For our current science unit on Astronomy, I decided to restructure how I was going to teach by focusing on inquiry and now that we are a 1:1 classroom, we had all of the tools and resources available to be able to do this effectively. My goal was to provide my students with more opportunities to explore and create.
As a team we decided on 4 main topics to focus this unit on: phases of the moon, stars and constellations, seasons, and planets. I created mini lessons on these four topics focusing on the basics that I wanted my students to learn. After I taught each lesson I allowed time for my students to generate lists of questions that they wanted to explore more about within each topic. They then decided who to work with, what they were going to do to learn more about their question, and what they were going to create to demonstrate what they learned.
After the group or individual created a digital project, we made a QR code for it and added it to a bulletin board. My intention of creating the bulletin board was to allow my students a place to display their digital work and provide them with the opportunity to teach other students more about space. The projects ranged from a simple paragraph about the moon phases to a movie about 3 students’ journey to the moon. I also had students create poems, new casts, voice recordings, comic strips, and presentations. For Deerfield families and teachers, here are links to some of the projects that were created (make sure you are logged into your dps109 Google account to view the projects.)
I then created a Google Form for students to fill out as they viewed the other students’ projects. This provided accountability and a chance to reflect on what they learned from the other students. I shared the responses with my students so that they could view what other students were learning from them and the comments and suggestions they had about the project.
The overall consensus from my class about this unit was, “Inquiry makes learning so much more fun!” They really enjoyed being able to explore topics that they were interested in and having the opportunity to become teachers. I even had students working on their projects during indoor recess and at home during their “free time.” We love inquiry!
No comments:
Post a Comment