Setting+&+Context

The Setting and Context
Our middle school is located in a suburban area of Maryland, just outside Washington, DC. The school’s population is composed of a diversity of races and ethnicities (≤5% American Indian/Alaskan Native, 15.5% Asian, 18.9% African American, 29.8 Hispanic, ≤5% Pacific Islander, 31.1% Caucasian, ≤5% Multiple Race). The mobility rate for the school is relatively high at 11.6%. The diversity of the student population makes it necessary to consider the effect of culture and environment on outcomes and instructional staff expects to have corresponding diversity reflected in the students' responses and assignments.

The school is evenly divided among three grade levels, with approximately 178 students in each grade and there are 25 to 30 students in each class. Approximately 38.2% of the population receives free and reduced meals (FARMS). This unit covers healthy dietary choices, which may have particular significance for these students.

Approximately 12% (or 64) of the students receive special education services and the majority (65.6%) of these special education students, spend 80 percent or more time in general education classes. As a result, it is likely that there will be students in each class requiring additional support to complete the project and meet the learning objectives; Special Education teachers will be involved as appropriate and will be included in any required training on the selected resources.

Given the wide range of abilities expected, the electronic resources selected are user-friendly and straightforward to use, which will enable students with minimal digital access to complete the project fully using school equipment, while also enabling those students seeking to produce more complex projects to do so. The students are familiar with using edmodo for submission of assignments and on-line discussion.

The media center is staffed with a full-time media specialist and a part-time media assistant. Access to subscription databases, computers, laptops, Flip cameras, digital cameras, printers, document cameras and Promethean boards. Internet access is available at the school and the Internet resources proposed have been pre-cleared through collaboration with the IT department. There are 30 computers in the computer lab and there are two laptop carts, each with 16 laptops, for use in the library and around the school.

This curriculum will be taught collaboratively among the Health teachers, the librarian and the Technology teacher in pursuit of the objectives identified in the Topics and Standards section. The lessons will take place primarily in the media center during the allotted health and physical education block; coordination with the Technology teacher will enable students to work on the assignments associated with this unit for portions of their technology classes for the duration of this unit, to ensure that students are able to complete the tasks.

The School Improvement Plan includes a year-long objective: “Staff will receive selected, differentiated training on technology integration through team meeting time and will utilize this training to increase student engagement in class as part of the school-wide professional development program.” The abilities of instructional staff vary widely as well, but in pursuit of this objective, and the selection of the electronic resources being user-friendly and simple to use, in collaboration with the librarian and technology teacher, any challenges that instructional staff might encounter will be addressed through training and team meetings, prior to commencing the unit.

The anticipated result of this objective is that “Staff will implement technology into their lesson plans more regularly to develop lessons resulting in higher levels of student engagement and participation.” This objective will provide time for the needed training (if any) of staff on using the electronic resources that are proposed for this unit. The primary challenge to working with other teachers will be scheduling adequate preparation time, however, all participants in this project are specialists (i.e., the Health and Physical Education team, Special Education team, Technology teacher, and the librarian), and are accustomed to working with interdisciplinary teams to achieve goals.

The Health teachers or the librarian will also prepare hard copies of keywords to use in searches, and will also include graphic organizers for students to complete. To prepare for possible loss of an Internet connection, the library media specialist and/or the instructional staff will prepare presentations and pathfinders, including screenshots and step-by-step instructions, with examples of the technology used, so that the lessons may still be presented, although the students might not have the ability to use the resource. If the Web site for dipity.com is down for an extended period of time, the journal will be maintained manually. If the Web site for imagechef.com is down for an extended period of time, then another resource, such as Wordle, will be used to create the word cloud.

Back to project homepage Introduction Topic & Standards Setting & Context Materials & Technology Tools Implementation & Assignments
 * Lesson 1
 * Lesson 2
 * Lesson 3