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| Building
a Collaborative Web Project |
| Define |
| Design |
| Deliver |
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3. Identify Learning Objectives
| You can't be creative by just trying to
be creative. You need a deep understanding of the problems you are trying to solve. These
machines can be complex, or they can be as simple as a single question. Steve McCallion, |
What exactly do we want our students to learn?
If we're required to teach a national curriculum or state or provincial framework, then we have to help our students develop specific competencies. But we also realize our responsibilities go far beyond teaching specific knowledge and skills. We're also preparing our students for interaction with others, for work, and for life.
The problem is that "Life Skills" aren't part of graduation requirements. Parents don't often ask about their children's "collaborative skills". We want our students to be creative, but our assessment tools and expectations still require that they take tests or choose the best answer among A, B, or C.
The key is to find a balance, to find a way to meet the needs of the National Curriculum and still help prepare our students to be curious, to adapt, to question.
Letting Educational Standards work for you
The first step is to align your Web project goals and objectives with required instructional objectives and curriculum standards. If your projects do not help meet these standards, they will soon be perceived as extra work added to an already overcrowded schedule.
The next step is to have your students define for themselves what is expected of them. If we look at the preceding quote from Steve McCallion, we see that creativity requires a "deep understanding" of the problem that needs to be solved. Before students can move forward on a project, they should clearly understand what they're expected to learn.
The exciting part is that there is no one "right" way to achieve success. Although the problem may be clearly defined, how your students resolve it is only limited by their time, effort and imagination.
Suggestion:
If your country does not have their national curriculum on the Web, putting together an
online archive that serves as a repository for information about educational standards and
curriculum frameworks from all sources (national, state/provincial, local, and other) may
be a great collaborative project for teachers. As an example, the Putnam Valley Central
Schools 
has assembled an impressive annotated list of Internet sites with
K-12 educational standards and curriculum frameworks documents.
Once you understand your role and you've clearly defined your learning objectives it's time to begin defining your Web project.
Page 1: Getting started
Page 2: Define your role
Page 3: Identify learning objectives
Next section: Define your Web project
