Final Project: Website for Student Teaching Courses

For my final project, I chose to create a companion website for the courses I’ll be teaching at South High School in the spring. I thought this would be a great place for me to post digital copies of all of the assignments, homework, and rubrics as well as a place to post my contact information for parents, helpful websites for students, models of various projects and a place to post digital student work so they can share it with their classmates, friends and family.
My cooperating teacher does not use very much technology in her classroom, which is totally fine, I just thought this would be a great way to get students to think about school outside of school as well as a place to find documents if they misplace them or need extra help.
Students would not be required to use the website—I had a long discussion with my cooperating teacher about this and she thinks that given their age and the certain group I’ll be working with that requiring them to use the internet would give them more of an excuse to not do the work, than be a motivator. The website would therefore be a way to try to get students to keep the schedule on their minds and look for web links that would help them with certain projects and also a great way for parents to stay “in the know” in terms of what their students are doing.
I have posted two example assignments: the podcast for book clubs and the VideoANT project on The Crucible film. I think it is very important for students to have a model to look at while they are doing their projects and I think that if I am willing to do the work then they might be more inclined to do so themselves.
I also included a google calendar of important SHS dates and due dates for the major assignments in the course. This way students or parents can merge it with their own calendar if they want or they can just use it as a resource. I would likely add student activities like sporting events, choir or band concerts or other performances of students in my classes to encourage them to support each other outside of class.
On the “What to expect in H2” page, I have included Ms. Horswill’s (my cooperating teacher) syllabus as well as a PowerPoint that lays out the expectations for the course. Currently the ppt is based on Ms. H’s guidelines…this will likely be slightly changed as I further develop my plan for the spring semester.
I also added links to local libraries to encourage my students to read outside of class as well as for class!
I am very excited to use this website with my students in the spring as well as teach them how to create VideoANT, VoiceThread and podcast projects. It looks to be an exciting spring!
Here is a link to my site:
Ms. Rose and Humanities Too