Intelligence Online

Our IO unit plan turned out pretty well. We had been working on it for some time, although Stephanie had been working on it with her partner teachers from her field school. We focused our unit around building things that move and simple machines as well as the Renaissance period. This unit allowed students a variety of ways to showcase their learning. We wanted to be sure that students with different learning styles were able to participate - blogs, books, movies, and so many other types of media were presented.
Our idea about Dragon's Den didn't actually come about until close to the end of our unit. We had discussed ideas that were very similar to this show before, but we didn't seriously consider it until later - we were glad we did. It is a neat "hook" for students - to see that they have something "meaningful" to work towards, and not just some arbitrary poster/presentation.
The groups that looked at our project liked it a lot - we received many positive comments. One of the difficulties that I had with the unit, however, was coming up with a rubric that allowed all students to succeed, but also allowed the teacher to "mark" students on several different aspects. What happened, in the end, was a self-assessment for the students, and a relatively general one for the teacher. The teacher's was straight forward and addressed the expected outcomes in the curriculum. Looking at the rubric, it is nearly impossible for any student to get "1s" or even "2s."
I believe this unit will be useful in an actual classroom. However, I will probably make a few minor revisions to it, such as, provide websites that are more "kid friendly" (one of the videos we provided were more geared to older students/adults). It would be interesting to see how a unit like this play out in the classroom.