Artifacts - U.S. Region Unit ePoster

U.S. Region Unit ePoster

Artifact: Travel the U.S. Regions.
A resource that integrates technology into Social Studies curriculum.

Report:
Designs for Online Learning IT 5650
Summer 2003

Problem Statement
The Douglas County School District altered the Elementary Social Studies curriculum. In the past, students learned about the Regions of the United States while in 4th grade, but this piece of curriculum was recently put on the plates of the 5th grade teachers.

Due to the fact that only one of the 5th grade team members in my building had taught U.S. Regions, there was a great need for additional resources to be discovered, and/or developed.

Situation Analysis
The Social Studies curriculum change will be phased in over the next couple of school years, so the team will have time to create a useful teaching unit. This teaching unit had to meet the various Social Studies Standards set forth by the Douglas County School District. These standards and checkpoints revolve around the Five Themes of Geography: Movement, Culture, Location & Place, Interaction, and Change.

During the 2003-2004 school year the staff at Coyote Creek Elementary (CCE) will be taking part in the Professional Learning Communities (PLC) program mandated by the Douglas County School District. Each grade-level team was responsible for determining how they would use this time. All members of the 5th grade team felt comfortable using technology in their classroom. This is typically done through word processing, Internet research, and use of various grade-level software titles. A couple of the team members were even at the point of integrating it in various subjects. They have developed class Web sites where students can access resources, and have established a weekly routine of based-technology lessons and activities.

Each 5th grade classroom at CCE houses five Apple computers. At least three of them are the newer iMacs. In addition to the classroom computers, we have two other technology resources. The first is a lab that teachers can have total access to when the Computer Resource Teacher (CRT) is off-track. The second resource is two mobile iBook carts that contain enough computers for each student.

Rationale
It was suggested that to complete the Social Studies curriculum transition more effectively, the team would focus on integrating technology into their U.S. Regions unit of study.

The use of technology in the unit would not only have students meeting the Social Studies goals, but they would also be working towards the district’s technology standards as well. An additional reason for using the technology piece was to help fulfill the building Technology plan. This plan has teachers using technology within their grade level curriculum whenever possible.

The team already had several valuable assets within the building that they could utilize: the 4th grade teachers. These teachers had been teaching the Regions unit for many years and had already developed a number of great resources. The 5th grade teachers wanted to build on these current resources during their unit development and look for the most appropriate areas to integrate the technology.
It was important that the development of new resources would not add too much additional time to everyone’s already tight schedules. The 5th grade team decided to utilize the mandatory PLC meetings to devote time to refining, and evaluating the new Social Studies curriculum.

Results
The team discovered that within the curriculum, there were Key Concepts and Learner Objectives that had been outlined by the district. These were used as the focus for integrating and resource ideas. As a way to organize this information, I created a chart that outlined a variety of integration ideas. These ideas outlined the integration of reading, writing, and math into the social studies curriculum. In order to demonstrate how the use of technology would enhance the current standards and checkpoints set forth by the district, I created a second table that illustrated what specific standards and/or checkpoints were going to be addressed by a specific online resource.

The rewriting and redesigning of the U.S. Regions unit was a success. A number of valuable resources that created a new way of learning and teaching for all were located. To help the team, I was able to identify a number of valuable online resources. These resources included lesson plans, WebQuests, online field trips, and informational Web sites. The team will be adding to these resources throughout the school year.

Evidence of the value or usefulness of the product.
Due to the fact we are on a year-round schedule, different teachers are teaching the Regions unit at different times. Because of this, two out of the four 5th grade teachers had already taught their U.S. Regions unit prior to the creation of this unit. The other 5th grade teachers will be teaching regions at the end of the school year, so at this time, no teachers have put the new U.S. Regions unit to work.
I believe that the integration of technology will allow the teachers to better meet the individual learning needs of their students. I would hope that students, who once viewed Social Studies as a boring subject, would now see that it can be fun, interesting, and interactive.

Due to the fact that the U.S. Regions Unit is set up by standards and checkpoints, this will allow teachers to easily assess student knowledge and easily record it in their standards-based grade book.

I believe that the U.S. Regions Unit will be a springboard for the development of future units. The 5th grade team, as well as other grade levels, will be able to use this unit as a model of how to integrate technology into unit of study.

Reflections on lessons learned as they relate to your professional goals, next steps, and guidelines for use of your work.
During the future implementation of online learning tools, team members will note the various successes and failures they encountered. They will also share how they felt that particular section of the unit could be improved. Each team member will complete a detailed site evaluation of the resources they used and bring these to the PLCmeetings held by the team.

The team will continue to build on their current Webliography and will be searching for additional online resources. A couple of the team members are also looking into the possibility of creating some of their own resources, such as WebQuests, to use next year.

As mentioned above, I feel that this unit would be a great starting point for future units of study. I would particularly like to focus on the other Social Studies and Science topics we have to teach in 5th grade which include: U.S. History from the 1400’s to 1865, systems in living things, and the solid earth.

Demonstration of Responsibilities
Responsibility # 1: Continued improvement of professional practice that requires critical inquiry, professional development, and reflective practice.
Prior to developing the U.S. Regions Unit, as a team we needed to reflect upon and evaluate a need for resources. Using the Douglas County Curriculum Guide, district standards and checkpoints, along with the Internet, a number of online resources were evaluated and added to our Webliography for future use.

Each of the online resources that were collected will need to be evaluated. In order to do this, a number of evaluation tools were collected and will be utilized.

Responsibility #2: Designs instruction or human performance strategy to meet the needs of learners.
In the development of the U.S. Regions Unit, a number of variables were kept in mind: the needs of the learners, the needs of the teachers, the district standards and checkpoints, and the current resources. Teaching and learning strategies were developed while keeping all of these factors in mind. The learners and resources were analyzed while finding and applying the most useful technology resources.

Responsibility #5 Manages complex projects and resources in support of learning.
The development of this U.S. Regions Unit aided the 5th grade team in revising the previous Social Studies curriculum. Even though all the team members were involved in the creation of this new technology-related curriculum, I took on the responsibility of managing the resources and fielding questions as they came up. I will also be the “manager” of the forms we created as the various resources are implemented and evaluated. The other 5th grade teachers will share their findings with the team, but then I will update our resource list.

Responsibility #6: Uses incisive and relevant assessment and evaluation techniques.
A needs assessment was conducted in order to discover what resources both the school and individuals possessed. Each member of the 5th grade team will be implementing one or two of the Social Studies standards related to the U.S. Regions Unit in their own classroom. Each member will use data collecting tools to measure the effectiveness of each online resource. After implementing the online learning tools, the 5th grade team members will meet to review the data they each collected.