Inquiry Based Assignment

For this assignment Laurel and I worked together to put together an activity for 5th grade student receive special education services in a social studies class.  I think that we did a great job and learned a lot about finding good websites for students.  One major thing I learned is that a good website for one group of student may not be so good for another.  I think we all really benefited from the fact that everyone in the class really created excellent activities.  Everyone had perfect sites for their target students.  Like I mentioned not all of these sites would have worked for our students, but they worked for the grade level and subject they were intended for.  It was important for Laurel and I to find websites that were not overwhelming and distracting for our students.  Many students with special needs have trouble focusing so I site with too much going on would have been no good.  I really enjoyed putting together this activity and can easily see it being one I could use.

There were some other minor lessons I learned from this assignment.  One was the benefit of having someone to work with while putting together an assignment.  It was nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of and catch some of the simple things you may overlook.  Another little lesson I learned was the importance of explicit direction.  By missing something simple like, not putting the name of the website or stating to answer in complete sentences, students can be easily thrown off.  This was a good lesson I learned a lot from.