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 Teacher
Tips for This Project
Welcome
to the Washington’s Best—Vacation! online module. This online module is
designed for seventh grade students. We hope that you and your students
enjoy it.
Through this module
students will learn about the major geographical regions of Washington
State as well as historic events, cultural groups residing in Washington
and some economics of the state. Prior to starting this
online module, students should have a general understanding of
Washington's five regions. Students should work in teams of 2 to 4 as
they work through this module.
Important
tips for using this module:
This is an
integrated research project, designed to help students develop reading and communication
skills related to the research process while they delve into Social Studies
content. If it seems overwhelming to you or your students, here are some
helpful hints:
Teach students to search
for keywords in the text they find on web pages. Many of these
pages were written for adults, but kids can find learn that a part of
sifting and sorting through information is locating what is relevant to
their research question and not getting bogged down in extraneous
information. One way to do this is to go to the Edit menu in Internet
Explorer and select "Find (on this page)." Students can enter the
key word or words they would like to find.
Encourage your
students to make their decisions by comparing and contrasting the
same activity in different regions. For example, how will water
sports be different in the Coastal Region than in the Okanogan Highlands?
There is no right answer to this project, so many of the decisions will be
made based upon personal preference. If students can explain why they prefer
to visit one region to another for a given activity, they are learning
about the differences between the regions of Washington.
We suggest you
consult with your school Library Media Specialist before and during this
project for technical support.
Preparing students for work as a team:
The structure that you use in organizing your students in
teams will depend upon the makeup of your class, their experience with
cooperative learning and team projects, and the availability of computer
resources. Some options include:
- Assign students to teams of three or four, or let
them self-select teams of three or four. Assign each student
within the group to a particular role. For example, each student
could be responsible for gathering information on one of the four
vacation activities.
- Pair students up, and allow them to work through
the entire process together.
Recording
information during research:
Your students
will have access to two graphic organizers a Note Sheet for recording information
collected during research, and a Decision Making Sheet for making their final
decisions. These documents will be used in planning their trip and to
assist in creating the PowerPoint presentation. These documents can be
printed and filled in with paper and pencil, or saved to a folder and
updated online.
Citing Sources:
Students should be required to cite all sources of information using proper MLA guidelines. You may wish to consult the district resources on MLA Report Style as you teach and support your students. Many tools are contained in Citing Sources for Writing & Research.
Saving
to a public drive
- Your school has a shared drives where all students can save. Consult
your Library Media Specialist to see which public drive is available for
your use, and to establish a folder where student groups may save their
work. When naming files in a public drive, it is important to remember that
all groups of students will be saving the same documents. Therefore, it is
very important that each group gives their documents a unique
name. For example, they may decide on a team name, and include that
name in all document names (e.g. Skidoers Vacation). It is recommended
that students save their work to their personal h: drive as a backup.
Reporting:
Student reports will be in the form of a PowerPoint presentation. They should include a map of the journey which could be a student-made map detailing their route and important cities, landforms, and landmarks or a classroom map of Washington State. In either case, the map should be used during the presentation to present a visual picture of the route taken during the vacation trip.
We
encourage you to have a plan ready for saving student documents before you
begin!
Possible Schedule
The amount of
time needed for completing this module will vary from class to class, but a
possible schedule, with one-hour blocks of time spent on the project each
day, might look something like this:
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Day
1
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Introduce
the task and give
students an overview of the web site.
Review the
regions of Washington (if necessary)
Discuss Rubric and expectations
Discuss Questioning
Prepare Note
Sheet
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Day
2
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Gather information from web pages
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Day
3
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Gather
information from web pages
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Day
4
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Gather information
from web pages
Evaluate
information by reviewing the rubric and filling out Decision Making Sheet
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Day
5
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Begin PowerPoint presentation
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Day
6
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Continue
PowerPoint
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Day
7
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Share presentations
and celebrate!
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