An example of the STAR Legacy Model

I realized after watching this week's presentation and reading the Swartz document that I have actually implemented this learning module in one of my classes. In fact, I'll tell you, it was a class that my taught the first year as a formal classroom teacher and it was a class that I "inherited" from another teacher - so it was not a class that I developed. As a result, I sort of had to create the content and piece it together as we went along in the semester. So, what I ended up doing was as follows:

The subject was Computer Networking and we were using actual routers and servers in the classroom to give the students the opportunity to "touch" what they were learning about. I decided that once the students learned about data communications, computer networking, routing, and other foundational knowledge, that I would give them the task of setting up a working computer network in our class using the provided equipment. So this was step 1 of the STAR Legacy model - presentation of the problem.
Steps 2 and 3 were also completed during this project - the students had to continue to research how computers communicated and how routers were implemented in networking. They had to research and learn how to configure the routers so they would function in the way expected. They started with assessing their skills and knowledge, determining what they needed to learn, and then set out to learn what they needed.
After the research was complete they set up and configured the network and troubleshooted until it was correct.
Steps 4 and 5 -
Their assessment and reflection was two-fold:
1 - they had to write a wiki with the purpose of documenting what they did and also documenting for future students what computer networking is (if you'd like to take a look here's the link: http://danotwork.pbwiki.com/)
2 - they had to present their wiki and network to a group of teachers; each teacher representing a different expert content area. so, essentially, they presented their final product to a panel of experts.

I think this project is the spirit of the STAR model: the students collaborated, shared, communicated with content experts, and left a legacy to future students.