EDC 665 - Week 8 Blog

In your ARP, are your learners engaged in their learning? Why or why not?

My students are engaged in their learning through my Action Research Project. As a matter of fact, it is entirely designed around their learning and make their experiences connect to information they have learned in class.

My students are given "scavenger hunts" with their partners for my cycle #2 and are sent to explore areas of the Internet. Most of the questions are to be found out by researching and many are open-ended. The great thing about them researching is that it relates entirely to what they are learning, or have learned in class.

I've also noticed that many of my students haven't been given the tools to be good researchers before. They've never figured out how to find interesting information online that is not drab like a textbook. I am hoping that given their inherent curiosity for learning, that they may not be turned off by textbooks and discoveries when they can find very cool things just by researching. I also want them to see that it can be done by them... even at 9-11 years of age.

I've recently sent them on discoveries (my hands off, I walk around to make sure content is appropriate on screens and answer questions both partners cannot figure out together) to solve math problems using Google, decrease search results by doing advanced searches on volcanoes, narrowing down their resources by searching Google images to find out information, cracking the code on true and fake websites, and the list continues. They've even been using del.icio.us and have recently begun using our class blog to blog about their learning, comment, and show others great things they have discovered.

My hope in the future is to get them involved in webquests and become experlike novices of researching on the web!

So far... it's all hands on. I love it!