Student Pages | Introduction TP | Learners TP | Standards TP | Process TP | Evaluation TP | Credits TP

Process: Teacher Page

Additional instruction for teachers is in red text. The black text appears on the student process page.

Introductory paragraph: Each team has a different introductory paragraph that introduces the topic. Topics include History & Names, Ideal Conditions, Stages, Rating Systems, Tracking & Forecasting, Safety, and Aftermath: Wetlands and Wildlife. The Process for all groups is basically the same with only a few variations.

Each group consists of 4 students. The webquest is designed for 7 groups. If you need to reduce the number of groups due to class size, you may be able to ask the Stages group or the Safety group to include hurricane rating systems in their presentations.

As members of the (Team Name inserted here), your job will be to research (topic inserted here) and to create a multimedia presentation that will communicate your findings to others in an interesting, engaging, and informative manner. 

You will be using Power Point as your primary application software.  (For younger students, for students not very familiar with Power Point, or to speed up this process, the teacher might create a Power Point template for students to use.) You may want to consider an interactive approach and/or the use of video in your presentation.  The presentation should help the public (information related to topic inserted here). In doing so, consider the members of your audience and what information will enhance their understanding of hurricanes in order to help residents make informed decisions when preparing for future hurricanes.

NOTE: You may want to substitute another form of content delivery, such as student creation of brochures and newspapers, or you may want to have students create both the Power Point presentation and the brochure or newspaper to hand out to classmates.

Team member roles are as follows:

The teacher should consider technology skills (Power Point, Internet searching, word processing, etc.) when forming groups. Make sure there is balance from group to group.

In order to ensure interdependence among team members, students should be monitored closely and encouraged to remain in their roles throughout the assignment.

NOTE: It is also helpful for the teacher to continue the scenario throughout the entire webquest. During the presentations, the teacher should assume the role of the moderator to introduce each team to the Red Cross board members. Formal introductions and procedures will encourage the students to remain in their roles as presentation creators. Classmates serve as Red Cross board members/audience.

Think about how you might conduct your research. (The Aftermath: Wetlands and Wildlife group has the following sentence added to this section: "Since your topic is specific to Louisiana, you might consider using key word search strategies." You may want to give the group individual instruction in doing key word searches.) You can use some of the questions below, however you do not have to answer them all and you are not limited to only these questions.

• (Springboard questions related to topic inserted here)

Do some research and come to consensus as a group before you begin creating your presentation. Close monitoring during work sessions should help students cover the desired content. Although you don't want to "give answers," you do want to guide students to understand concepts in order to present correct information. Additional content/concepts not presented in the final presentations can be covered by the teacher after all presentations are delivered and the students and teacher resume normal classroom roles.

• The Red Cross board will visit us next week.  You will 4 days (90 minute periods each day) to work on this project.  Make sure you reserve time to practice presenting before your actual presentation. Time should be modified according to computer access and student levels. You may want to designate the first two - three days as "research" and "storyboarding" days only.

• Under the section titled Resources, you will find the following:
  
  • Web Sites - You may search on your own or you may use the list of web resources provided under this section. (For younger students, you may want to be more specific with web sites. The links provided will lead students to homepages. From there students will have to use site maps to find specific information relative to their topics. Younger students may need to have links to specific information within the sites.)

You may want to provide hard copies of the following documents:

• Project Checklist – Gives the requirements for a successful project and will help guide you through the project
  
• PPT Quick Tips  - For help with Power Point
  
• PPT Etiquette – Rules for creating a professional looking presentation (You may want them to submit the script for their presentation in order to make sure they are elaborating rather than "reading" their slides. You also may want to specify font type and size ahead of time.)
  
• Citations Format – Format for citing web sites, graphics, video clips
  
• Assessing Web Site Credibility – To aid in assessing web site credibility
  
• The criteria for your research and presentation are given in the rubric in the Evaluation section.  Make sure you review the rubric before you begin your project. 

Give everyone time to work on PowerPoint or teach it ahead of time. Students could share the job of creating slides and then merging them together. This would give everyone experience with the software.

Consider giving students a "listener's guide" to help them list key concepts from each presentation in order to have notes on content. After each presentation, the moderator (teacher) could lead a discussion with the board members (classmates) about what concepts were covered and which are of importance to the community. This would be a way to emphasize content, include important content that was omitted, or correct inaccurate information that was presented.

Other forms of assessment should be used to assess the concepts that students learned from the presentations. One suggestion is to have students create concept maps with 8-12 words from each presentation. If this is used, students should be informed ahead of time and note taking during the presentations is encouraged.