The Essential Question
The main component to a constructed artifact is the essential question. This question is important because it gives the assignment direction and drives the research. It gives the assignment focus because it “allows students to spend more time interpreting the data rather than gathering the data," (Marzano, 2007). The essential question is important because the World Wide Web is so vast, I believe that many students feel overwhelmed when doing research. Think of the essential question as your topic sentence of an essay. It sets the tone, and gives the reader the main idea of what the writer is trying to say.
Guide Your Students
Guide your students so they can navigate the sometimes overwhelming World Wide Web. Offer web sites where students can find valuable and accurate information. I think that in many cases students find the amount of information on the web so massive they have a hard time getting through all of it and finding exactly what they need. If the instructor gives a few web sites that can lead the students in the right direction it will save a lot of time and frustration for the student.
I also believe that many students get frustrated with the technology one uses to convey their findings. Many times Power Point or Excel is too complicated for a student to be able to use. Giving tutorials and simple easy-to-follow directions can help with this to some degree; however, this is a big obstacle when dealing with technology.
The Founding Fathers
Constuctionism pioneer Jean Piaget laid the foundations for ideas on how children learn. Seymour Papert later developed mathematical programs to help students visualize and create designs based on complex mathematics expanding the research the Piaget started. 
(Click on the photos to read about Piaget and Papert)Constructionism in the 21st Century Classroom
When you combine these founding fathers of constructionism with the use of technology as we know it today, the possibilities are exciting.
Here are a few ways students can construct an artifact.
- A social studies class could benefit by dividing up a class into three groups and assigning each group a branch of the American government and have students detail each section on a Web page, wiki, PowerPoint, or Google.docs. Later in the year you could divide these into groups again for the Mayans, Incas, and Aztecs.
- A language arts teacher could have a collaborative creative writing process in google.docs where students collaborate on a fictitious story all online. They could also create an on-line biography where each student in a group takes a part of a famous person's life and posts it in a separate section or Web page.
- Students could also create a Web page, blog, wiki, or PowerPoint to present their findings from a virtual field trip. They could explore the Australian Reef and describe the animal and plant life that sustains life on the reef.
- Lynda Donovan’s idea on using publisher to make books about novels and poems with photos from the internet is also a wonderful idea.
Final Thoughts
All these ideas give students ownership in an artifact that they construct. It is believed that when students build they get a deeper more in-depth understanding of the material. The use of technology gets the students involved with computers which most kids are already interested in. These are just a few ideas from a quick brainstorm, I am sure after talking with colleagues it would be easy to develop other ideas for other subjects. Let me know what you think about some of these ideas. How could they be better? What are some obstacles I may have not considered? What are some other subjects that these can be used for?
Thanks for looking at my blog! I hope you enjoy it!
Resources
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008). Program seven. Constructivist and constructionist theories. [Motion picture]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Baltimore: Author.
Marzano, Robert. Using Technology with classroom instruction that works. denver: Mid-continent for learning and reasearch, 2007.
Paul,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post, it is so organized and eye-catcher. I like the idea you explained in the section “Guide Your Students.” I agree that sometimes, students find a huge amount of information that makes them confused, what they should use, and what they shouldn’t. Giving them few web sites is a great idea to save time and to avoid confusion.
In my school, the librarian offers the students to attend a session in September to learn how to research online on a topic, how to choose reliable resources and so forth. I think that this is something each student needs to learn about, as it will help later in any research or Project-Based learning within any content area.
Joseph
Paul, There is so much information through the internet for our students right at their fingertips that it has to be overwhelming at times. I can relate. I have been researching and thought, "Where do I begin"? Sometimes during this course, I have to stop and refocus when reading a great deal of information through the required resources each week. I am pretty good at it at this point in my education, but some of our kids are not. They have difficulty sifting through information. That is definitely a skill in itself. My special needs students have comprehension issues to begin with therefore they really have a difficult time. I think what Joe mentioned in his response to you about the class his librarian offers to the students is wonderful. All kids should have this opportunity.
ReplyDeleteKristin
Joe,
ReplyDeleteI think it is great that your school librarian is so involved. I believe that teachers can not do it all, especially with all that is demanded of teachers these days. Utilizing the expertise of others in your school is a great way to help expand the instruction for your students.
You noted that you are pretty good at focusing your attention at this point in your life. I too have to refocus and often have a difficult time finding reliable information on-line. If we are having these difficulties, we must imagine how our studnts must feel.
Thanks for your input here.
Kristin,
ReplyDeleteI think Joe, you and I are in total agreement. Using librarians to help get through all this info is a great resources for teachers. It seems with the financial constraints that school districts are always under expecially with today's struggling economy, we are forced to do more with less. Utilizing librarians and other support staff's expertise can really help teachers out as well as offer the abilities of others to our students.
Thanks for your input.
Paul,
ReplyDeleteI always enjoy reading your posts because they are so organized and reader-friendly! I loved your suggestions for how students can construct artifacts in each classroom. Sometimes there are SO many ideas out there, we need to just simplify and try a few out. I often get too overwhelmed by all the resources at our fingertips! Great post, Paul!
Paul,
ReplyDeleteI agree with everyone else... your posts are fun to read! (And for someone like me, with ADD and no meds, even getting THROUGH a blog post, let alone ENJOYING it, is an accomplishment in itself!)
I will be teaching summer school soon and happen to have free reign over a "supplemental course" that has no real restrictions on what I teach. Of course, I'm "teching-out" for this one! LOL I've decided to combine technology (as much as I possibly can) and math, media literacy, writing, and social studies! The final project will be for my students to create a PSA on the value of a particular math skill.
We will discuss media (commercials, in particular) and its effect on culture, bias in the media, audience targeting, script writing, story-boarding, and video production. They will also have a list of math skills to choose from and they will discover where, in real life, they are applicable. Finally, they will shoot, edit, and publish online, their final PSA. If all goes well, this will be my students' final project for next school year! (Fingers crossed! LOL)
Deana
Great post and I really appreciate the organization and user friendly format of your post. I too have found that students who are exploring the internet for research are often times overwhelmed and cannot focus on the task at hand because of the overwhelming amount of information located on the internet. Having a course offered at the beginning of the year like Joe mentioned, may allow students to have a head start on researching effectively when they begin the school year.
ReplyDelete