Design Project Proposal

Project Proposal
Ariella Epstein
April 20, 2009

I am planning to create a WebQuest for use in a seventh grade Social Studies class for my Design Project. The topic of the WebQuest will be a comparison of direct and representative democracy using example from ancient Athens, the Roman Republic and the United States. My vision for this project is that it will be carried out in a classroom of about 20 students of varying abilities with access to five classroom computers. Computer lab time and working at home will be afforded, if possible. However, the students I envision in my class will not all have at-home access to computer or the Internet, and it will not always be feasible to send students to the lab for a variety of reasons. This lesson will be a culminating experience, taking into account that Athens and Rome have been studied earlier in the year, as has the United States’ electoral process, as this has been an election year.
I plan to have this project incorporate critical thinking and problem solving, collaboration with peers and teacher, and possibly other individuals through online communication. I also plan to push the students to take initiative, access and analyze information and adapt to constraints as they come up. Written and oral communication will be evidence in the end of their projects as they present to their peers. It is my hope that the students’ curiosity and imaginations will guide much of their work.
This entire project stems from the necessity to bridge the past with the present, so understand that we can learn from the past and utilize what we learn to build the present. The project also seeks to address Wagner’s survival skills and bring them into the classroom. Admittedly, through constructing this project I will have to do some refreshing of the subject matter, however, I have a good knowledge base and am therefore excited to do this work.
The outcome of this project will be a WebQuest as well as a narrative, detailing the points at which the survival skills come into play and any problems I encountered along the way. I will be using a Web Quest template, as well as various online resources, the list of which will be presented with my final project.
I plan to have this proposal approved by Wednesday, April 22, 2009 and move forward in creating the project. While I await feedback on the proposal I plan to do necessary research on the topic as well as complie a list of useful web sites. As I will be working on this project alone I am quite confident that I have the proper knowledge and qualifications to accomplish it.

References
Center for Curriculum and Assessment, office of Curriculum and Instruction. (2004). Academic Content
Standards K-12 Social Studies. Ohio: State Board of Education and Ohio Department of Education.
Wagner, T. (2008). The Global Achievement Gap. New York: Basic Books.