Major Learning Activities

As of September 30, 2005, the North Central Regional Technology in Education Consortium is no longer in operation.

Major Learning Activities

Steps to Designing and Implementing a Viewing Guide in the Classroom

Establish your content knowledge. Decide what information you want your students to acquire from the picture.
Identify the pictures that contain the information and concepts that you want the students to view. Picture databases on the Internet have a wealth of sources, such as The Amazing Picture Machine and Lycos.
Reflect on the relationships between the content objective and the ideas presented in the pictures.
As the connections come to mind, describe them in words or declarative statements. Make a list of your results.
Write directions appropriate to the format, task, and purpose.
Distribute the guides to the students in small group settings (four or five students per group). The students can either (1) Complete the guide together in small groups or (2) Complete the guide separately, then discuss responses and evidence together.
The teacher moves from group to group as students are involved in their discussions in order to evaluate the students' comprehension of the data in the pictures. The teacher's role is to listen to the students give their reasons for the choices they make in the small group discussions.
When the small group discussions have stopped, the teacher brings the entire class together. It is not necessary for the teacher to go through all of the statements or words that are contained in the viewing guide with the whole class. The teacher may want to choose two or three statements or words that were causing problems within the small groups or go over areas that are most important to the understanding of the content knowledge. This full class discussion gives students the opportunity to show the entire class what they have learned. It also gives the teacher a chance to acknowledge the quality of learning that can be accomplished by using nonprint content material.

Below are two examples of a viewing guide.

Lesson 1: The Civil War (high school U.S. history class)

Picture of Battle Scene (http://www.mega-site.com/shenandoah/images/kunstler/cloudsl.jpg)

Directions: Below are a list of seven statements. Each may have something to do with the picture of the battle scene shown above. If you think that a statement does have some link with the picture, please place a check on the numbered line. Be prepared to give reasons to support your choices.

_____1. War is a test of values; the stronger the two sides believe in their causes, the harder they will fight.

_____2. Might makes right.

_____3. The conflict that caused the Civil War could not have been resolved by compromise.

_____4. Those who fight in war should be honored as heroes

_____5. The memories of war are never forgotten.

_____6. People seem not to learn from the past; thus there will continue to be wars.

_____7. War brings rebirth as well as destruction.

Picture of a Rollercoaster Ride (http://www.rollercoaster.org/Rollercoaster!/quest/texascyclone.html)

Lesson 2: Motion (middle school science class)

Directions: Listed below are 14 words. Each word may have something to do with the picture of the rollercoaster ride. If you think that a word has some connection to details in the picture or to the picture as a whole, place a check on the numbered line. Be ready to give reasons to support you choices.

_____1. speed
_____2. force
_____3. direction
_____4. friction
_____5. curves
_____6. straight lines
_____7. risky
_____8. descend
_____9. motion
_____10. objects
_____11. fun
_____12. rise
_____13. gravity
_____14. terrifying

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