Webquest Reflection

           The webquest I prepared “Cruel and Unusual Punishment?” (http://mssocialstudying.wikispaces.com) addresses several questions about the most important things teachers need to do to help students prepare for the their futures.  Teachers need to encourage students to work collaboratively, analyze sources, use technology, make solid arguments and communicate them effectively.  This webquest does all of that. 

Students will be working in pairs throughout this project.  They will do the research together, pick an argument together, create a presentation together.  In the future, students as citizens will be required to work with other people.  Nobody works in a vacuum.  Draves and Coates (2004) argue that organizations will move from a pyramid structure to a network.  Students will need to be able to cooperate and collaborate on work. 

            Analyzing sources is not only a task that is an important skill in Social Studies, but is an important life skill as well.  This webquest requires students to do research to justify their argument.  They are given a few sites to start from, but can include more.  They will need to make judgements on those websites.  They will need to detect bias.  It’s not that they can’t use the site if it is biased; they can build that into their own arguments.  They will need to find facts to go with those arguments. 

            Students will also need to be able to use technology.  The purpose of this webquest is not to get them familiar with wikispaces specifically, but to encourage the use of programs they might not know.  They will need to create an animated and colorful PowerPoint with a strong argument and share that on the wiki.  There is no doubt that technology will continually change for these students as they grow into adults.  They need to be familiar enough with what is current to be prepared for whatever the future technology holds.  Much of business right now runs on PowerPoint, for better or for worse.  It will benefit students to at least be familiar with constructing a solid persuasive presentation in that format, even if they will not be using it as adults because something newer has come along.  By using PowerPoint and the wiki for research and discussion, students will learn to create strong arguments and communicate them through technology. 

            The webquest also relates to social justice and our class’s core values and vision.  Students will be required to think about and argue a position on a divisive issue: the death penalty, especially in regards to minors.  Additionally, they will need to think globally.  The U.S. made its decision based on other countries’ position.  Is that right or wrong?  This encourages ethical thinking, a value of our class.  Working together in partners will encourage responsibility to another person.  They will need to come to an agreement and create a logical argument.  This webquest is no easy task.  It will take time, perseverance and resourcefulness to find more sources, to work together, and to put together the final product.  By encouraging those values and skills, by working together, this webquest creates an authentic learning experience.  It encourages critical thinking on how an issue affects society.  Students will learn interpersonal skills, independent thinking and they will address a global issue through technology.  By completing a project such as this webquest, students will practice those values and it will help them become responsible global citizens. 

            This webquest meets NCSS principle 8 by encouraging discussion on how technology has changed how the U.S. makes policy. There is a discussion section on the wiki that asks students to think critically about how the increase in communication has changed how the U.S. can access information.  If this case had come up in a time where we couldn’t know quite as easily what other countries’ policies were, would we as a society be able to make the same argument?  This webquest also meets NCSS principle 9 by requiring students to think about global policies, decisions and their consequences.   In this instance, students have to analyze a human rights issue, the death penalty for minors. They must compare our policy to global policy and decide if that is right or wrong.  

A Restructuring

“Public Secondary Schooling” should be reconceptualized (structure, curriculum, and pedagogy) to be effective in 2025 in many ways.  It’s structure should be more flexible, and not be so divided across disciplines.  Assessments should be qualitative and there should not be such a focus on high stakes testing.  The curriculum in 2025 should be focused on the “big” picture of the content area.  As Oakes and Lipton say in Teaching to Change the World, the curriculum should “place the human story in a larger context” (p. 145).   Students should use their own histories to compare and contrast.  The focus should not just be on the powerful, but the powerless and include other perspectives.  The pedagogy of this curriculum should therefore include a more contructivist approach.  Classes should involve projects that force students to solve a problem.  Finally, the community should be involved. 

Cooperative learning to solve a problem

By having an interactive, interdisciplinary, cooperative and project-driven base in schools, the focus switches from rote memorization to understanding of content.  Tests will still have their place, but students, teachers and schools will be able to focus not on test taking skills but understanding. 

As the focus switches from testing to understanding, the content is not only taught, but important skills for 2025 are as well.  Students will be able to work together, communicate, solve problems and make connections.  On top of all that, students learn better in a cooperative setting.  “Even the strongest students make considerable intellectual gains when they work with students of all skill levels” (p. 192).  These are the skills that students, future adults, will need in 2025 and beyond as businesses and employers move from organizational charts, (the traditional pyramid) to networks (Draves & Coates, p. 129).  If students are taught those skills and they learn from them, then they can use them as adults in networks and continually learn.

Finally, in school systems (and states and nations) that focus on interaction and problem-solving projects and not high stakes testing, the surrounding communities will benefit.  In 2011, if a school does not perform, they may be “punished” by a withholding of funds.  This obviously will not help the flailing school.  If test scores are low, they might not get the money they might need to help bring those scores up, to help teachers focus more on understanding through projects and problem solving.  Additionally, if schools are not meeting requirements, that public information is made available which hinders economic and business development in the surrounding community and hurts real estate. Oakes and Lipton write, “All of the scores make headlines. …state policymakers proclaim a crisis  when their state’s achievement scores are lower than other states; federal and state government threatens to withhold funds when a school’s test scores indicate that it is ‘low-performing’; the real estate salesperson compares the local school’s test scores; advantaged parents trumpet high-achieving scores as irrefutable proof of their children’s merit” (p. 223).  I do not argue that test scores should be private, but they should not be such a focus.  What should also be made public are the projects and learning the school is doing.  The community should be involved which will help real estate and economic development.  

Schooled.

The idea of schooling in 2025 will have changed.  I believe that as our world becomes increasingly connected, fast-paced and accessible, schooling focuses more on characteristics and skills and less on content.  Content will still have its role! Understanding biology, math, literature and social studies will still be very important, if not more so.  But more importantly, students will need to have certain skills to help them succeed. It will not be enough to get good grades and test scores.  Students (and the future work force) will need to be problem solvers.  They will need to be able to communicate effectively.  They will need to be flexible, understanding and tolerant.  These very abstract things will be more important in 2025 than the concrete data that seems to be the focus in 2011.

“Schooling” means not only learning in a formal school setting, but learning through experience.  It is really through experience that most of our “schooling” occurs.  We are motivated by good experiences.  Some would argue that true learners are motivated by the bad as well.   We remember experiences, not lectures, notes, tests, essays or homework.  It is exactly that that will engage ALL students in learning.  Teachers need to focus on providing experiences in the classroom to help understanding.  I think this is the true definition of differentiation.  By adding difference ways of experiencing the content, more students will be able to access it, understand it, analyze and synthesize it. 

There are many ways to do this.   In history, it can mean listening to the latest American Idol contestant sing a Gershwin song.  The students will then have experienced that song in their world, not in the 1920s.  It becomes relevant and accessible, and thusly, memorable in the larger picture of the Jazz Age.  It can mean using manipulation items in math to understand how things are broken down.  It can mean seeing the results of chemical change in a science lab.  Ultimately, I believe that by differentiating instruction teachers provide many ways for students to experience something so that all students can find a way to learn that is meaningful for them.  

Students and the Future

The role of content knowledge will change in the year 2025. Of course, it will have its place. Students will still need to know history and civics, especially in the middle grades. These are classes that provide and will continue to provide cultural literacy. However, content knowledge will be more of a channel through which students will learn the important skills to help them function in a fast-paced, global world. As the basic information of content is more readily available to students, the focus will become less on memorizing the facts and more on using the facts in application. I am hopeful that education as a discipline will becomes less focused on large scale, high stakes testing, allowing content to become this medium. Students will be able and required to get that information more independently and use the content knowledge to construct their own broader understanding of the content. The teacher will be a facilitator in this as students will have greater access through the internet and other forms of communication. Additionally, the lines between content areas will blur. Teachers will need to work together to help students to make connections across curricula. History and civics will blend with English, and math and science will be more integrated. Generally speaking, students will become more independent learners to construct their own content knowledge through technology.

In 2025, students will have a solid knowledge and understanding of technology. The issue for them will not be how to use the technology to get information, but how to sift through the barrage of information they will be getting. Important skills will be analyzing sources and data and extrapolating the data that is important to them. With this increased availability of information, students need to learn other important skills in a more connected world. Students will need to learn to communicate clearly and effectively. They will need to learn tolerance and respect, as they learn to cope with people with many different values, perspectives and backgrounds. They will need to learn to prioritize as time becomes more valuable in the future. These skills will also help prepare them for what is unknown, a bigger issue today and tomorrow than it was 100 years ago.

Welcome!

Hi! This blog is for YOU. Not me, you. You are students in middle school social studies, and guess what? In just 5 months, you will have to take an SOL exam. This site will provide reviews and extra practice (which face it, we all can use) as we progress towards those tests.

Look for games, videos, links, cool stuff. Take a peek to the right; there are already some links with practice or interesting stuff. Since I have some of you in 7th grade history and some in 8th grade civics, there will be stuff for both subjects. Comment and give me feedback, as we (your teacher and I) do in class. We are here to help and want you to succeed. And you can do it! Because we're smart enough, we do the work, and what was the last one?

Oh yeah, we're just that good.