Competencies for the
African Webquest Project

Here is a link to the University of Colorado at Denver, ILT Competencies

African Webquest Project Report

African Webquest Web-based Activity

Competencies:

Reflective Practice

1. Take a systems view

The African Webquest project responded to the need for including technology standards into the regular curriculum for students in Shelton Elementary School. Their previous technology skills and the computers available had to be considered as well as student, staff and administration's attitudes toward technology. The current curriculum and practices were considered. The current imbedded assessment provided by the Jefferson County School district is an analysis of photographs and the district's pre-assessment practice photographs were incorporated into the website.

2. Use cycles of reasoning as tools for problem solving (with documentation for accountability and shared reasoning)

In the development process five fifth grade students tested the site and gave feedback on everything from colors and navigation to attitudes about the tasks and resources and their usefulness. Their advice contributed to the final design of the website. Written reports and the scores on the online quiz incorporated into the site provide an assessment of the effectiveness of the site. Printouts of the responses are kept for comparison to other years or classrooms.

3. Promote collaboration, partnerships, and relationships for full inclusion with stakeholders, clients, subject matter experts, team members, etc.

I consulted with my fourth grade team teachers during development of the site and its learning objectives. hopefully I will be able to refine the site enough to make it available to the Jefferson County Schools Social Studies Department to solicit their analysis if possible.

4. Be a lifelong learner and professional

I continue to work on improving the site.

Planning and Analysis

5. Conduct a needs assessment for learning or performance interventions

I believe an instructional opportunity was addressed in that the activity created fills a need for addressing numerous objectives and desired outcomes as identified in the report. Specific learning objectives are defined, available tools and materials are identified and utilized. Learner needs and characteristics are understood and activities are at the correct developmental level. While their participation is not voluntary, an attempt to motivate them is made.

6. Conduct a learning or instructional analysis

A learner's task and content were identified with goals and objectives. Environment, culture, and history, external climate, etc. were all considered and the technology is appropriate to the task.

Design and Development

8. Apply various theories/strategies and current research, and consider local needs and constraints to design activities and experiences for learning (with documentation)

The project includes a constructivist approach by including an "authentic task" as motivation for students to learn the stated objectives. Learning the factors of a climatic region are introduced as the conditions necessary to maintain an environment for plants and animals in a display at a zoo.

9. Design learning and performance products and resources that reflect an understanding of the diversity of learners and groups of learners

Many factors were considered when choosing the project, including interests, reading level, and visual and auditory elements of the design and web resources resulted in the use of appropriate vocabulary and large print size and the inclusion of weblinks that accomodated various reading levels. African and African-American sensitivities are considered in any study of the African continent.

10. Develop products and resources to support learning and performance (with documentation)

The use of the website fit the purpose of studying the pictures as prescribed by the Jefferson County School District assessment. (Other methods would be to show the photographs with a data projector or with paper photographs. The principles of multimedia design were applied to the website design, including choice of font, contrast, color, and navigation.

Evaluation and Assessment

11. Evaluate effectiveness of programs, products, or practices

Formative evaluations are made by observing students in individual and small group settings and the Web activity has an evaluation for the student to evaluate the group activity, the process, and suggest improvement or change. A Summative evaluation (for teacher and student) would be provided by the students performance on the embedded assessment activity and evaluation using the rubric required for the Social Studies unit objectives. Evaluations would be continuing as long as the Web activity was proven useful and effective and evaluations would be solicited from other 4th grade teachers. Jefferson County Social Studies Department advisors may be consulted as content area experts when they are available.

A short formative assessment was also done when the website was in production. Three former students stayed after school on two occasions and tested the website to see if they could navigate the site and understand what to do. I watched them work on the site and then asked them questions after they had worked long enough to form and impression. I made minor changes following their advice, by adding numbers to the pages, making some color changes, etc. A summative assessment is included online at the end of the quest.

12. Assess student/participant learning

Their is a student assessment of their group's activity and the processes involved at the end of the webquest and students may are asked to suggest improvements or changes to the activity. The activity is designed to address the assessment used by the school district and the assessment includes a rubric to assess student learning. Because it is used by many fourth grade classrooms it may be possible to compare to other classrooms that use some other method of teaching for the assessment.

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Contact Stan Sameshima at stans67@gmail.com. Last updated on April 20, 2008 .