explains each of the skills of Building 21's math competencies. It also illustrates key problem-solving strategies, and provides example math problem solutions that were approached using different strategies. Author: Created by reDesign LLC in partnership with B-21 © 2017
Studio Guide: Nature vs. Nurture
Description You hear it all the time: You will never become “this” or “that” because that is not who you were meant to be. But the question that often goes unanswered is how much of who you are actually is in your DNA? How much of what you do is from [...]
Student Guide: Writing a Science Lab Report
Description This student-facing performance task guide describes the process for writing a scientific lab report. It explains what a lab report is, offers exemplars to analyze, and provides a step-by-step guide. Author: Created by reDesign LLC in partnership with B-21 © 2017
Student Guide: Designing a Science Investigation
Description This student-facing performance task guide describes the process for framing a scientific question and designing an investigation to support the inquiry. Author: Created by reDesign LLC in partnership with B-21 © 2017
Learning Activity Guide: Summarization
Description Summarizing is an important skill for analyzing information and recording it for later review. When you summarize, you actively process information as you read, listen, or watch. You make meaning of it as you distinguish between main ideas and details, and as you restate the source in your own words. [...]
Learning Activity Template: KWHLAQ Chart
Description Working with your peers and/or studio facilitator, complete the table below. The goal of this activity is to identify what we already know about the topic so that we can build upon it. After you complete the chart, identify what you think are your most important steps for answering your new [...]