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At-risk high schoolers learn health science in an integrated curriculum
Chris Hungerford explains how careful choice and use of educational CD-ROMs can enhance your daily curriculum. By Chris Hungerford |
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local education agency buys hundreds of new CDs every year for our school
district. Purchases are based on teacher recommendations and cover a
wide range of academic subjects. Because of the huge appeal of technology
in general, and CDs specifically, to our modern students, CDs can be
used in the classroom to enrich learning. The use of CDs can can also
serve as a reward for students who have met a particular goal. |
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The best
way to know what you're getting in a CD is to ask the company for a demo version,
or look on the Internet for reviews or demos.
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 owever, CDs often sit on the shelf and are not used in any meaningful way. Already
busy teachers do not have time to develop methods to incorporate CDs into the
existing curriculum. For this reason, instructors are missing out on wonderful
educational technology. I have selected numerous CD-ROM titles in my five years of teaching. I have chosen CDs that were great and those that were not so great. At first I used no selection method other than reading the product description in a catalog. However, the best way to know what you're getting in a CD is to ask the company for a demo version, or look on the Internet for reviews or demos of the program to download. |
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nce you review a good CD, it is important to use it effectively. In my science
class, I have used a CD entitled Nine
Month Miracle (9MM) produced by ADAM Software,
Inc. I have developed some do's and don'ts that may save other teachers new to
CD-ROMS some pain and frustration.
Previously, I have had students spend time on the 9MM CD, but they always were finished with it in two or three days. From carefully reviewing the CD, I knew that there was more than two or three days worth of learning from 9MM. I wanted the students to go through the CD thoroughly, especially since our high school for at-risk students has its share of teen mothers and fathers. |
One of Hungerford's students with Baby Think It Over |
owever, we didn't have a human reproduction course or anything about prenatal
care at that time, so I decided to make an entire course based on the 9MM CD. I
created a course outline and an activity packet to accompany the CD.
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 he student activity worksheets follow along with the CD-ROM. Students find
worksheet answers in quicktime movies, pictures, and animations on the CD. Then
they draw and label the baby's progress each month. The students use a
pregnancy calendar from
Olen Publishing that tells a mother what is
happening to her body as the baby develops.
Non-computer activities are a part of the class too. These activities are based on topics covered in the CD and they allow students to take the topics one step further through research. Students do all their research for the activities on the Internet. So that they have reliable resources, I bookmark about 20 Web sites including Ask NOAH About Pregnancy, The Baby Center, Campaign for our Children, Excercise for Pregnant Women, and COHIS Teen Pregnancy. Then they begin the following four activities. |
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The first activity is to create a poster for school display that tells how drugs,
cigarettes, or alcohol can harm a developing baby.
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he first activity is to create a poster for school display that tells how drugs,
cigarettes, or alcohol can harm a developing baby. Students use the Internet to
find information and pictures for their poster. This is a good way to get students
away from the computer for a while and give them a hands-on activity. Once
students finish their posters, I put them up in my room. Next, the students write an article for the school newsletter on the importance of exercise for pregnant women. They come up with an exercise program for a mom-to-be. Again, students use Web sites to research the topic. Then we publish the articles in our monthly newsletter. |
 n the third activity, students take the role of parent and write a personal letter
or position paper to their pregnant teenage son or daughter. In the letter, they
state their opinion on adoption or abortion, and they list pros and cons and make a
recommendation to their child on what to do concerning the pregnancy.
Finally, the students research how a particular chemical can harm a developing child, and film a 30-second commercial for our local cable-TV station as a public service announcement. Students create a storyboard for their commercial before filming begins, which cuts down the number of takes they have to do. |
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The article opens students' eyes about the
support needed to be a successful teen parent.
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he next part of the class consists of an Internet scavenger hunt. Using several
Web sites, students must find the answers to questions I give them. I offer them
little to no help on this activity as it is their scavenger hunt and they are
responsibile to find the correct answers.
Following the scavenger hunt, each student reads and answers questions covering the article "Diary of a Teen Family," from Scholastic's Health Choicesof May, 1997. The article opens students' eyes about the support needed to be a successful teen parent. I also bookmark several sites dealing with teen families that students can take a look at. Sites such as these can often be found through search engines like Yahoo!, Infoseek, Lycos, and Alta Vista. |
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he final project for students is to take home Baby
Think It Over (BTIO). BTIO is a baby simulator that students take home for 3 days and
2 nights. They must "feed" the baby whenever it cries by holding a key in its back.
BTIO registers neglect and abuse as well. Their final project is to write an article for
the school newsletter about their experience with BTIO.
All of these projects are based on 9MM, which is a wonderfully done CD-ROM. Although some may argue that all the computer stuff isn't needed, that students can learn these things from a text book, the students wouldn't get to see things like the amazing animation of the baby developing. Because of things like that, most of our students prefer the multimedia method of learning rather than reading out of a textbook. It's easy for students to pick up where they left off the day before since they can go to any month of the pregnancy without having to start from scratch. I would call 9MM a marriage between the TV and the textbook in that it provides video to watch and plenty of information. |
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aving Internet access in the classroom is key to this course. Students are
exposed to a wide variety of topics related to pregnancy and can compare different
sources easily via the Internet. With the Internet, we have a virtual library for
pregnancy that we would not have otherwise .
In the future, I plan to write more CD-ROM and Internet-based curricula. For others wanting to incorporate CD-ROM and the Internet in your classroom here are some tips:
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esearch CD-ROMs before you buy them. Ask for a demo version from the
company; ask other teachers; and read reviews in computer magazines or search on
the Internet. Don't waste precious money; buy only the best. Once you have purchased a CD-ROM, sit down and go through the whole thing. This may take several days or more. You need to know what is on the CD and what you can do with it. This also allows you to guide your students through it when they get stuck or have difficulties. Don't feel that the CD-ROM is your only source of information. Text books are okay! The Internet has tons of information as well as your library. Expose your students to all forms of information gathering. Create non-computer projects. After a while, students may get tired of sitting in front of the computer. Give them some activities to do in which they can get up and move around, and use their hands for more than just operating a keyboard and mouse. CD-ROM encyclopedias, such as Encarta or Groiler, can be fun for scavenger hunts as well as great sources of information. Be creative with your resources! If you only have one computer, use it in front of the class so everyone can participate. If you have students work on the computer one at a time, make sure that the student who isn't doing so well in your class gets on the computer. It may turn on that "not so good" student and get them interested in learning. Look for CDs that allow you to set the speed of the CD to the speed of the learner. 9MM allows you to slow down the presentation of information or speed it up depending on the student. I hope you will find these tips useful in purchasing CD-ROMs for your school. I think CD-ROMs are a great way to enhance learning in the classroom and get students more interested in learning. |
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