Course: Technology Education

Submitted By: Tracy Hoskins, CATE TECHED, Tulsa Public Schools

Project Name: Research Activity: Influence of Technology on History

Project Description and Purpose: This five hour project is intended to familiarize students with the way technology influenced history in specific periods of human history.

Performance Specifications:

Technology Standards

  1. Students will develop an understanding of the influence of technology on history. (ITEA-STL 7)
  2. Students will develop abilities to assess the impact of products and systems. (ITEA-STL 13)
  3. Students will develop an understanding of the nature of technology. (AAAS-BSL)

Mathematics Standards – Unit 1, Unit 2, Unit 3,

  1. Students will use mathematical models to represent and understand quantitative relationships. (Process Standard Problem Solving 1.6) (NCTM)
  2. Students will analyze change in various contexts. ( Process Standard Representation 5.4) (NCTM)
  3. Students will develop an understanding of mathematics processes. (Process Standard Communications 2.3) (NCTM)
  4. The student will use numbers and number relationships to solve problems. (2.1)
  5. The student use data analysis and statistics to interpret data in a variety of contexts. (5.1)
  6. The student willgraph and solve linear equations and inequalities in problem-solving situations. (1.1)

Language Arts Standards – Unit 1

  1. The student will interact with words and concepts in a text to construct an appropriate meaning. (Reading/Literature 3.1a, 3.1b, 3.2a, 3.3a, 3.4a, 3.5a, 3.5c)
  2. The student will conduct research and organize information. (Reading/Literature 5.2d)
  3. The student will use the writing process to write coherently. (Writing 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6)
  4. The student will use the appropriate practices in writing by applying grammatical knowledge to the revising and editing stages of writing. (Writing 3.1, 3.2)
  5. The student will read, construct meaning, and respond to a wide variety of literary forms. (Reading/Literature 4.2b)
  6. The student will write for a variety of purposes and audiences using narrative, descriptive, expository, persuasive, and reflective modes. (Writing 2.2, 2.7)
  7. The student will express ideas and opinions in a group or individual situations. (Oral Language 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5)

Instructions and Parameters

Students will:

  1. Conduct effective and focused research.
  2. Use computers and calculators to access, retrieve, organize, and evaluate data and informationin order to communicate.
  3. Present research findings effectively using instructional technology.
  4. Use the Internet to become familiar with literature related to technology.
  5. Describe the professional and educational backgrounds of authors of literature related to technology.
  6. Describe the purposes of research and its role in the development of an information base usedto understand the influence of technology on history.
  7. Use mathematical modeling techniques for making predictions about the future applications oftechnology.
  8. Explain mathematical functions (linear, quadratic, or exponential) and how they may representan aspect of technological change.

Engagement

Engaging Question - Describe what technology you think has had the most influence in human history.

  1. The teacher will assess prior knowledge and possible misconceptions related to the way technologyinfluenced history in specific periods of human history.
  2. The teacher will present students with examples of popular literature that deals with the developmentof technology, including data on the number of each title sold and the gross sales figuresfor these books. (Invention by Design by Henry Petroski, Galileo’s Daughter by Dava Sobel,Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond)
  3. Students will be asked to give their opinions about why there is a market for this genre of literature.
  4. The teacher will ask students to speculate on the educational backgrounds of writers of thistype of literature.

Exploration

  1. The teacher will provide students with Internet citations for current literature dealing with thedevelopment of technology.
  2. Students will find and briefly summarize a review for a current technology book.
  3. Students will present their brief summaries to the class.

Explanation

  1. The teacher will initiate discussion on the purposes of research and its role in the developmentof an information base used to understand the influence of technology on history.
  2. The teacher will explain that:
  3. A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholarsand researchers.
  4. The purpose is to inform others about what knowledge and ideas already exist related tothe topic.
  5. Besides enhancing knowledge about the topic, writing a literature review enables studentsto gain and demonstrate skills in two areas: a) information seeking: the ability to scan theliterature efficiently, using a manual or computerized methods to identify a set of usefularticles and books and b) critical appraisal: the ability to apply principles of analysis toidentify unbiased and valid studies.
  6. Literature review must do these things:
  1. Be organized around and related directly to the thesis or research question being developed.
  2. Synthesize results into a summary of what is and is not known.
  3. Identify areas of controversy in the literature.
  4. Formulate questions that need further research.
  1. The teacher will review research techniques:
  2. Selecting a topic
  3. Researching the topic
  4. Note taking
  5. Data collection, graphing, and analysis
  6. Writing a rough draft
  7. Completing a written report
  8. Preparing for an oral presentation
  9. Presenting an oral report
  10. The teacher will demonstrate the use of mathematical models for making predictions.
  11. The teacher will review the classes of mathematical functions (linear, quadratic, or exponential)and how they may represent an aspect of technological change.
  12. The teacher will demonstrate “curve fitting” techniques to determine the class of mathematicalfunctions (linear, quadratic, or exponential) representing an aspect of technological change.
  13. Students will clarify their understanding of research techniques by asking questions.

Lesson

  1. For a given technological advancement that impacted history, students will develop a researchreport on the historical impact of a selected technological advancement including a discussionof the anticipated positive and negative impacts as well as the unanticipated positive and negativeimpacts.
  2. The teacher will discuss expectations for a written research paper and oral presentation.
  3. Students will select a topic from aspecified technological period.
  4. The teacher will specify the typeof information needed and willreview resources.
  5. Students will gather information,pictures, graphs, and diagrams.
  6. Students will use graphs to analyzethe nature of changes relatedto the impact of technology.
  7. Students will determine the classof mathematical functions (linear,quadratic, or exponential) representingan aspect of technological change.
  8. Students will make predictions of technological change based on a mathematical model.
  9. Students will record information sources in a bibliography.
  10. The teacher will review the criteria and grading procedure for the written report.
  11. The teacher will review reporting techniques and the criteria and grading procedure for oralpresentations.

Assessment:

Students’ knowledge, skills, and attitudes will be assessed using rubrics for research and reporting,oral presentation, brief constructed responses, and extended constructed responses summarizingthe lesson. The rubrics will be presented in advance of the activities to familiarize students with theexpectations and performance criteria. They will also be reviewed during the activities to guide studentsin the completion of assignments. The teacher may wish to develop a collection of annotatedexemplars of student work based on the rubrics. The exemplars will serve as benchmarks for futureassessments and may be used to familiarize students with the criteria for assessment.

Project Based Activity – Technology Education – Research Activity - 1