School Violence

a WebQuest for (Contemporary Issues)

by Tony Benzing

Introduction | Task | Resources | Process | Evaluation | Conclusion

Introduction

Your group has been commissioned by the United States Government to evaluate school violence in general and in your particular school. You need to come up with a presentation that will cover all of the points that are outlined in the task section that follows.

The Task

Each group will:

• take a quiz over school violence;
• discuss and summarize their results of the quiz;
• determine how big of a problem school violence is;
• determine if school violence is a growing problem;
• determine if school violence is a problem in our school;
• list several possible causes of school violence;
• list several possible warning signs of school violence;
• list possible solutions to prevent school violence;
• list possible types of punishment for offenders;
• list preventative methods that could be implemented in your particular school;

Resources

• reference library;
• newspapers;
• Time magazine;
• Internet: Listed below are a sample of some of the many websites dealing with school violence:

School Violence Quiz

• http://www.msnbc.com/modules/quizzes/school_violence.asp

SchoolNet Spring 1996 Focus: School Violence Is a National Epidemic

• http://www.schoolnet.org/spr96_epidemic.html

MSNBC - School violence warning signs

• http://www.msnbc.com/modules/quizzes/school_warning_signs.asp

The Colorado School Shootings by All of the Top Cartoonists!

• http://www.cagle.com/news/schoolshooting/

APA HelpCenter: Warning Signs of Teen Violence: Recognizing violence warning signs in others

• http://helping.apa.org/warningsigns/recognizing.html

Why Are Children Killing Children in Our Schools?

• http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3646/skool1.html

Why public school is so bad

• http://bookflash.com/releases/100162.html

Killing Their Childhood

• http://www.fund.org/facts/killing.html

Education webpage

• http://inst.augie.edu/~acthelen/violence.html

Jonesboro murders not related to violence shown on television

• http://collegian.ksu.edu/issues/v102/sp/n122/opinion/opn-dethloff.html

Issues Page: Violence and Safety

• http://www.edweek.org/context/topics/violence.htm

Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 1998 / 98251 / Supplemental Table 7.1--Percentage of public schools reporting one or more incidents of serious violent crime to police, by type of incident, urbanicity, and selected school characteristics: 1996-97

• http://nces.ed.gov/pubs98/safety/tabsp7-1.htm

The Process

1. You will be divided into groups by the teacher; 
2. As a group you will take the school violence quiz and print out the results; (Go back to the first web site and click on it)
3. Your group will discuss the quiz and summarize your opinions;
4. Your group will begin to research the problem of school violence;
5. Your group will decide if school violence is a concern in our school;
6. Your group will also find causes and warning signs of school violence;
7. Your group will have to come up with ideas to prevent school violence;
8. Your group will also have to make some recommendations for punishment for those who commit violent acts at/in school;
9. Your group will have to turn in a written report.
   1. It needs to be four pages typed(double spaced);
   2. It needs to use seven Internet sites;
   3. It needs to use three other sources(other then Internet);
   4. It needs to be a collaborated group effort;
10. Once all of your information has been gathered you need to prepare an oral presentation to be given in class(their may be visitors present);
    1. In your presentation you need to have some visual aides;
    2. Your presentation will timed(min. six min. & max. ten min);

Evaluation

Each person in the group will receive the same grade based on the grading rubric listed below(the total points for the project will equal 200 points).

  

Group Work	0-40 Summary of school violence very short and showed no group collaboration. Group cooperates but tends to get off task, also one or two people are performing most of the work while some group members do not. Group work will be minimal and sometimes late.	41-50 Summary of school violence adequate. Group gets along well and rarely gets off task, everyone seems to be involved but one or two members are slacking; all work is sufficient and turned in on time.	51-60 Summary of school violence well written and worked on by entire group. Group is always on task and everyone is adding to the group. Their work is above the minimum required and is on time.
Written Report	0-50 Numerous mechanical errors and a little late or short. Lacks a sufficient number or variety of sources. One group member clearly did all or most of the work.	51-60 Several mechanical errors but is turned in on time and meets the minimum requirements. Has the required variety and number of sources and completed by a group effort.	61-70 Few mechanical errors, turned in on time and surpasses the minimum requirements in length and sources(incl. a wide variety). End result was definitely a group effort.
Class Presentation	0-50 Presentation is a little short and has weak or no visual aides, one or more members clearly had no input or involvement with the presentation or someone clowns around and hurts presentation.	51-60 Presentation meets minimum time requirements and has several good visual aides, everyone had a role in the presentation but work may have been lopsided. No one detracts from presentation.	61-70 Presentation has great visual aides and is amply long enough(without lengthy time fillers), all group members contributed to the project and made the presentation interesting and informative.

Conclusion

After you have completed all parts of this webquest you will have learned how much information can be found on the Internet about a topic such as school violence. Next, you will have seen some of the different point of views that are out there on this subject. Finally, you will come to a better understanding as to why this type of behavior exists and what some of the warning signs are.

You will also have learned how to work together in a group in order to complete a set of assignments.