On the Trails

1. River City:
1. interactive computer simulation of a river town, based in the late 1800s
2. 17 hour, time-on-task curriculum
3. Develops inquiry skills
4. Promotes cooperative learning
5. Empowers students to solve a problem
6. Blend of technology, teamwork and scientific investigation
7. Work together to find a fascinating solution to a mystery
8. 2/3 of the time, students work with a computer – one-to-one student-to-computer ratio
9. 1/3 of the time, students work in small groups or as a whole class
10. Designed for 6 – 8th grade
11. Combines digitized Smithsonian artifacts with an inquiry-centered curriculum
12. Supports scientific inquiry and scientific method
13. Includes a pretest and a research conference at the end of the unit
14. Multi-User-Environment – MUVE
1. Video game – Chat Room – Online Notepad
2. Purpose of Research:
1. Sponsored by the National Science Foundation Research Project
2. Do students learn through this interface?
3. Does learning in River City transfer?
4. Key Findings thus far:
1. Motivating, including lower achievement
2. positive effect on academic self-efficacy
3. Student’s role:
1. Form and then test a hypothesis regarding the health and environmental issues they have discovered;
2. Design a procedure with a control and an experimental group, using both current and historically accurate tools, to investigate their hypothesis;
3. Use appropriate tools to make quantitative and qualitative observations;
4. Gather data and then organize it in tables and graphs;
5. Draw conclusions from that evidence, and make inferences based on observed patterns in the data;
6. Report on their experiment and conclusions by writing a research report in the form of a letter to the ‘mayor’ of River City describing their investigations;
7. Share and synthesize their results with those of their classmates to understand the larger picture; and
8. Analyze their process and results.
4. Teacher’s Role:
1. 21st century experts
2. do not travel back in time with students
3. guide students through the scientific inquiry experience
4. encourage students to problem-solve rather than provide answers
5. know the terrain better than anyone (the students, parents, researchers);
6. decide when to speed up and slow down; and
7. emphasize and highlight what they think is most important.
8. read logs and chats – id inappropriate behavior
5. Assessments:
1. Student Measures of success (engagement)
1. Learn the principles and concepts of science;
2. Acquire the reasoning and procedural skills of scientists;
3. Devise and carry out investigations that test their ideas; and
4. Understand why such investigations are uniquely powerful.
2. Summative Assessments
3. Controlled Experiments
1. Simultaneous Experimentation
4. Formative Embedded Assessments help students work towards their controlled experiments
1. Explanation – looking for accuracy
2. Interpretation – looking for meaningfulness
3. Application – looking for effectiveness
4. Perspective – looking for critical awareness and credibility
5. Empathy – looking for sensitivity, be understanding of
6. Self-Knowledge – looking for self-awareness; what he or she knows they know and don’t know
6. Staff Development:
1. Training days in Sept – Oct – Use Model Schools Days (two full days)
2. no cost to the district
7. Forms to fill out:
1. Teacher consent form
2. Student/parent consent form – name taken away from kids – kid’s names are associated with a number
3. Make parents aware that it is a research project
8. Helpful tips:
1. there is a cache CD that loads all the environments in cache [temp internet files] (especially with wireless, so that the Internet is not being accessed all the time – Williamsville had to do this)
2. Important to test with many students
3. Maybe we could use this as an after school enrichment activity
4. Transit Middle School is using this already program – enrichment

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