Webquest project. Should I make it look good, or should I concentrate on the material inside?
Shouldn't a webquest have visual appeal? I mean, seriously, the ones that we had to research in class all looked like garbage. The information was good, but they all kind of looked like interactive worksheets. If I am going to make a webquest that will be implemented in class, I would at least want it to look appealing to the kids.
Also, sending a kid out searching for information could be disastrous. My biggest concern is not being able to prepare the kids enough (if I am going to use this) with the skills needed to perform a basic search. We all know one kid is going to end up on a site that has ads for Viagra or on-line dating. Calming down the class could take a lot of valuable time.
I don't feel like I have enough time to implement something of this caliber because I feel it supplements a lesson. Our scope and sequence is tight enough as it is. Lord knows what happened last year with all those snow days. I have to make sure if I am going to use this, that the Webquest is finished when that class day is.
Doesn't that suck?
I attended the meetings for scope and sequence and all that was decided was how urgent we can cram all of these topics into our kids heads. There are maybe 12 days set aside the whole year for assessment and the rest is teaching information that could be truly learned if there was more time.
Maybe if sixth grade math were taught in a way that the kid would remember it, we wouldn't have to use three quarters of seventh grade math re-teaching all of the same topics.
There's no time. Education looks like a factory. Here are the topics you can squeeze into one year. Here is a test at the end.
GO!
One of the things about CTE that I enjoy is that we have a little more freedom with time - our competencies are different than SOLs and there is no scope and sequence. Now, we've all been informed that there will be proficiency tests at the end for completers (students that take a certain number of courses within the CTE curriculum). We haven't been given any information about the new tests - leaves me wondering if we will now lose that precious freedom.
ReplyDeleteYou title sounds like the Black Sheep song. I hear you on the cramming. Algebra is the same way. We actually were handed even more information to teach this year, handed down from Algebra 2. There is no room to breathe.
ReplyDeleteI do however, think a webquest could be an interesting way to introduce the topic or have an assessment. You could really focus your links on non pop up crap and make sure that there really is not too much searching going on. If you want them to finish in a day, like I do, we both need to focus on making it simple, short, and sweet................"so that is where it's at".