Week 3- Instructional Unit

A media specialist is often the expert in a school on research and research methods. I wanted to practice gathering resources for a student research project. I decided to collaborate with myself as the classroom teacher. I currently teach in the same school as my practicum site, instructing 6th and 7th grade social studies. My 7th grade students are currently studying ancient Greece. While this unit has a variety of research-able topics, I decided to narrow it to Greek mythology. I also decided to include a technology product to present their research.

I allowed each of my students to sign up for a Greek mythological figure. This gave them a choice for research, creating a better buy-in to the project. My cooperating supervisor as the LMS guided me in selecting resources for my students, both online and in the library. We pulled several mythology encyclopedias, nonfiction books, and even a few graphic novels.

Their first task is to use informal research methods to complete this graphic organizer, called an I-Chart. I chose the parameters of some of their required information. They had the freedom to research other facts about their mythological figures.

My students had two days in the library to complete their research. Half of my students used the 12 computers while the other half used the print resources. The second day they swapped. This allowed them to use both print and non-print resources to meet the 21st century standards required by the AASL.

After two days this week of time in the library, I was able to secure a mobile lab with a class set of laptops for my classroom. For the rest of the week, students created a Weebly site to present their information on their mythological figure. This was very challenging for some students while others seemed to pick it up right away. I allowed several students to help others. All students reported liking creating a website as opposed to a tired PowerPoint or poster. By the end of the week, most of my students created websites that I deemed proficient, according to a rubric I created. Students were very proud of their work. The best ones were linked from the school website and featured as great work!

This unit allowed me to gain many outside and inside hours and was a very valuable experience. As an LMS, I hope to have more time with this unit to create more of a formal research project, using a method such as the Big 6. My students' learning was definitely impacted by this instructional unit with a lot of success! Isn't that what it's all about?