Welcome Educators!
1. Welcome to my inquiry based Web Quest! This Web Quest addresses areas of science, technology, and language arts for fourth grade students.
2. This Web Quest exposes students to a variety of texts that meet their individual level of instruction. By surrounding the students with selections of informational leveled reading books in the classroom, photocopied articles, internet resources, and video clips students are able to find information at their reading/ability levels.
The internet sources and sites have a nice variety of challenging text in some places and easier reading with many graphics in other places. Students even had access to video and sound clips on most of the internet sites. Students also had access to printed texts in the classroom, such as leveled reading books within the content area of birds, magazine articles, trade books, and a science textbook. Students with extreme difficulties reading had access to Universal Reader, which would read the text on the screen aloud to the student. Struggling students also received one-on-one assistance from the teacher when needed. The Web Quest had fun internet sites with games to play when they finished their research as well.
4. Second Grade students are at an age where they love learning and are full of questions. In order to maintain classroom management, especially in the computer lab, I modeled each step of the inquiry process in the Web Quest. As a class we all read about Grosbeaks, a bird species which no one was researching, then as a class we discussed the important information to highlight and add to the Bird Fact Organizer. The students then had this example to refer to as they began reading information about the birds that they had chosen to research. The use of an anticipation guide was also modeled before watching the bird video. In the computer lab, I was also able to use an LCD projector to model navigating the internet sites. In addition to teacher modeling and guided practice the students used the Bird Fact Organizer, a video anticipation guide, and a Venn diagram to help organize their information before writing a compare/contrast paper:
bird_fact_organizer.doc | |
File Size: | 29 kb |
File Type: | doc |
venn_diagram.doc | |
File Size: | 472 kb |
File Type: | doc |
look_at_birds_anticipation_guide.doc | |
File Size: | 43 kb |
File Type: | doc |
5. The students presented their conclusions about their bird research by writing a final compare & contrast report/paper according to a rubric. Each student was responsible for transferring the facts/research from the text/internet onto their Bird Fact Organizer, their Venn diagram, and finally into a written report. A rubric is included on the evaluation page.
6. Assessment:
Informal:
Teacher observation during instruction/modeling
Teacher observation during note taking and research
Anticipation Guide (see #4 above)
Bird Fact Organizer (see #4 above)
Venn diagram (see #4 above)
Summative:
Final Compare/Contrast writing piece (see evaluation page for rubric)
Cumulative Unit Test over the entire Bird Unit (unable to attach)
7. Sample of student work to illustrate the process phase and evaluation phase:
student_work-bird_report.doc | |
File Size: | 3636 kb |
File Type: | doc |