On this page, you will find links to my ILT projects, a brief description of each site, as well as links to the progress report for each project presented.
**Note: Please see the competency page for a brief description of how each ILT competency was met. More detailed information on the competencies can be found within each project report included on this page.**
Mrs. Lychock's Class Web Site
Link to Web Site
This is the first Web site that I created! (My, how things have changed!) I used this site throughout the school year as a resource for my students. It served many purposes from replacing my make-up book to posting grading sheets and descriptions for projects.
The following were the objectives of this site:
1)The user will be able to learn background information about the qualifications of his/her teacher.
2)The user will be able to find the district foreign language standards posted on the web site and will therefore be aware of what he/she should be learning in my class.
3) The user will be able to access a page specifically designed for his/her level. On this page he/she will be able to: see a calendar detailing class activities for each day, look up homework assignments for each day, find project/paper descriptions and requirements, find due dates for homework and projects and access a class syllabus with classroom rules and expectations.
The Web site this year was very successful. I learned a great deal about what my students thought went well and which aspects of the site they believed needed work through a survey I had them complete at the end of the school year (click here to see my survey). About 72% of my students said that they had used the site in the last year, mainly to check on assignments and print out rubrics/project descriptions. Since so many of them found it so valuable, I plan on using it again next year.
Link to Project Report
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ThunderRidge High School Foreign Language Department Web Site
Link to Web site
This site was created in the fall of 2004 to serve a number of different purposes for our department during the school year. It was a wonderful project for me since I was able to collaborate with my department members in order to determine what information needed to be included in the site. It went through many changes due to their helpful feedback.
The objectives of this web site were:
1) To communicate with our parents about proficiency tests
2) To post teacher information
3) To supply our students with helpful study links in both Spanish and French. Our district standards are also posted on the site as well.
The post-tests that were given to my students about their knowledge of proficiency tests demonstrated a 70% increase in scores with comparison to the pre-tests. I also received a great deal of positive feedback from our parents, our administration and my department. We plan to use the site again next year and to continue to add to our study tip pages. The collaboration with parents, administration and other teachers was the most rewarding and effective part of this project.
Link to Project Report
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Action Research Project-How to Best Use Clickers on Formal Assessments
Link to Web Site
For my action research project, I chose to research how to best use clickers for formal assessments and how to prevent/deter academic dishonesty while using clickers in the classroom. I also worked collaboratively with three other ILT students who were also researching clickers. Once you get to our site, you will need to click on the last button on the right of the clicker graphic to see my research. The Action Research Report serves as my project report for this ILT project.
The objectives of my study were:
1) Determine how clickers compared with more traditional forms of formal assessment
2) Find out what other testing formats are available with in the CPS (Classroom Performance Systems) software
3) Determine how to ask higher order thinking questions in a multiple choice format
4) Learn how to deter academic dishonesty while using the clickers for formal assessments
This action research project was a very successful way for me to evaluate the systems and solve a number of problems I was experiencing in my classroom while using them. It was also a rewarding experience to work with other ILT students to coordinate our research on clicker systems. The knowledge that I gained from this project will be put to use not only in my classroom, but in the classrooms of those teachers that I am training to use the systems as well.
Click here to download a pdf version of my Action Research Report
Click here to see the one page summary of my research and results
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Independent Study-Leading Staff Development of CPS
Link to Web site
Due to my growing interest in and use of clickers, I led various staff development projects and trainings during the 2004-2005 school year in order to encourage their implementation at ThunderRidge. In order to accomplish this, I created an Instructional Design Project that I followed last year.
The objectives of this project were:
1) Acquire a CPS system for trial use and introduction to my staff from eInstruction
2) Learn how to use and operate the CPS software
3) Demonstrate the software and its objectives to the ThunderRidge staff during an in-service training
4) Lead individual training of teachers in my department and observe their use of clickers in their classrooms
5) Attend workshops to further my knowledge about the clicker software capabilities as well as assessment techniques
6) Create a Web site that staff will be able to use to help them get started with clicker systems in their own classrooms
This experience was unique for me in that it was the first time I had taught other teachers while using technology. I really enjoyed leading the training sessions and observing other teachers who were using the systems. This project also allowed me to connect to a larger group of teachers who use clickers from across the metro area while attending workshops to advance my skills.
Link to Project Report
Link to In-Service Power Point
Link to In-Service Agenda
Link to the Time Log of my Project
Link to the Summary of Teacher Observations
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Spanish Artists WebQuest
Link to Web site
This WebQuest was created after I noticed that my students were not doing a very good job at critically thinking about culture while doing their culture projects in my class. This Web site has the students connect art to politics and history as well as learning more biographical "facts" about each author. Using this WebQuest forced my students to think more critically about art and to draw connections between different aspects of Spanish culture.
The following are the learner objectives for the lesson:
1) Students will learn how to research using the Internet as a resource
2) Students will synthesize information about different artists from Spain, including historical, political, biographical and descriptions of various art work, and use that information to compare and contrast the effects each of the artist had/has on Spanish culture
3) Students will analyze the different artists in order to choose one of the four artists as the one who best represents Spain
4) Students will prepare a written proposal defending their choice using the historical, political, biographical and artistic lenses as proof. They will use comparisons and contrasts to the other artists as well to defend their position
5) Students will present their findings to the class using some sort of multimedia as a visual aide
Using this project in place of my normal culture projects was a much more thorough way to have my students analyze art and then connect it to other aspects of culture. My students really enjoyed using the blogs to share information and found the competition aspect of the web quest to be especially motivating.
**Note: The links to the yahoo! groups on the share and compare page no longer work as those groups have expired. I will recreate the groups next time I use them in my classes.
Link to Project Report
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Site created by Kiffany Lychock and last updated on July 8th, 2005.
Questions or comments: Kiffany.Lychock@dcsdk12.org
