Smart Board Challenge

Smart Board Challenge

Essential Question:
An Essential Question which the students will be able to answer when they’ve completed the challenge and that relates the content of the challenge to their world.
How can we allow Technology to work for us and make our lives easier?

Problem:
Problem for the students to solve:
The classroom is getting a Smart Board, but no one knows all the ways to use it.

Grouping Mechanism:
The problem is read in the large group. Then the class is divided into small groups of six or seven students.

Accounting for varied ability levels:
During the initial stage of creating groups the teacher, being aware of the range of abilities, distributes those through the small groups. The characteristics of a successful group would be:
1. A student with some reading or writing ability;
2. A creative student and a student who can articulate well in each group.
3. A nurturing student and one who is willing to ask questions.

A balance such as this may provide an equal distribution of the student resources plus it also gives other students a chance to see their peers modeling different traits.

Strategy for Positive Interdependence:
On a large piece of chart paper, each team:
• Identifies the Facts.
• Determines the things they Need to Know. This list of learning issues will contain questions that are content and process related. Regarding content, the students need to know more about what a Smart Board is, how it is used in various environments (learning and business) and evidence of any improvement this technology makes in our lives. The process issues relate more to special features of this tool and directions on how to operate the Smart Board.

Articulating a process for the students to take with varying margins of freedom:
The teacher can then decide how this information will be provided for students.
Examples of how to do this could include:
• Have a teacher (in-house or from a local college) who uses the Smart Board in their classroom come to class to answer questions.
• Have a community member who uses the Smart Board in their business come to class to also answer student-generated questions.

Time Margins:
This problem should be completed in one week. At some point during this time parameter, students will need to re-visit their original lists to see if the Facts have changed or if new Need to Know items have risen.

Product Quality Standards:
Each team will invite a classroom within the building to demonstrate the use and application of the Smart Board. It is recommended that the presentation address the ability level of the grade invited.
Presentation should be done with professionalism. Demonstration should be concise and easy to understand. Demonstration should include clear written instructions.

Process Quality Standards:
Every student in each group should not only have a job as a contributing member of the group, but also each student in each group should be able to articulate his or her contribution(s) if asked by the teacher.