Teacher+Page

Teacher page


 * Joint statement**

Our web quest has been created for year four students and contains four lessons within the learning area of English. We chose create a pirate theme for our web quest as it is engaging for students, promotes imagination and creativity and introduces the students to a lot of new vocabulary. Our web quest comprises of four lessons which will each run for 45 - 50 minutes. Our lessons have been designed to build on the students’ prior learning and achieve lesson objectives from the three strands within the English curriculum: language, literature and literacy. We aimed to create a web quest that was visually appealing and well designed and provided tasks that are engaging and promote a higher level of cognitive thinking within the students. After completing this web quest students will have used a variety of ICT to create their own pirate themed comic strip, blog post and photo montage in order to enhance their general capabilities in literacy, ICT capability and critical and creative thinking.


 * Mindmap**

item what is to be completed who by due date in a table
 * Project Plan**
 * Item || What is to completed? || Who by? || Due date ||
 * 1 || Joint statement || Chelsea || 15/3 ||
 * 2 || Mind map || Chelsea & Brendan || 15/3 ||
 * 3 || Project plan || Chelsea & Brendan || 15/3 ||
 * 4 || FPD || Chelsea & Brendan || 15/3 ||
 * 5 || Use of ICT || Chelsea || 15/3 ||
 * 6 || Learning theory || Brendan || 15/3 ||
 * 7 || Lesson Plan || Chelsea & Brendan || 26/3 ||
 * 8 || In class presentation || Chelsea & Brendan || 26/3 ||
 * 9 || Quality || Chelsea & Brendan || 12/4 ||


 * Forward planning document**




 * ICT integrated**

1. **Kids blog**: Kidsblog is an online site designed by teachers which enables teachers to create an environment for their students to share their ideas in a way teachers are able to monitor. It's free and easy to use and very safe. Students will use the kidblog to contruct, edit and publish their own blog entries about a week in the life of a pirate. Students will select and edit both visual and print elements to include in their blog to make it both informative and engaging. After completeing their own blog entries students will be able to explore and comment on each others blogs. The teacher also has easy access to all students work to effectively assess the lesson objectives.

2. **Comic life:** Comic life is an online programme that allows children to insert their own images and text onto a template of their choice in order to create their own comic strip. It is simple to use and allows students to use their imagination and creativity. Students will use comic life within the lesson to create a comic strip about pirates, including images, captions and speech bubbles. By using the comic strip students will learn about the importance of image placement and salience.

3. **Photo Story:** Photo story is a programme created by microsoft that allows you to drag images into a window and customize your own narrations, transitions, zooms and soundtracks. It is simple to use and has a variety of different effects to make each students photo story unique. Students' will use photostroy within a lesson to create their own montage of photos they have collected throughout their research, and during an excursion to the maritime museum, to show how life on the seas has changed and evolved over time.


 * Evidence Based learning theory**

We have underpinned our series of English by incorporating the theories of the multiple intelligences and constructivism. We believe that by underpinning them by these theories we could create a classroom environment that is effective and most beneficial towards learning.

Essentially, constructivism is a learning theory that involves the student constructing their own knowledge and meaning from information they are exposed to (Yilmaz, 2008). Yilmaz (2008) states that constructivism is a learner-centred rather than teacher-centred.

The use of different mediums of ICT to teach the curriculum (for example, iPads, iPhones and computer software) has allowed us to create interactive lessons that adhere to a very constructivist approach towards teaching. Using this ICT gives the students the opportunity to extend their efforts and take the activities as far as they like (open-ended activities), and also ensures the learning experience is learner-centred rather than teacher-centred.

Howard Gardner proposed that there is a range of different ways in which people understand information and the world most effectively, these being visual-spatial, linguistic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, bodily-kinaesthetic, musical and logical mathematical (Helding, 2009). The theory presents the idea that for learning to me most effective in the classroom, teachers should personalise their teaching program in order to cater for the learning differences of their students (Gouws, 2007).

In order to incorporate Gardner’s theory of the multiple intelligences into our lesson series, we designed a range of tasks that would ensure learners who had varied learning types would still take value and meaning from our lessons. The learning types that can be seen through our lessons are interpersonal (lesson 1 and 3), intrapersonal (lesson 2, 3 and 4), bodily-kinaesthetic (lesson 4), verbal-linguistic (lesson 1, 2 and 3 & 4), musical (lesson 4) and visual spatial (lesson 1, 2, 3 & 4).

Helding, Lynn. 2009. Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences//. Journal of Singing// 66 (2): 193-199. Kaya Yilmaz. 2008. Constructivism: Its Theoretical Underpinnings, Variations, and Implications for Classroom Instruction. //Educational Horizons// 86 (3): 163-172. F.E. Gouwes. 2007. Teaching and learning through multiple intelligences in the outcomes-based education classroom. Education Review 4(2): 60-74.