Learning+Indicators+and+Best+Use


 * __ Week 4 assignment – __****__ [|Online Investigation: Investigating Engaged Learning with the Best Use of Technology]  __**

After following the search guidelines, I discovered a great webquest that caught my eye. The web address is **[].** As a chemistry teacher, I like to find new and interesting ways to incorporate technology and searching the web into my curriculum. This webquest seemed to be a great pairing for the two. This specific webquest has the students design a social networking webpage for a specific element. I can see myself using this webquest in many places throughout my curriculum and changing it to make a great review for the unit on atoms, periodic trends, and even for the first semester final. Upon first glance, this seems to be a great webquest that really puts the students in the driver’s seat. However, to see if this webquest is truly an engaged learning project, I will need further evaluation and investigation of this webquest. In order to effectively evaluate this webquest for whether or not it is a good example of an engaged learning project, I will look at both the teacher role and the student role. First, I will focus on the role as the teacher. Here, the teacher plays more of an evaluator/director/boss role. They are to monitor and assist the students in the completion of their project if they need assistance. The teacher will also assess the students’ work, similar to that of a boss. The students are evaluated at the end of the assignment, not through out. The student role here is a bit different. The student is a working team member of the company. Being a team member, they need to publish an end product that they are responsible for. The technology itself is necessary for the completion of this project. This project could be completed without the Internet, but then it would not be the same project. Though the research information can be found elsewhere, one can only create a social media template and eventually post it making it a live webpage via the Internet. The students may be able to publish their work to the web at a later date, though it is not indicated in the webquest as written. This is a change I would make. I would have my students publish theirs to the web. I would also agree that this project could be interdisciplinary if it were to be slightly re-written. You could use the same concept for so many different courses. This webquest does meet many of the elements or indicators of engaged learning. I will not discuss all of them but I will discuss several. First of all, this webquest is both authentic and challenging. The student assumes a real-life position, or job. This job is relevant to the times and seems to hook the students and be interesting to them. Also, it is not too easy but not so difficult that it causes so much frustration that the student shuts down. This is a great way for the students to apply what they have learned about the elements in a practical way. This is also a new and interesting way to review for a test in that unit. Application and explanation of knowledge to teach others is a great way to check for understanding and assess for learning. Collaboration, however, can get tricky. Each student is responsible for their own website design, however, the social piece of this “social media” is interesting. The students will need to collaborate together to see which element “friends” which other elements to form compounds. This is a great way to assess both individual and group work. The teacher provided a great rubric for her assessment of the website and its content. It is very clear to the students what they need to do or have on the site to get a certain score on this webquest. However, the students are not working in groups per se, so this may be an issue when it comes to engaged learning projects. Collaboration and group work is key from my understanding. All of the student’s roles have been accounted for. We have the teacher who acts not only as the boss of the company, but also as a mentor and someone who provides guidance. We have the students being placed as researchers and members of a company needing to publish results. Access is also a grey area. While the students are using the Internet and computers, it would be great if they could build their websites through a medium such as GoogleDocs so that both student and instructor can virtually work together and view things that way. In conclusion, I believe that this webquest is a good example of an engaged learning project. Though missing many of the collaboration components in the project, many of the other indicators were addressed. The students are using technology to demonstrate learning and mastery of the material. They get to create a social media webpage about their assigned element. They demonstrate knowledge of compound formation, ion formation, electron transfer, periodicity, and also being able to conduct online research. The roles of teacher and student are quite clear and although the final product is individual for each student, the students need to work together to figure out which elements will react with, or “friend” who. Using the indicators and the nature of the webquest assignment, I believe that this is a good example of an engaged learning project.

Indicators used in the project by category:

Vision: Responsible for Learning Strategic Energized by Learning Collaborative

Tasks: Authentic Challenging Multidisciplinary

Assessment: Performance-Based Generative Seamless and ongoing Equitable

Instructional Model: Interactive Generative

Learning Context: Collaborative Knowledge-Building Empathic

Teacher’s Roles: Facilitator Guide Co-Learner/Co-Investigator

Student’s Roles: Explorer Learning Apprentice Teacher Producer

Access: Connective Ubiquitous Interconnective Designed for Equitable Use

Organization: Distributed

Engagability: Access to challenging tasks Enables learning by doing Provides guided participation

Ease of Use: Effective helps User friendliness/ User control Fast Available training and support

Functionality: Diverse tools Media use Promotes programming and authoring Supports project design