Overview:
My web-based project was designed by my colleague Lari Garrison and I. It was intended as an improvement upon the research project we did in Honors Geometry last year, which was not Internet-based. The idea behind the research project is that students select from a list of approved mathematical topics, spend several months researching the topic until they become "experts" in their area and then write a paper and give a presentation to their classmates. In this way, we hope to introduce students to some of the interesting mathematical ideas that we don't have space for in the regular curriculum.
We handed out the project in late January and the students final papers and presentations are due in May. As part of their final presentations, students are required to include a hands-on class activity which will teach their classmates a little bit about their topic. They may decide to do their final presentation in the computer lab so the students have access to Sketchpad if they wish.
Along the way between January and May, we posted several intermediate deadlines so that students would not procrastinate. On the first day of the project, students were handed a sheet with all the deadlines as well as a rubric for how each portion of the project would be evaluated. They were also given a list of possible topics for their research. Students were allowed to work either individually or with a partner. Lari and I had previously done some research on our own to see whether there was enough information for each topic, both in our library and on the internet. We soon gave the students a list of internet addresses that contained sites we thought would be helpful to them. Starting at the end of January, we also placed numerous links on our own homepages (Anne's and Lari's) to provide students with a jumping off place for their research. As the project continued, students began finding interesting sites of their own. These sites were written on the board so that students could add them to their lists.
The day after we handed out the project we gave a lesson on how to use Netscape. So far, we have had 5 days of class lab time in which the student could surf the internet, take notes from the collection of library books we bring up on a cart, get assistance from the teacher, etc. We will continue to have "Lab Days" occasionally throughout the rest of the semester, but we expect the majority of the work to be done during the students' study halls, after school and on weekends. (We printed up and laminated some passes which allow the students access to the computer lab without a pass if they are working on their geometry project. This has saved us hours of pass writing. I highly recommend it!)
In mid-March, we had the students sign up for 10-15 minute conferences with us either before, after or during school (if their study hall coincided with our prep periods). The purpose of these meetings were to help those students who were having trouble finding information, to give students ideas of possible activities for their presentation in May, to explain their topics to them if the information they were getting was over their heads, etc. The students were to bring all the research they had done so far along with a list of questions or concerns they had about their presentations. I think most students found these conferences to be very helpful. As the teacher, I liked having them because it gave me a very good idea which groups were slacking off and needed a little motivation. In fact, they were so great that I think I'll schedule another round of conferences in early May. Unfortunately, since the projects aren't due until May, I can't really discuss the next parts of the project until they are due. The timeline for the rest of the project includes an outline of the paper, a rough draft, visual aids, the final paper, and the presentation itself. To review the due dates and scoring rubrics for each of these items, click here.
Examples of Student Work
Click on the words below to see some examples of student work complete with the grades they received.
| Bibliography | Notecards | Proposal |