In this assignment, students were provided with 3 SMART Notebook lessons (modified for online learning) presenting them with information about Kingdom Protista for Biology 112. They were asked to create a graphic organizer to visually represent the relationships between the various groups (phyla and orders) in the kingdom, AND to provide a summary of defining characteristics (1-3 words only) used to classify the organisms into their groups. This is actually a fairly high-level assignment requiring a fair amount of critical thinking and organizing. In class, I work with kids a lot on how to create and use such tools because they make amazing study tools and can be used across a variety of subjects. I still wanted them to develop the skills of creating such tools from home, which has proven to be harder (for obvious reasons) but worthwhile none-the-less.

I am particularly pleased with this example of the assignment for 2 reasons: 1) This student (Viviane Vilela da Silva) is an exchange student from Brazil. The exchange students are in a unique situation of being isolated far from home and far from their regular support network, and having spend only a little time in schools before the shut-down, they only had limited time to make connections in Canada and to work on/improve their English skills. Viviane is working diligently towards earning her credit in the course. I'm very proud of her efforts, especially considering this is not the exchange experience she's been dreaming of. 2) This particular student is on my teacher call-list, and I speak with her regularly. As an activity to pass the time, she's been teaching herself calligraphy and I've been encouraging her in this. She was so pleased with my support she decided to complete this assignment in calligraphy - going way above and beyond! Submitted by Laura Ketch Bonar Law Memorial High School