Lesson Plan for WebQuest

 

 

 

 

Name: Mrs. Christine Borgman

Type of Lesson: WebQuest

Lesson Plan Title: "On the Air" Weather Watchers

 Discipline and Topic: Technology, Science, Language Arts, Math
Target Population: Primary
 Grade Level: grade 2
 Population Characteristics: heterogeneous class of 22 children from an upper middle class socioeconomic status
 Lesson Groupings: individual and small groups of four students

 Curriculum Links: This WebQuest will begin in October once the students have had roughly one month to become acclimated to the new grade level and expectations.  The Quest is directly related to our district's curriculum on weather.  This particular lesson plan will be used to set the stage and offer an example for how the WebQuest should be completed.  I will not select students to complete the example Quests, but rather adults that are in the room (speech therapist, special education aide, reading teacher, and classroom teacher).  The lesson plan will be used for the first few times of going through the WebQuest, or until the children are comfortable enough with the processes and tasks that they can begin it in their own groups.  I will keep track of the particular group dynamics, being cognizant of ability levels and personalities.  Each student will have the opportunity to participate in all tasks of the Quest in varying groups by the end of the school year.  


Objectives:
Students will be able to…
1. collect high and low temperature data over the course of five days
2. graphically represent data on Morning Program chart and on temperature graph

3. red and blue crayons or colored pencils and ruler
4. create a type-written script of the week's weather

5. broadcast weather report "on-air" using Audacity

 

 Media Literacy Objectives:
1. use a mouse to successfully operate a computer
2. use a keyboard to successfully operate a computer

3. keyboard

4. use a wordprocessor

5. use computers to compose texts

6. use computers to compose graphical representation

7. use multimedia authoring tools

8. use a browser to navigate to the WWW

9. communicate about technology using accurate terminology
10. practice responsible use of technology systems & software

11. work cooperatively using technology

Timing and Materials: This WebQuest will run throughout the fall semester in second grade.  Each group of four students will be responsible for five days of weather reports (Sunday through Thursday).  I will need the following materials to complete the lesson described:
1.  computer with Internet access

2. weather graph template, available through WebQuest

3. data log sheet, available through WebQuest

4. weather script template, available through WebQuest

5. Audacity audio recording software

6. computer microphone


Scope and Sequence:
1. First, the teacher will explain to the students the exciting new activity that they will be participating in this fall.
2. For the first "mock" WebQuest, the teacher will have four volunteers ready to participate.

3. The teacher will show the students how she/he made a group of four and distinguished each of their names (data collector, mathematician, script writer, and radio announcer)
4. The teacher will then begin the WebQuest by introducing the task at hand - to ultimately report the week's weather "on-air" to the world.

5. The teacher will have the data collector come to the computer to complete the assigned task in the Quest.  Here, the person is to go to the weather.com link, click on "yesterday's weather," and record the previous day's high and low temperature data in the data sheet log in MS Word. 

6. The teacher, data collector (along with the entire class watching), will need to go through the above procedure step by step.

7. The teacher will then explain that the data collector's job is complete for day 1 as long as the data was recorded on the data sheet log in MS Word.

8. The teacher and mathematician will now go through the next task while the class is watching.

9. The mathematician's job is to graph the data that was recently recorded.  Together, the teacher and mathematician will access the collection of data.  Next, they will access the blank graph template.  Now, using red and blue colored pencils or crayons, the previous day's high and low temperatures will be graphed using a ruler.  The graph will be put to the side so it can be accessed the next day.

10. Next, the script writer and radio announcer will work with the teacher to demonstrate the next task.  Working together, the two people will need to go to Okte's weather station link to obtain the current temperature.  Once they have the current temperature, they will need to represent that temperature on the Morning weather chart by the elevator between rooms 5 and 6.  This will be a daily job Monday through Friday.  Once all the data has been completed, the student may draw a horizontal line connecting the data points across the page for both high and low temperatures.  This makes it more of a visual representation.

11.  At the end of the week, the script writer will need to access the script template and type up a summary of the week's weather forecast to be read by the radio announcer.

12. On Thursday, the radio announcer will need to rehearse and record an audio file of the week's weather using a program called Audacity.  The radio announcer will use the script to read from.

13.  At the end of the week, the teacher will put the audio .mp3 file onto the classroom website, labeled with the week's date so that people from around the world can hear the weather report from Okte's students.

14. On Fridays, the teacher will select a different group of four students to work cooperatively to complete the WebQuest all over again.

15.  Once all students have had the opportunity to rotate jobs at least once, the Quest will be transferred to the next second grade classroom to complete. 


Supplemental Materials:
The following materials will be used as supplements for this lesson plan.  Each book has a link to Amazon.

1. Weather Forecasting by Gail Gibbons

2. What Will the Weather Be? by Lynda DeWitt

3. How's the Weather?: A Look at Weather and How It Changes by Melvin Berger

 


Evaluation of Students:

 

Exceptional

4

 Proficient

3

 Not Yet Proficient

2

 Not Proficient

1
 

Data Collection

 

Data was accurately entered on data log for all days.

Data accurately entered for most days.

Data was not accurately entered for most days.

Data was either not accurate on all days or not entered.
 

Graphic Representation

 

 

Data was accurately graphed for all days.

Data was accurately graphed for most days.

Data was not accurately graphed for most days.

Date was either not accurately graphed or not graphed at all.
 

Daily Report of Current Temperature

 

 

Temperature data was retrieved and represented correctly for all days.

Temperature data was retrieved, but may not have been represented correctly for all days.

Temperature data was retrieved, but was not represented correctly for most days.

Temperature data was either not retrieved or not represented at all.
 

Script

 

Script was completed accurately and with no grammatical and/or mechanical errors.

Script was completed accurately with few grammatical and/or mechanical errors.

Script either was not completed accurately OR contained many errors.

Script was not completed.

 

Broadcast

Voice is audible with good intonations.

Voice is audible with some intonations.

Voice is somewhat hard to hear and/or understand.

Voice is difficult to hear and understand.


Evaluation of the Lesson:

    To determine the success of this lesson, I must take a good look at the final products and evaluation rubrics.  Because the WebQuest had so many different tasks, many of them being completed individually, but then used on another task, I must take into consideration both individual and cooperative effort made by the students.  If students were not able to access the documents/files/Internet sites, there may be a need to use Webwacker or other offline browsing software.  Students who are unable to access and utilize the logs and templates may need to have a second sample lesson presented to them. 

    I also need to think about how this lesson anchored itself to our district's curriculum standards regarding weather forecasting.  Perhaps speaking with curriculum coordinators for science may be something I need to do if the lesson was successful.  If it was not successful, I could still contact the coordinators in order to make the lesson better.  I might even want to hold presentations to other colleagues on how to administer this particular WebQuest.  Because I worked with our district's lead teacher for instructional technology, I know that the Quest goes far beyond meeting our needs for technology integration in just one lesson.  I will need to pay particular attention as to when the students will be ready to begin the WebQuest project.  I am under the impression that students will be ready in October, but if there are problems with the first few Quests, I may need to stop, do more instructing, and introduce it later in the year.  If this becomes true, I will need to edit the thermometer graphs to represent lower temperatures to accommodate for the winter season.

    Lastly, I think the lesson lends itself into evaluation of how teachers are able to integrate technology into the curriculum.  Although this had nothing to do with the students per se, it has much to do with how teachers are meeting the computer technology needs of our nation's children.  If this lesson was as successful as I am anticipating, maybe it will be just the motivation some teachers need to get on the "tech. train."  All aboard!  

         

 

 

Click the picture below to go back to the WebQuest: