T&L 420 – Teaching Kansas Government: A Shared Internet Assignment

1. The primary purpose of this cohort is to integrate the use of technology into a course, Teaching Kansas Government, through a joint assignment between a teacher education course and a high school government course. Secondary purposes are to refine and continue to research the use of the assignment and to develop a model for use by other teacher education programs. (Refer to http://learngen.org/legtrack)

2. The cohort has designed and implemented a joint assignment between the two courses mentioned above. Groups of teacher education students in Teaching Kansas Government designed a Track Star, a software program that enables the user to develop a guided search of the internet, on an issue before the session of the Kansas Legislature. The initial Track Star consisted of the following components: an overview of the issue written by the teacher education students; an internet page that further introduced the high school students to the issue; internet sites that provided information in support of and in opposition to the issue; and, a site that pulled together the issue. The teacher education students also developed a set of questions for the high school students to answer about each site and a lesson plan for use by the participating high school government teachers.

The government students used the Track Star to answer the questions and forwarded their answers to the teacher education students. The teacher education students reviewed the answers and then, based on the students’ response, designed a letter to a legislator in favor of and a letter to one opposed to the issue. These letters were posted on the Track. The next step was for the high school students to review the letters and to complete an electronic form in which they indicated which letter they would sign and why. Again, they forwarded their responses to the teacher education students. This assignment was piloted last spring. Given the technological and logistical challenges faced by the cohort during the pilot, the cohort intends to test and refine the assignment again this spring.

In addition to working out a model for an electronic collaborative project between the preserve and high school students, the cohort also is working on additional support material for the course. The cohort is creating a website that will provide a tutorial for those interested in using the assignment.

3. Members

Aaron Grill - teacher education student

Jada Kohlmeier - government teacher, Mill Valley H.S.

Joe O'Brien - teacher education faculty

Mike Runyan - government teacher, DeSoto H.S.

4. Process and Scope of Work

The cohort has revised the assignment based on last spring’s experiences. The cohort will conduct the assignment again during the spring course.

5. Deliverables

An website that details how to create and implement the assignment, as well as examples of the initial issues survey, Tracks, and letters to the legislators.

6. Timeline

The cohort intends to have the revised assignment on-line by mid-January with plans in place for implementing the assignment during the spring semester. The on-line survey will created and given by the end of January. The teacher education students will create the Tracks by the end of February, at which time the high school government students will use them to research an assigned issue. The teacher education students will post letters to legislators by mid-March for use by the high school students. The teacher education students will summarize their work by the middle of April. During this time the cohort will meet on a regular basis to discuss implementation of the assignment. In May the cohort members will meet to discuss the results of the assignment and to finish gathering the data from the research study associated with the assignment.

7. Resources

The cohort will require technical assistance both in meeting the short-term needs of the assignment this spring, as well as assistance for the long-term need of making the assignment self-sustaining and completely interactive.

8. Institutionalization/Extension

The cohort intends for this assignment to serve as an example of how to build in a “field experience” with an area school that permits teacher education students to plan an assignment for high school students and to use students’ responses both to analyze the effectiveness of their plans and to gain insight into their work.

9. Evaluation

As with last spring’s students, the cohort intends to give a pre and post assignment survey, to conduct group interviews at the end of the semester, to keep observer notes, and to undertake an analysis of the learning products developed by the teacher education students and the high school students during the assignment.