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Whole Story
Can you tell me about yourself?
I’m [name]. I’ve been teaching--this is the beginning of my seventh year, I teach here in [city, state]. My students are fourth, fifth, and sixth grade talented and gifted students. I use multi-age grouping and also teach within a loop, so I have students for as long as three years.
Tell me a story, where you integrated technology in you classroom!
The activity that you saw today is a simulation of an archaeological project where the students have developed cultures of their own, through their own originality have developed cultures that are of the future and they have decided all the basic universals that a culture has and developed the artifacts. It is a cross-curricular project that just touches every area that is normally taught in class. The students create their own artifacts. They work as a team to use technology to record and store the information as they have developed it. This is based on a curriculum that was developed and marketed in, I believe about 1992, and it is available for purchase. The name of the curriculum is Dig Too. I named this project ‘Dig It’ as I have adapted that curriculum to my own satisfaction.
What were your goals an objectives in this activity?
The goal of the project is to have the students work in teams simulating the roles of archeologists using as many tools and technology as they possibly can. The objective is to have them use critical thinking skills and creativity while working together as a team to solve whatever problems they may encounter.
How did you assess the outcome?
I use a number of authentic assessment tools. One of the main tools that I use is student reflection and teacher observation. I am observing the students at all times. They have basically set criteria that they know that they are going to be assessed by. I have them do numerous student reflections, whether they be oral or hand written, or using technology to enter it as a word document. They assess their own learning, they have set goals, they talk about whether or not they’ve met them, why or why not, they tell me how they have encountered problems and how they have solved them. And I integrate their reflections and their assessment of their learning with what I have observed, and then discuss it with them.
You talked about that this activity is embedded in a larger set of activities. Can you give me the context of this activity?
What you saw that was videoed this morning basically will show you the middle of the project. The earlier parts were done in advance. Today you saw more of the hands-on activities of the middle, and what we will be seeing later, where the students visit the dig site, is the conclusion, or towards the conclusion. The actual finale is a large group presentation. So, basically today you’re seeing the middle and towards the end.
Can you tell me more about the nature of the activities?
They are reenacting it. The activity began last year in the cold months of January and February where we were able to do all of the indoor activities, and then in the spring went out to the dig site to do the excavations. What you are seeing today is a reenactment of the teamwork process of recording their information, and then you’ll also see a reenactment of the dig.
Can you give me a brief time-frame?
The entire project, for me, took about two and a half to three months. However because my students are part of a pull-out program that meets for two and half hours every three days. That’s why it took us that long. The project really could be done in a couple of weeks if a classroom teacher wanted to do it. It depends on how much depth you want to go too.
Let's talk about the technology! What did you us and why?
The project itself really presented a compelling situation. The integration of technology made it even more so. The reason that I chose to integrate the technology is because it just heightens the motivation of the students to just do every aspect of the project to its maximum. We used laptop computers. The particular ones that we were using today are iBooks. They are just the right size for children. Last year I had to use full size PCs, but I really prefer the wireless laptop. It’s child-size, it’s portable, they can move it around, it’s just wonderful for them to use. Also we used digital cameras, 35mm cameras. Again students have not had a lot of opportunity to use those in a normal situation. And so, to bring it in to the classroom just heightens the Compelling Situation. They’re so excited to be able to record their work, either digitally or using the film cameras. And then also, it leads to additional integration because those pictures can be scanned or downloaded in to the computer and used in the parent newsletter that the student takes home, demonstrating what they’ve done. I chose to use the small, handheld video cameras because again, they are child size and just fit in their hands perfectly. They’re not too heavy, they’re not too bulky, and the children really feel as though, okay, these really are tools that are meant for me to use, so I have found those to be very agreeable.
What would you say were learning outcomes in these activities?
I thought in the Learning process, the number one element that all of the aspects of those principles were demonstrated by this activity. But the one that stands out the most of course is the active learning. These were not passive listeners. These people were very active in taking part in what was going on, and it all takes times were very active much so.
Additionally the aspects of Democracy are one of the things that I think makes this project work the way it does and brings it to the level of success that I’ve had with it. And the children all know that they have as much say about what they are doing and how they are going to do it as much so as anyone in the room. I serve as a facilitator to their ideas, so they’ve had to learn to work together as a group and be able to share power, be able to learn to make decisions, to be respectful of one another, to be kind to each other’s ideas, to be accepting of the fact that someone might have an idea that is better than theirs or that theirs isn’t going to be used this time. They’ve had to learn to share their materials, the use of the technology with lots of give and take, lots of opportunities for them to explore leadership and to rotate leadership. So, Democracy is one of the strengths of this project.
If you want to find more details both in written and video format please go to the InTime site: http://www.intime.uni.edu the developer of this case.
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