Our goal in this course is to improve our ability to solve problems. As you solve problems, you will learn the technology that facilitates finding a solution.
Torp and Sage define PBL as follows: "Problem-based learning is focused, experiential learning (minds-on, hands-on) organized around the investigation and resolution of messy, real-world problems. It is both a curriculum organizer and instructional strategy, two complementary processes. PBL includes three main characteristics:
Engages students as stakeholders in a problem situation. Organizes curriculum around this holistic problem, enabling student learning in relevant and connected ways. Creates a learning environment in which teachers coach student thinking and guide student inquiry, facilitating deeper levels of understanding."
a. Economics Lesson | Read the lesson plans, then compose a lesson plan for your own class that has links and on-line components.
b. Parent Involvement | Read the ideas, then type a list of ideas for your parents that will help them support their children in the technology components of your class.
c. Internet Use by Teachers | Read the text and use the click boxes and the text box to express your experience with each question of the survey. (Print the result. Your answers will not e-mail)
d. Math teaching on the web | Read the text and links, then compose an on-line math exercise for your students.
e. Teachers Helping Teachers | Actually submit a lesson to this site. Send the professor a copy of what you submitted.
f. FREE, the website of the US Dept of Education: Prepare a list of at least 10 working links with explanations of what is on them of value to your staff.
Choose one of these and answer based on this scenario: You went on a home visit and discovered a busy family trying to raise money to support the children through home industries. It suddenly occurs to you that the people live here, not because they got a job here, but because here is where they want to live. For the past 100 years the school has been trying to train the people who live here to survive somewhere else. You realize that you could teach their children skills and knowledge and attitudes they could use to actually survive where they want to live. Find websites and describe any materials you can (the creation of PowerPoint or Video lessons included) to use technology to solve the real life problems that your students have by choosing one of the following, or some other scenario. Your answer will be in M.S. Word, and be a description or outline of your unit of instruction, but will include any links you have found.
a. Chá'ol. The family collects piñón whenever there is a crop. They depend on the harvest to replace their pickup truck every few years. The past few years their has been a terrible drought which has stopped the nuts from maturing, and exacerbated the bark beetle infestation, which kills piñón trees. Develop an information base that a student can use to find information that will help the family's piñón harvest business.
b. Na'a'hóóhai. The family has long tried to raise chickens as a food reserve and wonders if there is a potential that this could become a cash project by selling chicks, eggs, turkeys, etc. However, dogs kill most of their chickens, and diseases devastate the production. Develop an information base that a student can use to find information that will help the family's poultry business.
c. T'iis. The family lives in the forest surrounded by trees, and cuts trees to raise money. They have a pickup and a chain saw, and travel all over looking for the right trees to cut. When you visit you notice that their allotment land is mostly undeveloped. You wonder if they could actually use their own land to grow trees for commercial purposes, including fast growing Christmas Trees, seedlings to sell for reforestation, berry and cherry trees for fast producing food crops, etc. Develop an information base that a student can use to find information that will help the family's forestry products business.
d. Naadáá'. The family has a long tradition of growing blue corn for their livestock. You notice that their is plenty of undeveloped land, and wonder if they could increase family income by growing more corn. There is not enough land and water to grow feed corn or sweet corn commercial, so you think of the high priced colored corn for sale in grocery stores all over the land in October. You also think of the market for corn pollen, and wonder what other commercial value a small plot,. dry land corn farmer might get by creative thinking. Develop an information base that a student can use to find information that will help the family's corn business.
e. Béésh ligai. The family members are excellent jewelers. They do jobs for the trading posts, and receive artisan wages. The trading post then wholesales and retails their items for prices much higher. You wonder if the next generation of trading posts might not be run by the local people. However, retailing and marketing are quite different skills from production. You start thinking about the children and what they might learn in your class that might help their family regarding retailing and marketing. Develop an information base that a student can use to find information that will help the family's native craft business.
f. Other home industry ideas.