Concept Attainment: Polygons

Digital Divide: Clinton New Markets Tour

Landscapes: Terra Firma to Terra Forma

Webquest: Watching the Colors Come Alive

In completing this assignment I worked with Rob Freeman, Joe Volek and Deborah Bertolucci. We decided to develop a geometry unit using polygons as the primary topic. Initially we communicated via email establishing goals, roles and a particular aspect of the project. Deborah spent one day visiting Rob and Joe's school and collaborated with them on some of the material. All four of us brought our individual research together and constructed a PowerPoint presentation that we delivered to the iMet1 cohort at an F2F meeting. The most difficult aspect of this project was clear communication with Joe and Rob who work at a school 120 miles away. Other than Deborah's trip to their school we only met when we finalized the presentation. Overall, it was a positive experience and I was proud of our project.
The assignment included the following tasks:

• Read chapter 9 in Joyce and Weil
• Form groups
• Collaborate online
• Develop a lesson plan that features the Concept Attainment model presented in Joyce and Weil
• Identify the context in which the Concept Attainment lesson will be done
• Be prepared to present the Concept Attainment at the next F2F.

The advanced organizer was a unit I helped develop with Ron Freeman, Joe Volek and Deborah Bertolucci. The PowerPoint presentation focused on the disparity between adult and adolescent learners. Designed as a staff development training tool we included information about the differences and some techniques for addressing those environments. I found this unit quite informative as I teach both at the college and high school level. Having worked at both levels, I have been acutely aware of the differences in their styles.

Peer

Our unit was presented at a F2F and received positive feedback.

Faculty

From Bruce McVicker: Your "advance organizer" presentation is an exceptional lesson. I really enjoyed revisiting it for a number of reasons. You have shown how the use of the advance organizer is essential in making meaningful learning happen for teachers as well as for k-12 learners. Youšve supported your ideas with research, particularly with Ausubelšs reasoning. Being teachers interested in student achievement and staff development, you are convincing and authoritative.

References

Arends, Richard (1991). Learning to teach: Direct instruction.

Ausubel, David (2000). Learning from presentations advanced organizers, models of teaching/Bruce Joyce, Marsha Weil, with Emily Calhoun, 6th Edition

Brookfield, Stephen (1995). International encyclopedia of education.

Gunter, Mary A. (1995). Instruction models approach: The direct instruction model.

Lieb, Stephen (2000). Principles of adult learning
Available at http://www.hcc.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/F

Digital Divide

This unit was interesting to develop due to the fact that I conducted my portion of the research while working in Nevada on the fire lines. Both research and creation of my part of the PowerPoint presentation was done from my hotel room using EarthLink and a 56k modem. This project was completed in partnership with Marco Baeza and Christie Speed. Our primary goal was to inform our fellow cohorts of President Clinton's progress of his New Market tour and how it would affect the government's push to close the gap between the technology haves and have-nots.

Peer/Faculty

We presented our information at the summer 2000 F2F and received positive feedback.

References

(1995). Reinventing schools: The technology is now.. Retrieved on July 10, 2000 from www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/techgap/index.html

Casto, J.E. (1999). President Clinton visits Appalachia. Retrieved on July 10, 2000 from http://arc.gov/infopubs/appalach/mayaug99/clinton.htm

Landscapes

This particular unit I originally developed with Fernando Nugent at Geyserville High School in early 1994. Fernando and I continued to develop the unit over the years but never as a web-based activity. Working with Deborah Bertolucci, we modified and expanded the material as a web-based project. This unit is still in progress as we expect to develop it into a semester long project.

Peer/Faculty

This project was presented at a F2F and received positive feedback.

References

Eds Oasis
Retrieved February 12, 2001 from
http://www.classroom.com/edsoasis

Hirschbuhl, J. & Bishop, D. (2000).Annual Editions: Computers in education 00/01. Sluice Dock/Guilford: Dushkin/McGraw Hill.

Ivers, K. & Barron, A. (1998). Multimedia projects in education: designing, producing, and assessing. Englewood: Teacher Ideas Press.

McKenzie, J. (1998). Raising a generation of free range students. Phi Delta Kappan (September 1998): 21.

Webquest

Working on the WebQuest was a challenge as Deborah Bertolucci, Jeff Palmrose and I decided to use it as a component of our action research project. Many long hours were spent in creating and revising the web pages to reflect the goals of our project. I found it refreshing and challenging to work with middle school students. Based on feedback that we received from our peers, we made changes so that the flow of the WebQuest would be easier for students to understand.

Peer

Marc C.:
Graphics are simple thus allowing faster load time..there is difference in size, etc. The Introduction seems plain enough..understandable in what your asking. Steps are clearly stated, you seem to make good use of the links about businesses and starting them. The evaluation rubric is well defined and easily readable. I don't necessarily like everything on one page but that doesn't hinder the learning process as far as I can tell. I'm assuming they have PowerPoint skills going into this project.

Mark P.:
China link doesn't work on intro page Process page says coop group rules; page you go to says group roles. Resource page not clear on layout. Links have headings; does the heading indicate use for a certain phase of the wq? Process page has a link to worksheets with questions, and also questions under step 2. Does the student answer both sets of questions? Why are they in two different locations? PowerPoint and web tutorial sites not at a 6th grade level. On kite design page: Why underlines? Look like links but aren't. Construction steps too wordy. Need diagrams to clarify notch locations etc. Is there a web site with this information on it? Do you need to duplicate it here? How is this a worksheet? Seems to be an instruction sheet. kflight: how will the string be measured? eval: spell check evalwk2: design rubric needs to be broken out into several smaller areas for evaluation; student's construction effort, design information, flight characteristics, etc. Teacher page: Title mentioned; where else is this used other than the title page. Seems like it should be a repeated feature. Link for resource page on this page takes me to a standards page. Should you mention the need for knifes, saws, etc. under the materials section. The instructions mention notching and having sticks the right length. What is the deal with the link at the bottom saying "return to the top of the morning"? The explanation on the teacher's page of the ancient history portion is more clear than the task page instructions. Should the links to the china sites be segregated for each of those topic areas? Title (home) page; If the title is Watching the Colors Come Alive then I think the title page should have more colors involved in it, especially the title text. Title page specifically addresses sixth grade, yet is mentioned elsewhere that it can be used for 5th-10th. My 10th graders wouldn't even start something that says 6th grade on it. But 6th graders would love to think that they are working on 10th grade material.

Faculty

From Bruce McVicker: Kites! Thank you for providing the context in your introduction. In the staff development context, this is critical. Nice job. I admire you for taking this to the 6th grade. Helping people connect the kite activity with cultures provides a nice like with content-area standards.

You addressed the task and integrated the roles nicely into the goal. I agree with your comment about the Task master role.

Your resources are well chosen! Students can take their research and integrate it with other subject areas (math, social studies) relatively seamlessly. This combining of technology tools is quite impressive. Nicely done!

I really like the teacher notes. You've planned this really well with the interests of the teachers in mind.

I also like the way you've integrated your action research component into this activity. I have the feeling you're going to learn a great deal about how kids deal with web-based problem solving. I look forward to your data analysis. The journal your students keep will also serve as data documents that you can also compare to other data sets.

My overall impression is that this is a very worthwhile site that can yield some new insights into the way we group our students for web-based learning. You've done an excellent job on this.

References

Conceicao-Runlee, S. and B.J. Daley (2000). Constructivist learning theory to web-based course design: An instructional design approach.
Retrieved on April 4, 2001 from
http://www.bsu.edu/teachers/departments/edld/conf/constructionism.html

Dodge, B. (1997) Some thoughts about webquests.
Retrieved on March 13, 2001 from
http://edweb.sdsu.edu/webquest

March, T. (1995). Working the web for education.
Retrieved on March 13, 2001 from
http://www.ozline.com/learning/theory.html

Martin, B. (1999). Using webquests for constructivist learning.
Retrieved on March 14, 2001 from
http://members.tripod.com/dwilliampmartin/introduction.html

Mayer, R.E., M.W. Schustack (1999). What do children learn from using computers in an informal, collaborative setting? Educational Technology.

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