|
August 1, 2000
The ThinkQuest Challenge:
A Constructivist Learning Environment through an After-School Computer Club
By Diane D. Painter
With input from Amy Fieldman, Denise Belmont, Denise Chase, and Angie McGlinchey
A few years ago I heard Carol Bolduc, a teacher of talented and gifted students, talk to our faculty about the need to engage all students in creative problem-solving and researching activities that tap into oral and visual communication skills. Students who listen, observe, perceive, interview, survey, research information, organize, and analyze data learn to use higher-order thinking skills and develop expanded expectations in terms of their own learning (Bolduc, June 1999).
Bolduc was describing what cognitive psychologists refer to as an active and highly individualized process called constructivist learning. The constructivist model of learning is based on the concept that learners actively construct new knowledge based on their own individual experiences and understandings. The teacher becomes the guide and facilitator of learning rather than the director of instruction, and the student becomes the producer rather than the consumer of information. Goals are set and benchmarks are established. The learner is assessed through authentic measures such as evaluating a product or examining a collection of work samples that are assembled in a portfolio (Forcier, 1999, p. 31).
As I listened to Bolduc address, I realized that the framework of our after-school computer club-the Web Weavers Club-is based on constructivist learning. Club members are upper elementary grade students that voluntarily stay after-school once a week to form teams of four to six students. The purpose of the Web Weavers Club is to enable students to work together to research a common topic of interest and to learn computer skills such as using the Internet to locate information and Web page authoring tools to develop a Web page on the agreed topic. Teachers volunteer to run the club after-school and serve as coaches, teaching skills as needed, but acting more the role of facilitator. The students choose a theme, make a flow-chart to plan what the Web page will contain, conduct the research according to their own interests, and decide how to design the Web page. They choose their group leader and collaborate on the different components of constructing the Web page. Throughout the process of making the Web page, students confer with one another, evaluate one another's work, offer suggestions, and help each other troubleshoot any problems. The students feel a great sense of accomplishment when the end product is posted on the Internet. Assessment of the final Web page is informal, occurring when the club members share their Web pages with one another and obtain comments and feedback from fellow classmates and family members.
THE PURPOSE OF THE RESEARCH
I became intrigued with the idea of looking at the process of learning that occurs during Web Weavers Club. This after-school activity period is less structured and more student-directed than regular day classes, which must follow state and county standards of curriculum goals and objectives. I decided to conduct a teacher research project to investigate what happens when students have the opportunity to set their own goals and objectives, and work together to research a topic of their own choosing to create a Web page. I wanted to look closely at the student interactions and the literacy and cooperative learning skills the students exhibit. I also wanted to reflect upon the club experience within the realm of the constructivist philosophy of teaching.
THINKQUEST
In order to add an authentic sense of purpose for completing a Web page, our Web Weavers Club members worked toward developing their Web pages for the ThinkQuest, Jr. competition, a contest for students in grades four through six. ThinkQuest is an educational initiative backed by major corporations and educational foundations committed to advancing learning through the use of computer and networking technology. In an effort to reach as many students as possible, ThinkQuest expanded its program internationally after its initial success in the United States and has developed 49 partnerships with organizations worldwide to encourage participation. Since 1996, almost 50,000 students and educators from 100 countries have participated in ThinkQuest, bringing together young people from widely divergent cultures and languages, levels of technology, and socioeconomic backgrounds. The basic belief underlying the ThinkQuest programs is that the Internet and related technologies are powerful new learning tools that young people everywhere can use. ThinkQuest awards top winning team members with scholarships based on multiple categories and levels of achievement The levels of achievement include scholarships awarded in five categories: Arts and Literature; Science and Mathematics; Social Sciences; Sports and Health; and Interdisciplinary (combining two or more categories).
METHODOLOGY
Our 1999-2000 Web Weavers Club of twenty students and four coaches met on Tuesday afternoons from 3:45 to 5:00 PM for fifteen weeks. Coach Angie McGlinchey is a fifth grade teacher with one year's experience sponsoring a Web page development team. Her team, consisting of six students from her class, met in her classroom to use the four room computers. They produced a Web page called "Folklore Goes Global", which addressed folklore legends in several different categories from superstitions, clapping games, tongue twisters, jokes and riddles to home remedies, urban legends, crafts, and scary stories.
Three other teams met in the computer lab to use the seventeen lab computers. The teams consisted of sixth grade students from four different classrooms. Coach Amy Fieldman, a preschool teacher, wanted to learn with the kids how to develop a Web page. Her team of one girl and four boys developed, "The Great Beyond" - an information Web page about space exploration for the Science and Mathematics category. Coach Denise Belmont, another preschool teacher, had some Web page authoring experience; she had developed our school's preschool Web page. Her team of one girl and three boys produced "The Games Page", which focused on activities students can do such as learning gymnastics or playing the computer game Starcraft. I coached a team of three girls and two boys who developed an historical fiction Web page entitled, "Sydney the Cat Explores Ancient Egypt". Before beginning the club, I trained all the coaches to use Claris Homepage 3.0 as the Web page authoring program, and to use Claris Paint and GifBuilder to create animated graphic files called gifs. One of my former students, now a high school senior, also came to the training sessions and volunteered his time to help club members, especially the coaches, troubleshoot problems.
Methodological triangulation was the method of data collection data used. The method involves consolidation of data from multiple data collection sources such as participant observation, interviewing, and document analysis. The data included researcher journal entries based on observations, students' and coaches' interviews, transcribed video and audio tapes of student interactions, and surveys completed by the student participants. I talked with a number of parents as well to obtain their perspectives about what their children were sharing with them about the club experience. A principal from a nearby elementary school, doing a doctoral dissertation study on girls who develop Web pages, also observed several club sessions and shared her observations.
FINDINGS
In order to form the groups we asked each student to complete an interest form. This form told us what ThinkQuest, Jr. category interested the students the most and their Web page development experiences.
Based on the survey information students were divided into four teams, mostly based on their categories of interest. First, each team had to choose a group leader whose purpose was to facilitate brainstorming ideas in order for the groups to agree upon a main research topic. Under coach direction, flow charts were created to plan the Web page components. Team members indicated what components they would be responsible for in order to complete their team's Web page.
OBSERVATIONS
Planning and Researching
I developed a structured note-taking sheet for any interested Web Weaver to use when researching information. This note-taking sheet also contained an area for noting references. Many of the students elected to type their information at home and save the text on disk in rich text format to incorporate into the Web page. Typing information at home gave most members more time during club hours to design the Web pages. Members of my Ancient Egyptian team divided the research tasks into several categories: architecture, games, social pyramid, gods, mummies, hieroglyphics, and schooling. They did most of their research at home using the Internet, a social studies textbook, and trade books. Laura, the team leader, was responsible for incorporating all their information into the fictional story she was writing for the Web page. As Laura wrote the story she often had questions about content. Laura is pictured above conferring with Wes who is using a reference to double check and add details for the story.
Drafting, Revising, and Editing
Laura used an AlphaSmart keyboard at home. At the beginning of club she downloaded the text from the AlphaSmart to the Web page and revised the story with input from other team members, often obtaining their opinions and ideas.
Editing
The space team spent more in-club time researching information than my team. Space team members primarily used the Internet and trade books from the library to gather information. Except for the development of their quiz, members of the space or games teams did not confer with one another as much about the content of their individual pages as did members of my Ancient Egyptian team. However, they were willing to read and comment on the way pages looked or how text was worded. The nature of the Ancient Egyptian Web page required that each page flow into the next to create the historical fiction story. This may have been why the Ancient Egyptian team members collaborated more on the content of each page than did the other team members.
 Space team members individually researched and wrote about various topics, including the foods astronauts eat in space, the history of rockets, the effects of gravity, how to calculate weight in space, and how to become an astronaut. All these topics then were incorporated into the overall Web page theme of life in space as an astronaut. Once the individual pages were written, the space team members invited one another to review the pages, and members of other teams also read the pages with interest. Coaches offered most of the revision and editing ideas, although students did share related Internet Web sites where they could gather additional content for their Web site.
Developing Technical Skills
The games team spent even less time researching information during club time than the other teams because they primarily wrote their information based on their own personal experiences. Tiffany wrote about gymnastics and one boy, Matt H., wrote about the computer game Starcraft with input from the other two boys on his team. At home Matt H. created a Powerpoint slideshow to address the weaknesses,> strategies, opinions, and strengths of Starcraft's main characters, and during club time he learned how to convert the slideshow into an HTML document to use in the Web page. Of the three teams, this team collaborated the least, and according to their coach and my observations, half the team's members demonstrated difficulty following through on their responsibilities as noted on the team's flow chart plan. Much of their efforts were spent "exploring" technical features such as learning how to scan pictures, save and import gif images and audio files, and take digital pictures.
Coaching
Coaching primarily involved teaching the students how to use the Web authoring and gif building software. Editing with individual team members also became important as the deadline for posting the Web pages to the ThinkQuest server drew near. Problem-solving was one of the main issues coaches faced with the students. Coaches' main areas of focus were to fix broken links to pages, to find the correct Internet addresses to reference pages, to learn how to make audio files work within the Web page, and to learn the correct format for citing references.
Troubleshooting
To create a multiple-choice quiz for their Web page, the space group decided to use Hot Potatoes, a freeware program developed by The University of Victoria's Language Centre. The software includes six applications, enabling the user to create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering, and gap-fill exercises.
First, the students had to learn how to create a quiz and save the quiz as an HTML document. Then they had to plan the questions and the possible choice responses for each question. Matt C. took on this responsibility instead of researching and writing about a particular subject matter related to space. The other boys in the group often joined Matt C. to try to troubleshoot glitches. Ravi, in particular, spent a whole club period working with Matt C. to fine-tune the quiz and to figure out how to link the quiz to the main page. According to the space group's coach Sean worried about meeting the posting deadline and Steven emerged as a group leader in the sense that he became bossy at times in order to get the other team members to finish what they had started.
Trying to make the audio sound files work on the games Web page required adult technical help. At one point, the coach consulted one of the members of our school's PTA who creates Web pages for a living. He taught the coach how to download the correct plug-ins, and she in turn taught the group what she had learned.
Fine-tuning
The Ancient Egyptian team worked very closely to make sure the content was correct on the Web pages as well as creating the quiz for their Web page. I was most impressed with their resolve to figure out why links were broken and how to design the quiz so that correct answers would take the user to the next question and incorrect answers would take the user back to the question to try again. Team members even came into school early and stayed a few days after school to work on the linking issues, showing a determined attitude to "get it right."
STUDENTS' PERSPECTIVES
In order to determine from the students' perspectives what they gained from being involved in club, we gave the students a written survey and individually interviewed them to further discuss their responses. Students were first asked to describe the most interesting thing they did or learned related to the development of their team's Web page. Most of the responses involved learning technical skills: making image maps (invisible links on an image that takes the user to another page), scanning student drawn pictures to create gifs, learning how to create animated gifs, searching the Web to find audio sound bites to add to the Web page, creating the quiz page (using Hot Potatoes), and researching information on the Web for the text.
Second, students were asked to describe the hardest thing they had to do or learn. Many of the responses overlapped with the first, meaning that they found what they were learning to do both interesting and hard: making the image maps so they wouldn't overlap one another, finding graphics for the Web pages from the Internet or from shareware programs, and finding related Web pages that would give more information for the development of the text.
The third question asked students to describe their team roles. The most common responses were: to research information for the topic, to type the information, to create images or animated gifs for the Web page, to create tables or title gifs, to surf the Internet to find related Web sites that would give additional information, to create or participate in the creation of a quiz page, to troubleshoot such as fixing broken links or finding out why audio sounds were not working.
I found it interesting that none of the students mentioned working together as a group as interesting or hard. During the oral interviews I asked the students what they thought about working together to create a group Web page. I particularly wanted to know how the girls felt in the games and space groups because they were the only girls in each group. Each student responded that they felt they all worked well and were enjoying working together. None of the girls voiced concerns to me about being the only girls in a group. All the student members therefore saw the social interaction as a positive experience.
PARENTS' PERSPECTIVES
Surveys and interviews brought out the parents' perspectives about the benefits of the computer club for their children. Matt H.'s mother said, "The most positive thing about Web Weavers is his being involved in an activity that gave him the opportunity to integrate skills with his interests." Matt H. used his artistic skills to design the Web page at the same time he was developing writing skills to write about a subject that he personally enjoys (i.e., playing the Starcraft game). She also said that although he often struggles to stay on task to complete assignments during the regular school day, he was always prepared for Web Weavers and could go at his own pace. He could "choose his own topic and own direction," and she saw the club experience as very positive for his self-esteem.
Philip's mother was also happy that he was able to incorporate his interest in astronauts with learning to create a Web page. She said he always looked forward to staying after-school for the club, and she, too, saw the club as a social benefit.
Karen's mother especially liked that Karen was learning to work on a team, although Karen did express to her that she wished another girl had been in her group.
Wes's mother talked about her son's keen interest in the topic of Ancient Egypt and how often she saw him researching information at home for the Web page. She especially liked the fact that Wes was developing better researching skills.
COACHES' PERSPECTIVES
The Ancient Egyptian team seemed to be highly organized and self-motivated right from the beginning of the program. Laura was a strong leader, checking with team members during the school week to ask them how they were coming with their research. I think she sensed that if she did not get information from them she would not be able to do her job of writing the story during the club time. Wes became the technical person for this team, creating the quiz and linking pages together. Brittany and Michelle worked primarily on creating gifs. Because of their drive and independence I truly served as a facilitator, helping only when technical difficulties arose or a skill had to be taught.
The two coaches for the space and games teams felt their group members were not very organized and motivated at the beginning of the program. This may have been because of the lack of a strong student group leader on each team at the beginning of the program and team members wanting to "explore" and "tinker" with the computer programs and peripheral devices rather than to research and to write about their topics. Although learning to scan pictures, to take digital images of team members, and to surf the Internet for audio files were all valuable skills to learn, finding information and typing text for their Web pages appeared to be the least favorite activity; coaches really had to prod the students to get this done.
However, as the time for posting Web pages to the ThinkQuest server drew near, all team members appeared to become much more focused and began to work together. Creating the quiz for each Web page was the one activity that brought the team members together to collaborate and review the Web pages.
IMPLICATIONS FOR THE FUTURE
The Urban Folklore team members came from the same classroom with their classroom teacher as their coach. A distinct advantage was that these members already knew one another; as a result they were able to choose a group leader and organize and plan their Web page easily and get right to work.
Students that came together from different classes with coaches who were not their regular classroom teachers had the advantage of learning from having to develop relationships with others they did not know well. In the end, all teams demonstrated supportive and collaborative behaviors, although some teams took more time to develop these traits than others.
The coaches were trained to use Web authoring tools before the club sessions began, but it would have been more helpful if the coaches had been more familiar with troubleshooting skills. I was often pulled away from my group to help others. One way to do this would be for each coach to have developed a Web page of their own before they take on such a task with the students. Thus, coaches would learn firsthand how to fix glitches before teaching students how to create a Web page.
CONCLUSION
Brain research tells us that each learner's brain is unique and educators must provide many opportunities for varied learners to make sense of ideas and information. Individuals learn best when they are in a context that provides a moderate challenge (Tomlinson, 1999, p.19). Activities such as those found in our after-school computer club provide that challenge, allowing students the opportunity to develop their own knowledge rather than relying on the teacher or textbook to give them information. In the Web Weavers Club, students developed their own knowledge when they were able to: choose their own topic and subtopics for their Web pages (i.e., figure out how best to present factual information about Egypt in an historical fiction story or combine interests in computer games with gymnastics into one central theme for the Web page); decide what resources to use to locate information (i.e., personal interviews, Internet, magazine, trade books, and electronic CDs); help one another to learn technical skills or troubleshoot problems (i.e., figure out how to convert a Powerpoint presentation into an HTML document or create a quiz using Hot Potatoes); and proof text and offer revising and editing suggestions.
The computer club is also a social activity that forms a knowledge-building community, one that provides a medium for storing, organizing, and reformulating the ideas that are contributed by each community member. The Web pages the students produced represent the synthesis of their collaborative efforts. Even though none of the four Deer Park teams became finalists in the ThinkQuest, Jr. 2000 competition, the experience of working together provided them the opportunity to create products of which they can be proud.
REFERENCES
Forcier, Richard C. (1999). The computer as an educational tool. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill, Prentice-Hall.
Jonassen, D., Peck, K., and Wilson, B. (1999). Learning with technology: A constructivist perspective. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill, Prentice-Hall.
Papa, Andrea. (1999). ThinkQuest Background Information.
Tomlinson, C. (1999). The differential classroom responding to the needs of all learners. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Email: Diane Painter
|
