Essential Understandings SMARTsheets™ Software

* Dramatically increase the focus and clarity of content-area subject lessons.

* Feature a set of “Essential Understandings” about each of the most common topics taught in any science or social studies lesson:
- famous person or group - important event
- significant place/geography - impacting policy
- important theory or idea - war or conflict
- controversial issue/debate - common belief
- significant problem - impacting invention
- important thing or object - key process

For example, if the social studies lesson is primarily about a famous person, MSS provides a range of SMARTsheets that focus on essential understandings of any famous person.

Likewise, if a science lesson is primarily about a biological process, there is a range of SMARTsheets specifically designed to address the essential understandings associated with any process.

* Present embedded semantic cues designed to prompt students to engage in highly robust critical thinking and language-learning elaboration strategies. * Include very powerful tools for guided note-taking, guided reading in the content area, planning writing about content-area subjects, assessing student knowledge about subjects. * Help to structure cooperative learning discussions about a topic. Software includes 297 color and 297 black/white interactive SMARTsheets and over 85 examples of how teachers and students have used them.