Students will be able to select collaboratively the diseases the class will continue to work on for the remainder of the unit.
Students will engage in the process of forming the larger groups that will work together in the website production.
General Description
In this section, the teacher and students work collaboratively and engage in the process of identifying the diseases that the class will use to develop their websites. Students will also engage in the process of forming the larger teams that will work together on this task during the remainder of the unit. Please note that activity 1 is designed to provide some choices on how to select the diseases collaboratively between the students and teachers. Teacher can choose to do Option A (step #1 only), Option B (steps #1 and #2), or to choose a different way to select the class problems and establish the groups.
In Option A (step #1 only), students vote on the top 5-7 class problems the class will continue to work on, but teachers maintain control of what problems get selected and the student-group assignment.
In Option B (steps #1 and #2), students vote on the top 5-7 class problems, and they also vote on what problem they want to work on. Therefore, the teacher grants the students control of the problems selected and the groups formed.
It is important that teachers read the following document in preparation and before making a decision on which option to chose: Problems Selection and Student Grouping.
Activity 1. (Budget 30 minutes).
STEP #1: Students vote on top 5-7 class problems.
1. Before class, the teacher decides how to present the survey to the students. We recommend teachers use Kahoot. to set up the survey electronically, and then have the students vote from their classroom devices or cell phones (if allowed in the classroom). Teachers can choose for the results to be visible only to themselves or to the entire class (if the teacher wants to retain control on the problem selection and group formation, we recommend to make the results only available to her/himself). As an alternative, teachers can use the Class Disease Problem Survey handout, have the students vote on a paper sheet and process the sheets during the following 5 minutes after voting. Please note that using the Class Problem Survey handout requires the teacher to add the list of all the class problems to the handout ahead of the class. If using an online tool, the teacher can add the list and survey questions when setting up the survey.
2. Teacher gives the students the Kahoot survey or Class Problem Survey which includes a list of all the disease selected student pairs have been working on so far. Students vote on the diseases they find most significant, most relevant to themselves and others, and most suitable to reach out to others through a website.
3. Teacher reviews the student answers and reveals to the class the final 5-7 diseases the class voted on. Teacher writes the disease titles on the board.
Note for teachers doing Option A (step #1 only): At this point the teacher can select what students will be assigned to what group and verbally inform the students of their group assignment. Stopping at this point allows the teacher more control on determining how students are grouped and the opportunity to create balanced teams.
STEP #2: Students vote on their disease of choice and groups are formed based on this selection: Teachers completing Option B (step #1 and #2) are engaging the entire class in the selection process until the very end.
1. Teachers have the students vote on their Disease Final Selection by setting up a survey electronically through Kahoot or using the Final Selection handout. The survey asks the students:
What disease problem is the one that interests you the most, and you would like to select, so you can continue working on it?
What disease problem does not personally interests you and you would rather not work on?
2. Teacher reviews the survey responses and forms student teams based on the student selection. If too many students chose the same disease problem, the teacher might choose to form more than 1 group working on the same topic. Different teams would still would have to develop different websites.
3. Teacher gives the students their new groups (the names of all the students working on each problem).
Activity 2 (Budget 20 minutes)
Students familiarize themselves for the first time with their new problems/topics.
The students get together on their new teams. The original pair that worked on the problem presents the problems to the rest of the team if they also selected the same topic. If the team includes only new members, the team revises the power point developed by the original pair that worked on the topic.