Action Research Report 7 : Holy Cross College

by Belinda Froome

Context

Holy Cross College, Ryde, is a diverse and multicultural all boys school with students coming from a range of ethnic and economic backgrounds. Holy Cross prides itself as a College of Lifestyle and Technology. Upon enrolment at Holy Cross students and their parents have the option of entering into the ‘laptop program.’ Encompassed in this program is the opportunity for students to conduct their daily school studies and work through the use of laptops within their classroom. Those teachers that have ‘lap top’ classes must modify their teaching strategies so as to approach them from a technological point of view.

Coming into this role, it is even harder, as a first year teacher trying to develop my own skills and confidence. Through experimenting with a range of teaching approaches and resources it came to my attention that independently given instructions and the use of computers was the most popular and effective means of a learning strategy for Year 7 History students. Equipped with this knowledge led me to decide that for the NSW History Project I wanted to create a web site that would create an atmosphere, attitude and enthusiasm for learning about history at a high school level. At the same time it needed to encourage students to use the Internet and technology as a tool and source for their learning. With the aid of this web site what is intended to be created at Holy Cross is a zest for History among students from their earliest experience… thereby demonstrating some of the best and most interesting aspects of what the History course has to offer and what it is all about!

Raising the literacy levels of boys is a continual challenge in the lives of teachers, especially at Holy Cross. Combining this with the challenge of creating interest and enthusiasm in history is a blue print for an uphill struggle for any teacher. For the history in teacher in 2002, the resources that are available via the Internet vary and can provide a great basis for any history lesson at any level. I wanted to seize this opportunity and allow the Internet and it’s advantages drive and motivate my students into learning about history.

Planning

The recent Secondary Literacy Position Paper from the Sydney CEO (2002) states that "Critical literacy is the ability to continually ask questions of a text (talking back to a text) in ways that enable us to look below the surface meanings to see how we are being influenced and affected. This critical ability helps us examine our values and attitudes and to consider alternative view points." (Lohrey, A. (1998) ‘Critical Literacy: A Professional Development Resource’, Melbourne: Language Australia, page 8.) With this in mind I set out to create a literacy focused group of lessons that would focus and drive this critical thinking among my students.

I worked in consultation with the Literacy Co-ordinator at our school to ensure that my ideas and lessons would be of the best quality. The Work Book contains a number of literacy focused worksheets. The "Interesting Words Chart" can be used to clarify and/or review vocabulary that may be used within a certain text. The "Three Level Guide" helps students to recall the text, make inferences and make connections between the text and the wider world.

A number of factors had to be taken into consideration when planning this web site such as, the technological level of the students, the length of the lessons and the timetabling of History classes at Holy Cross.

My web site ties in with the Stage 4 Syllabus, Topic 1: Introducing History. The class selected for my action research project was my Year 7 history class. At present, the Stage 4 program in our history faculty does not have a strong introduction for the students in regards to "what history is!" I wanted give new high school students the best possible taste of what this course has to offer and encourage them to become and act like a historian.

A number of teachers at my school have already, and continue to, develop lessons through the use of the Internet. However, within the History faculty we have few formal Internet lessons integrated into the programs. My development of the "What is History??" web site through the NSW History Project has served to enrich the study of history at Holy Cross, both this year, and hopefully, in years to come.

By the students engaging in on-line learning to learn about history, they also develop skills in interpretation, analysis and empathy, research and communication (Stage 4 Skills Outcomes). The Internet has an immense amount of resources available to students and through a lot of searching combined with a lot of patience, a number of web sites were located that proved to serve extremely beneficial for my class and the study of history. I chose to design my web site in an extremely guided manner for two reasons:

1. The boys work well and more enthusiastically when their lessons are guided and straight forward.
2. There is a lot of junk and irrelevant information on the Internet. By specifically guiding the students and instructing them on what sites to use, this minimised the chance of wasting time and students using information that was irrelevant, incorrect or above/below their level.

Conduct

The boys were very enthusiastic when they were told of what they were going to be doing during the lesson and how it was going to pan out. It was necessary to first give students some instructions on how to use the booklet and web site together. Once they understood that they were free to go ahead. The initial responses from students were great, they were so determined to finish each section and move on to the next. The Primary Source Study that contained the pictures of Tollund Man was very popular among all students. They were fascinated by the condition of his remains. They continually commented on how much more effective pictures on the computer screen were compared to pictures in their textbooks.

The boys found the Work Book to be user-friendly and were determined to finish as much as possible in the lesson. While observing them, it was pleasing to see that some students even began engaging in their own discussions about Tollund Man and the pictures on the site.

Evaluation

Teacher’s Evaluation

Overall, my experience in developing this learning tool from the very beginning, was a positive experience. As a beginning teacher in a traditional school in 2002, there are challenges continually facing me in every direction. A sense of satisfaction and pride overwhelmed me upon the completion of my project. Both the student’s acceptance and positive take to my project as well as positive feedback from my professional colleagues has contributed to this success.

Students’ Evaluation:

At the end of the lesson, students were asked to evaluate the web site as learning tool. Almost every student asked why every lesson couldn’t be similar to this… that is, learning via the Internet. Overall, I received positive feedback from the student’s. They even commented on the simplicity of the colours and layout design. A sample of the feedback:

What did you like about the web site?

• It had a lot of helpful facts.
• I like that it gave pictures and examples of what the body looked like and how it died.
• I liked how you get to use the Internet to find information. It is better than books!

What did you not like about this web site?

• That it takes a little bit of time to find some information.
• Nothing — it was all good.
• Nothing — it was fun.

Suggestions for further development?

• Have a learning game to make it more interesting.
• Make the writing bigger.
• Add more pictures to make it easier to interpret information.

Any other comments…

• I think it is a great site.
• I learned quite a bit from this site and booklet.
• It was very, very good.
• It made history fun!!

For the future:

The whole process of researching, designing, implementation and evaluation of a history web site has certainly satisfied my enthusiasm for my profession. Due to both the strong, positive feedback I received from my colleagues and students and the enjoyment of creating this learning tool, I have decided to continue on in developing more web sites for my students. The possibility of other users besides Holy Cross using my sites is an avenue I may seek to pursue in the future.

Conclusion

My experience during completing my project, both professionally and personally, has overall been of a positive nature. In being able to design my own web site and worksheets to specifically suit the needs of my students, has been an extremely successful and beneficial task — both for my self and for my students. The overall acceptance of my work from my professional colleagues has also added to the success of this work. My work has been uploaded to the school server and is going to be permanently integrated into the Stage 4 History Program at school. The biggest highlight of this project had to be the reaction of my students and their fantastic feedback of it. To have them all enjoying the tasks, requesting more and discussing the material gives all indications that this was a SUCCESSFUL project. It also serves as encouragement to produce more lessons similar to these. The NSW History Project has proven to be a positive experience for myself (professionally and personally), my school and most importantly — my students!!