Wicked Problem Project Solved

Wicked Problem 

An Educational Opportunity

Through this project I had an opportunity to take a topic that was disconnected and lacked student engagement and make it more connected and engaging for students, which allowed students to better master the concepts and make stronger connections with the subject matter. In the unit on plate tectonics, volcanoes and earthquakes I like students to be able to understand how the 3 concepts are related. I want them to be able to locate the major earth plate boundaries and what type of boundaries they are. I want them to be able to then see that the major earthquakes and volcanoes of the world are found on those boundaries along with the types of volcanoes and earthquakes. I also want them to see the other major Earth features that are found on plate boundaries. Using Technology Through the use of technology students can be transported to the plate boundaries and where they are actually located around the Earth. Students can actually "see" the volcanoes, locations of earthquakes and land formations relative to plate boundaries. Students work as pairs and used Google Earth to make a virtual tour of the plate boundaries, volcanoes, earthquakes and boundary features. Student tours included the types of boundaries, volcanoes and how the features are formed. Tours also includes the basic information on the major earthquakes that have occurred and how the features have formed. The use of the technology allowed several things for students. Looking at it through the NETS standards the project covered:

1. Students demonstrate a sound understanding of the nature and operation of technology systems. Use technology tools for individual and collaborative writing, communication, and publishing activities to create knowledge products for audiences inside and outside the classroom. 
2. Students use technology to locate, evaluate, and collect information from a variety of sources.

TPACK Sweet Spot

This project hits right in the TPACK Sweet Spot with a balanced combination of pedagogy, content and technology.  The content is not only an Iowa Common Core State Standard and soon to be Next Generation Science Standard but the concepts of earthquakes and volcanoes fascinate many students.  Pedagogy was to provide students with basic background knowledge through podcasts, class discussion and 2 shirt class activities.  At this point students are ready to move on or up the Blooms Taxonomy triangle.  Students have been working toward understanding and applying basic information and through this project they will now work to analyze, evaluate and create.  They will collect data on the worlds largest volcanoes, strongest earthquakes and key land formations like Mt. Everest   They will analyze the data (information) they collect and evaluate how the volcanoes formed, why the earthquakes happened and land formations occurred   Students then create a video tour using Google Earth visiting the volcanoes  earthquake location and land formations describing interesting facts about them and how they were formed. 

The content and pedagogy interact very well in this project.  This project encompasses several different teaching methods.  This is a Project Based Learning activity that involved real world connections, collaboration and real world connections.  What excited me most if the high levels of engagement students will experience.  Rather than being the receptacles where knowledge is deposited, they are learning the content by exploring and inquiry.  I believe that the increased level of engagement will lead to higher student achievement.   They are going to be experiencing the problem differently than in past years and that will lead to better connections and understanding.  Instead of teacher directed learning this will be student led learning through inquiry, evaluation and creation. 

Implementation and Results

Implementation

Implementation of the project went very well.  With great background information given in class students dove into the research part and locating on Google Earth.  While we did encounter a few technical glitches along the way the project went smoothly.  Technical glitches included Google Earth crashes, students saving files to the wrong places and the entire district network crashing in the middle of class one day!  We had planned on the project taking 5 days but we should have planned more time.  We ended up taking a couple extra days to complete the project.  We had the students recording their videos using Camtasia.  Which works well but I was also having them render them to be MP4 files to upload to You Tube which seemed to take forever.  So I switched to having some kids try ScreenCast-O-Matic and this saved their students in MP4 format much quicker.  

Survey Results

Upon completion of the project I gave a survey to my classes.  The results showed the following:

By doing this project how would you rate your understanding of what causes earthquakes and volcanoes?

23% Very High

66% High 

8% Average

3% Low

0% Very Low

By doing this project how would you rate your understanding of the Earth's Plate Boundaries?

55% Very High

34 % High 

8% Average

3% Low

0% Very Low

Did you enjoy this project?

95% Yes

5% No

If you found this project frustrating, what frustrated you?

23% Learning New Technology

5% Research

44% Internet Issues

32% Nothing was Frustrating

If you had your choice of doing projects to learn or listening to leacture and taking notes to learn, what would you select?

91% Projects

7% Notes

2% Neither - I hate learning

I was very happy with the results of this survey and not surprised by the frustration results - I actually expected then to be higher!  Learning new technology and having to research and draw conclusions and evaluate can be frustrating   The best thing was I just kept telling frustrated students to not worry about deadlines and just focus on the learning and creating and we would finish the project when we finished.  I think a little frustration is warranted as that means they are challenged.

Next Years Project   

Changes I will make next year:

Instead of giving them the land formations I will have them select land formations.
or
I will present them with the problem of locating a business in a variety of locations and have them determine which one would be best considering the Earthquake and Volcano risk.

I will also not use Camtasia but rather ScreenCast O Matic.

I will also create a file in Google Earth with the locations stored in it for Special Education students to use so they don't have to find all the locations and focus on research and preparing their scripts.

Conclusion

I am very pleased with how the first year for this project went and I look forward to revising it and continuing with the project next year.