by Ethan
H. Calk
Campus Instructional Technologist
Holmes/Business Careers High School
In this online activity, we will learn to create a web-based Subject Sampler lesson for your classroom. After deciding on a topic, we will search the Internet for interesting, informative websites to support our topic, then create the Subject Sampler using Netscape Composer.
With Principal approval, NISD teachers may receive 6 hours of Professional Development/Teacher Choice hours upon completion of all three activities.
A Subject Sampler is an inquiry-based activity in which students are asked to explore a collection of sites and respond from their own perspective. Your objective is to get the students interested, intrigued, connected to the subject by having them think, reflect, respond from a personal point of view. Here, you don't want them to uncover "hard facts." You want to elicit personal responses, opinions, and links to their own experience and current knowledge. In a Subject Sampler, there is no "right" answer, only well documented responses. In the end, you ask them to "conclude," - to pull out something of the experience and document or defend it.
There are three main parts of a Subject Sampler: Introduction, Topic Activities, Conclusion.
Introduction
In this section, you will introduce the topic and give a few directions for completion of the activity.
Topic Activities
In this section, you will define four to six subtopics of your main topic. For each subtopic, you will find at least one website for students to peruse, then create 3-5 questions to go with that subtopic. Remember, in creating your questions, you are looking more for personal responses, opinions and conclusions rather than just finding facts.
Conclusion
Here students will synthesize their thoughts and reactions to the websites they've seen.
Other parts
You can also include a picture, navigation links, your e-mail address, etc.
Take a few minutes to explore some successful Subject Samplers on the Web. Click on the links below, then click the BACK button to return.
| My China | American Revolution |
| Money Matters | Being Australian |
| Macbeth | Black History |
| History of Flight | The Twenties |
| The Alamo | WWII: A Soldier's View |
Activity #1
Download the Subject Sampler Apprasial Rubric (Word document). Using the rubric, evaluate two of the above subject samplers. E-mail the completed Word document to your instructor (ethancalk@nisd.net).
Follow these steps to design your Subject Sampler:
