MOST Environments

Immediate reaction- MOST is WORK. This method would be extremely time-consuming to transfer to a completely web-based format. Also as a high school teacher I see this being most helpful with younger students but I can see some situations where it could be applicable to secondary students. In the high school setting I could see it being useful with advanced or technical vocabulary but obviously this was a system developed primarily for young and at-risk youth. Another way I can see components of this method being used is as a replacement for field trips or real world experiences, however I think that would be counter-productive as well....

STAR Legacy Module

The STAR Legacy module is a good tool to use if you can find some of these resources already made. My limited experience with STAR is that is it, like anchored instruction and a lot of the other methods we've discussed, takes quite a bit of time to develop and often the time required of the students to complete the assignment doesn't always mesh with the time required of the instructor to create it. Of course all of this is dependent on how many times a certain lesson/module will be used. Where for a teacher who only teaches one section of a course a year the time may not be justifiable a teacher teaching six sections of a course per year might find it to be worthwhile. Again I am in favor of any method that forces students to think about what they have done and reflect on their work and the wrap-up stage of the STAR Legacy method does that. I also think this is one of the methods that lends itself more to a web-based format than some of the others and is probably actually easier to teach/use in a web-based format.

Finally the one thing I am most thankful for out of this unit is the title- context based instruction. Everyday (well almost) I have students come to me and ask how something they "learned" in another class is going to be applicable in the real-world. The question I ask myself as I answer (or try to do so anyway) them is "Why am I the one telling them this? Shouldn't their teacher be showing them the real-world context?"