School Violence WebQuest
An Internet WebQuest on School Violence

created by Ashlynn Mack, Amanda Lohr, Logan Denning
Dakota State University

Introduction | The Task | The Process | Conclusion |


Introduction
School Violence affects many people. School violence is the name given to the violence occurring in school. History is full of such kind of examples where violent students had created panic in the schools. There had been cases in the past where violent students had killed other students, teachers and principals. You are going to learn about school violence from the viewpoints of parents, students and school staff. Any viewpoints discussed or presented by researchers do not reflect our personal viewpoints directly.

Task
School violence has been an ongoing problem for years. How do we try to put an end to violence in schools?

Process
You will be working together as a group exploring web sites that have been selected. You should start with the pages that are labelled 'Background Information' before dividing into groups. Each group has their own Task to complete and a separate set of web sites to use.

Phase 1 - Background Information
These sites are important because they will provide basic information about the topic as a whole. Everyone should explore these sites thoroughly before starting your Task.


Phase 2 - Roles
These roles were chosen because they each explore and explain different elements and points of views regarding School Violence. Each of you has been assigned a particular role with links and instructions below. Here are the general instructions for all of you. Please see your specific instructions and questions below.

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Each group of students will explore one of the roles below in this WebQuest.

2. Read through the files designated for your group. You can print out pages and underline the parts that you feel are important or cut and paste from the webpage into a word processor.

3. Remember to include the URL of the page you take information from so you can return to it and use it as a citation.

4. Focus what you've learned into one main opinion that answers the Big Quest(ion) or Task.

Parents:

Use the Internet information linked below to answer these questions specifically related to Parents:

1. How does a parent know his/her child is safe in school?

2. What are some warning signs a parent should look for if his/her child is considering school violence as an emotional outlet option?

Students:

Use these links to answer your questions.

1. Why do you think some students resort to school violence while others do not?

2. Do you know what resources you have as a student to discuss school violence?

School Staff:

Use these links to answer the following questions.

1. How do you ensure that all students feel safe and included?

2. How can you take preventative measures to make sure that all students feel they have a significant relationship with at least one person that they can communicate with or talk to within the school district?

3. What are some resources that the school could offer students?


Phase 3 - Reaching Consensus
You have all learned about different parts of School Violence. Now group members come back to the larger WebQuest team with expertise gained by searching from one perspective. You must all now complete the Task as a group. Each of you will bring a certain viewpoint to the answer: some of you will agree and others disagree. Use information, pictures, movies, facts, opinions, etc. from the web sites you explored to convince your teammates that your viewpoint is important and should be part of your team's response. Your WebQuest team should write out an answer that everyone on the team can live with.

Conclusion
So is an elephant smooth, rough, soft, or hard? Well, when you're blindfolded and only *looking* at one part, it's easy to come up with an answer that may not be completely right. It's the same for understanding a topic as broad or complex as School Violence: when you only know part of the picture, you only know part of the picture. Now you all know a lot more. Nice work. You should be proud of yourselves! How can you use what you've learned to see beyond the black and white of a topic and into the grayer areas? What other parts of School Violence could still be explored? Remember, learning never stops.

created by Filamentality Content by Ashlynn Mack, Amanda Lohr, Logan Denning, anmack@pluto.dsu.edu
http://www.kn.att.com/wired/fil/pages/webschoolvas.html
Last revised Tue Nov 2 11:04:37 US/Pacific 2010