REFLECTION SHEET
JODY MULDOON
CYBERLESSON-……IF I LIVED AT THE TIME OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
1.How did you implement your cyberlesson?
I first had students read a section of the book about Loyalists and Patriots. Then we had a short classroom discussion about who was who and what each side believed in.
Fortunately, our town has a good tech support system and I notified them about a week ahead of time to have one of them installed my cyberlesson on the computers in a lab at school. They installed them so that any 7th grader in the school could access the program. I had it set up that I would take all 120 of my students to the computer lab in the course of a day. I initially booked the lab for 3 days. I had to add extra days because it took longer than I thought (even with parts for homework) and the first day it didn’t work and the next day we had an unexpected shortened day schedule due to a concert.
In Social Studies we teach all the students so my students range from SPED students to top students. I also have 2 students who have their own paraprofessionals either for emotional or academic reasons. I am in my first year teaching 7th grade so one thing that was tricky was trying to find something that would fit into the curriculum (American History-review colonies, pre-revolution, Revolution, Constitution and Civil War) and make sure it fit into the time period we are studying. I was kind of unsure of the timing of the subject matter I chose.
2. How did your students respond to the project?
My students were excited to be able to go into the computer lab to try out this lesson. They really liked when the words came at them in different ways and at different speeds. The first day they were very confused because I had done a power point presentation and my school has Macs. Things were mixed up and nothing went as planned. My students were intimidated by the many answers they had to give but once they got started they worked to get their answers done. They were also very excited about the classroom presentation they will have to make. (beyond reading) Overall, I think most of the students were excited to work on the lesson.
Students liked the idea of putting their answers right on the computer. They didn’t realize at first how much reading and writing they would have to do-they just wanted to play!
3. strengths?
I think one of the best things about the project was that it was something different. I also think that it allowed students to move along at their own pace. Some students zipped along while others took their time or wasted it. It was great to have some of the earlier finishers have the next activity to do. It also lent itself to having students do some things for homework if they lagged behind.
They really liked the activity where they were linked directly to the web sites-they thought it was “cool”. For me, having to grade 120 of each part, I liked having the answers done on the computer because they are definitely easier to read.
4. weaknesses?
The hard thing at first was the differences in computers with mine being PowerPoint and the school having keynote. With help from the tech department we were able to proceed but sometimes it was questionable. Also, several of the computers froze up on the students and in some classes my students had to share a computer because there were not enough.
Initially I had the “prereading” and “during reading” questions on the same page because I made them into 2 columns so the students could compare their predictions to what actually did happen. Unfortunately, because they were the same questions some students kept getting mixed up so I had them move the “during reading” questions to another page. It also made it easier when printing out their answers.
I also think I might have given them too much to do. Some students handled it fine but some students complained about how much they had to answer. There were 10 answers in the prediction part and 20 answers in the “during reading” part. I was going to read part of the book to them and let them write their answers but because students finished at various times I ended up giving them a print copy.
5/6. How would you modify the way in which you implemented the project to make it more successful? Recommendations?
The next time I do this lesson I would do it a week later in the curriculum. I would also like to have the tech support people available in case the computers go down or there are technical problems. I also think I would give them a smaller piece of information to concentrate on. The students have a bad habit of looking at an assignment without reading it and deciding it’s too hard without actually ever reading it. I also think I would make it a little more interactive utilizing the internet more than I did. Unfortunately, students want to have visual stimulation all the time. I would also have the computer lab booked for a week instead of 3 days.
