What I loved about this particular Big Question was that when the students began to look for information, they typed in the question and the results were not very helpful. They were quickly frustrated, but soon realized that they needed to think of the question in a different way. They began asking questions about where water come from. They immediately found information about the water cycle and were soon taking many notes on the subject. To show what they had learned, I had them create posters. I made three interesting observations while they were working on their posters. The one student in my class who is exceptionally verbal chose to do the drawing for his group's poster. Drawing is not something he has ever been comfortable with and I was surprised that he chose that task. The second interesting observation was that the one group who seemed the least interested in the big question and chose not to use all of the allotted time to research, appeared to be re-energized when they began working on the poster. Finally, I realized that letting my students do things in their own way is very difficult for me. The noise level in the class room was very high, but as I walked around between the groups, they all were focused and excited about what they were doing. I gave them a time limit to complete the posters in hope that it would keep them focused on the task at hand. It did indeed keep them focused, but also increased the energy level of the classroom. Noise does not have to mean not working.
I have included below pictures of the students at work and their finish posters.
What a great Big Question! Allowing them to choose their own way of doing it is something that I think we need to get used to. They really do own the learning! Great project!
ReplyDeleteThanks, I would be curious to see what the middle school students could do with this. I would gladly help you set one up if you are interested.
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