Online 2: Implementing Investigations

Introduction

We are eager to hear about your DataTools experiences with students. In this online event, you will share and discuss the results of implementing your first DataTools Investigation. December's online event has two parts.

  1. From Thursday, December 4 through Wednesday, December 10 write a brief summary that describes your investigation and what students did. Post this in a thread along with your completed investigation template (see below).
  2. From Thursday December 11 through Sunday evening December 14 respond to the investigation template of at least two of your colleagues. You may ask someone for more information, or share how you addressed a challenge similar to one faced by the teacher you are responding to. Remember that we are crediting you with three program hours for this event so please take the time to read through the postings of at least two of your colleagues. Remember to also refer back to your own posting during this time to respond to questions that people may have asked about your investigation.

The goals of this event are to 1) benefit from sharing and problem solving with colleagues who are doing similar work and 2) in a more general way, to continue to build a community of support for the longer term, hopefully beyond the end of your active participation in this project.

Please check the Web site regularly once you post your implementation template, to see if others have asked you a question.

Sharing Your Implementation Stories by Posting Your Investigation Template (Thursday, December 4 through Wednesday, December 10)

  1. Briefly describe the investigation you carried out with students. Include the title, the dataset and analysis tools used, as well as the key question that students investigated.
  2. For example, The investigation I implemented is an adaptation of the EET chapter, Analyzing the Antarctic Ozone Hole. Students used ImageJ and TOMS ozone images to explore seasonal changes in ozone concentration. Students were placed in teams organized by year, analyzing month-by-month data for each year. Years examined were 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003 and 2005. They investigated the question, "How does ozone concentration over the south pole change seasonally?

  3. Briefly describe what students did during the investigation?
  4. For example, I downloaded data from the NASA TOMS Website ahead of time and made it available on the computers that students used. Students used ImageJ to collect area measurements. They used Excel to create graphs, one for each group of students. Then they analyzed graphs and shared their results orally.

  5. Look over your completed investigation template and revise Part 1 as needed to reflect any changes you may have made during implementation or to make the plan easier for a colleague to follow and use.
  6. Attach your completed investigation template to the post.

Link to the Implementation Discussion

Discussing Your Experiences with your Colleagues (Thursday December 11 through Sunday evening December 14)


Read through the investigation templates of at least two of your colleagues and discuss their experiences with them. You may ask someone for more information, or share how you addressed a challenge similar to one faced by the teacher you are responding to. When you post to the discussion area, provide comments first to anyone who has not yet received them. If we follow this procedure, then by the end of the event, everyone will receive at least a couple of comments.

Link to the Implementation Discussion