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National Institutes of Health
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
National Center on Sleep Disorders Research
Main Getting Started Teacher's Guide Student Activities About NIH and NHLBI
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The Sleep, Sleep Disorders, and Biological Rhythms Web site is a tool, like an overhead projector or a textbook, that can help you organize your use of the module, engage student interest in learning, and orchestrate and individualize instruction. The Web site features a database and simulations that relate to three of the module’s lessons.
The Web site can be accessed from Apple Macintosh and IBM-compatible personal computers. Links to download the Macromedia Flash and QuickTime Player plug-ins are provided on the Web site main page. The minimum hardware and software requirements to use the Web site are listed in the table below.
To access the Web site, type the following URL into your browser: http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/sleep/teacher.
| CPU/Processor (PC Intel, Mac) | Pentium 333 MHz, Power PC or faster |
| Operating system (DOS/Windows, Mac OS) | Windows 95/98/2000 or Mac OS 7 |
| System memory (RAM) | 64 MB or more |
| Screen display | 800 x 600, 16 bit (65K colors) |
| Browser | Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 or Netscape Communicator 4.75 and higher |
| Browser settings | JavaScript enabled |
| Free hard drive space | 10 MB |
| Connection speed | 56 kbps |
| Plug-ins | Macromedia Flash Player (version 6 and higher) and QuickTime Player (version 5 and higher) |
| Audio | Sound card with speakers |
Before you use this Web site, or any other piece of instructional software in your classroom, it may be valuable to identify some of the benefits you expect it to provide. Well-designed instructional multimedia software can
The ideal use of the Web site requires one computer for each student team. However, if you have only one computer available, you can still use the Web site (for example, by using a suitable device for projecting the screen image, or by rotating student teams through the computer station to access the Web resources). If you do not have the facilities for using the Web site with your students, you can use the print-based alternative provided for those lessons.
Many of the activities in the lessons are designed to be completed by teams of students working together. Although individual students working alone can complete these activities, this strategy will not stimulate the types of student-student interactions that are one of the goals of active, collaborative, inquiry-based learning. Therefore, we recommend that you organize collaborative teams of two to four students each, depending on the number of computers available. Students in groups larger than this will have difficulty organizing the student-computer interactions equitably, which can lead to one or two students’ assuming the primary responsibility for the computer-based work. Although this type of arrangement can be efficient, it means that some students do not get the opportunity to experience the in-depth discovery and analysis that the Web site was designed to stimulate.
We recommend that you keep your students in the same collaborative teams for all the activities in the lessons. This will allow each team to develop a shared experience with the Web site and with the ideas and issues that the activities present. A shared experience will also enhance your students’ perceptions of the lessons as a conceptual whole.
If your student-to-computer ratio is greater than four students to one computer, then you will need to change the way you teach the module from the instructions in the lessons. For example, if you have only one computer available, you may want students to complete the Web-based work across an extended time period. You can do this in several ways. The most practical way is to use your computer as a center along with several other centers at which students complete other activities. In this approach, students rotate through the computer center, eventually completing the Web-based work you have assigned.
A second way to structure the lessons if you only have one computer available is to use a projection system to display the computer monitor onto a screen for the whole class to view. Giving selected students the opportunity to manipulate the Web activities in response to suggestions from the class can give students some of the same type of autonomy in their learning that they would gain from working in small teams.
The Office of Science Education (OSE) is committed to providing access to the Curriculum Supplement Series for individuals with disabilities, including members of the public and federal employees. To meet this commitment, we will comply with the requirements of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. Section 508 requires that individuals with disabilities who are members of the public seeking these materials will have access to and use of information and data that are comparable to those provided to members of the public who are not individuals with disabilities. The online versions of this series have been prepared to comply with Section 508.
If you use assistive technology (such as a Braille reader or a screen reader) and the format of any material on our Web sites interferes with your ability to access the information, please use the following points of contact for assistance. To enable us to respond in a manner most helpful to you, please indicate the nature of your accessibility problem, the format in which you would prefer to receive the material, the Web address of the requested material, and your contact information.
Contact us at
Curriculum Supplement Series
Office of Science Education
National Institutes of Health
6100 Executive Blvd., Suite 3E01 MSC 7520
Bethesda, MD 20892-7520
ose@science.education.nih.gov
| Lesson, activity |
For students with hearing impairment | For students with sight impairment | ||
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| Lesson 1, Activity 2: Sleep Diary |
No special considerations are required. | Students must proceed through a three-page form in the Enter Sleep Data section. The form has been set up so that a student using a screen reader can access the form. If using a screen magnifier, be aware that the Enter Sleep Data form has long selection fields that may extend beyond the range of the magnifier. Also, an alert pops up if a field is left blank. This alert may be beyond the current range of the screen magnifier. Supervision is recommended. |
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| Lesson 2, Houston, We Have a Problem |
Students may click on the closed-captioning icon (below) to view the captioning for the activity’s introduction.
The icon is located in the top left corner of the animation after it begins playing. The text appears below the animation. |
Using a screen reader, students will listen to a short introduction to the activity and then hear instructions on how to proceed. To complete the activity, students use alternate text descriptions to evaluate physiologic data and determine whether the three astronauts are asleep or awake. The astronauts can be evaluated in any order. Note: Students using a screen magnifier may prefer the original version of the activity. After the introduction, students can press a button to proceed to the original version of the activity. |
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| Lesson 3, Activity 2: Sleepiness Scale, Introduction to Rhythms |
No special considerations are required. | The tabular report data entered in “Lesson 1— What Is Sleep?” have been designed to be accessible with a screen reader. No adjustment to the procedure is necessary. |
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Next: Information about Sleep
