Organization Techniques

Every good investigator is adamant about recording every pertinent detail. There are several ways to record data collected. Here are a few suggestions:

  • Use flowcharts
  • Summary tables
  • Concept maps
  • Form a checklist of questions or things that you notice or think about.
  • As a team, find out about the background knowledge that you need to develop your project.
  • Decide on which author-s each group will become an "expert". Depending on that, you will be able to decide about the rest of roles you have to develop.
  • Individually, conduct your research on the part that you have chosen .
  • As a team, share/compare/contrast the information you have compiled up to now.
    Use a table or mind-map to help you.
  • Remember that the organization expert should have all the group documents under control. It would be better if he/she used a portfolio.
  • Decide what information you want to convey in your PowerPoint/Dreamweaver presentation.
  • Make a guideline/storyboard of your presentation. Include the props and words that you will use to inform your audience about the data.

    Remember, your audience is other secondary school students, like yourselves.

  • Go over your draft with your teacher.

  • Prepare your multimedia presentation.

    Be sure to use clear and meaningful information and expose it with a clear voice.

  • Write a group explanation of the process.

    •  Who was the expert of which author/setting/investigator?

    •  What did the group do?

    •  Where did you do the work?

    •  When did you do the work? How often did you meet?

    •  Why did you choose the points that you did to include in the presentation?

    Add anything else that will help the teacher know how much effort you put into this project.

  • As you conduct research jot down all important facts and interesting pieces of information so as to prepare your portfolio.

  • Portfolio

    In education a portfolio (student) is "a systematic and organized collection of evidence used by the teacher and student to monitor growth of the students's knowledge, skills and attitudes... Portfolios must contain the artifacts of students' progress, as well as their reflections on both their learning and the chosen artifacts."
    (Cole, Donna J. (1990). Portfolios across the curriculum and beyond .)

    Thus a portfolio refers to a personal collection of information describing and documenting a person's achievements and learning.

    We can now picture portfolios as members of an extended family of "personal documents" which includes journals, scrapbooks, resumes, and various types of portfolios. Over the years these types of personal documents have changed. There are new audiences and new formats and new ways of sharing information.

    A portfolio is not only a folder of graded work which is reviewed at the end of a grading period. Its production involves much more than putting artifacts in a binder; it also requires "tough thinking."

    Portfolios offer their greatest promise when they are used to help students engage in a meaningful self-assessment of their own talents, learning, goals, and accomplishments.

    The primary purpose of a student portfolio is to demonstrate what has been learned in a given class or across a certain part of your school career. Your portfolio might include samples of a process or procedure you have mastered, an effort you have made, or specific knowledge or skills you have acquired.

  • Look at the following list and consider. These are the items minimally needed.
    1. Cover
    2. Title page
    3. Acknowledgments
    4. Table of contents
    5. Introduction or overview
    6. Page number or other navigating system for accessing samples.
    7. Conclusion or reflection statement.