Tomorrow's+Teachers+Today









= Welcome to our home page = This wiki is an educational resource for both teachers and students to enable the successful accomplishment of an authentic task. The task is a research project on The Water Cycle and involves the students using various technologies to complete. All the information both teachers and students will require for this project can be found using the navigation bar above.

** PowerPoint Presentation **
We have produced a short PowerPoint presentation to introduce our resource. It includes details on the resource and the proccesses we went through to create it.

** Group Members - ** Wendy Clements, Jill Cowie, Jodie Nosworthy and Elizabeth Purvis
All group members are external students at Murdoch University, currently studying the unit EDN111 - Living and learning with technology.

** Topic - ** The Water Cycle
The earth has a limited amount of water. That water keeps going around and around in what we call "The Water Cycle". This cycle is made up of a few main parts:
 * Evaporation:** Evaporation is when the sun heats up water in rivers or lakes or the ocean and turns it into vapour or steam. The water vapour or steam leaves the river, lake or ocean and goes into the air.
 * Condensation:** Water vapour in the air gets cold and changes back into liquid, forming clouds. This is called condensation.
 * Precipitation:** Precipitation occurs when so much water has condensed that the air cannot hold it anymore. The clouds get heavy and water falls back to the earth in the form of rain, hail, sleet or snow.
 * Collection:** When water falls back to earth as precipitation, it may fall back in the oceans, lakes or rivers or it may end up on land. When it ends up on land, it will either soak into the earth and become part of the “ground water” that plants and animals use to drink, or it may run over the soil and collect in the oceans, lakes or rivers where the cycle starts all over again.

** Year Level - ** 5/6
The year level we suggest for this task is year 5/6. You will find ideas for extension activities for this task on both the teacher resources and lesson plans page.

** The Task **
The task is a research project incorporating the use of technology and the production of a final presentation. The students are put into groups and asked to research 'The Water Cycle' using a variety of different technologies. They will need to document their findings and write a weekly blog in which they reflect on their learning. They will then produce a power point presentation on their findings. These presentations will be shown to the class at the final lesson. For more details on the task please see our lesson plans page.

** Scope and Sequence **
Scope and Sequence Years 1-9 includes explicit statements about intended student learning each year. It also shows cross-curriculum links and information about developing literacy and numeracy, as well as using ICT across the curriculum. This task would be included in the science (sustainability of life and wise resource use) scope of the framework that encompasses the water cycle and weather. Please click on this link for more details of the scope and sequence.

** Learning outcomes **
At the end of the project, students should be able to understand-
 * The four elements of the water cycle.
 * What are clouds and how are they formed?
 * Where does groundwater come from?
 * How are the mountains, rivers and oceans connected?
 * How to write a blog.
 * How to carry out efficient searches, using various search engines.
 * How to put together information gathered, in a logical way.
 * How to compose a power point presentation.

** Authentic Learning **
Authentic learning is learning located in settings that reflect complex real world problems. It enables students of all ages and capabilities to solve problems through research and collaboration. An authentic learning task should allow the students to influence the outcome and have ownership of their learning. Please find below information on authentic learning and how the task achieves these elements.

There are nine elements of authentic learning (EDN113, lecture 4, 2012). The context of the task needs to motivate the learning and reflect real life. Our task is a research project on a feature of the world we live in, and therefore gives plenty of opportunity for real world reflection. The task itself is the most important aspect of authentic learning. Our task was designed to produce knowledge in the form of not only gathering data, but organising into a final presentation space. The students have to decide which pieces of information are most important to include and how the data fits together. The students need to be given access to information given by experts in the field they are studying. The nature of our task with the use of the internet in particular, enables the students to gather data from many different sources and levels of expertise. They then have to decide which information is most accurate and useful to their project. Students need to be given multiple perspectives from which to learn. Our task involves students gathering data from various sources and from that they will gain multiple perspectives on the topic. This is an important part of any authentic task and our students will be working in groups to complete the task. This is to give students opportunities to speak about what they are learning and their understandings of the topic. In our lesson plans there is time set aside for the students to discuss the topic and a 'explain the most interesting thing you learnt today?' section for students to articulate their learning to the class. The opportunity to reflect on their project and learning is given to them in the form a blog that students will be asked to undertake. This is the support provided by the teacher. It should be positive if possible but when suggestions on improvement are made, they should be presented in a coaching way to support their learning. It can be giving support when needed or helping with a complete task (Brickell and Herrington, 2006). Our teachers will find examples of how to do this in the teacher resources page. The assessment in an authentic task should be integrated with the task, and not a separate test. The method of assessment for the task we have chosen, is a marking rubric for the final presentation. We have designed a power point marking rubric for you to use, or you could design your own. Please find our sample marking rubric on the teacher resources page, along with links to sites that will help you design your own.
 * Authentic context**
 * Authentic task**
 * Expert performances**
 * Multiple perspectives**
 * Collaboration**
 * Articulation**
 * Reflection**
 * Scaffolding**
 * Authentic assessment**