About the time I think I have it all figured out, around swirls the drain and I think "Oops, I forgot that!"
I am absolutely loving the book that we are reading for LIBM409. In fact, I've already recommended it to another teacher friend I have who thinks like that.
It's not a totally open ended project, but definitely along the lines of student independence, and something of value to them.
She had a mentor group of students earlier this year, for a short time, whom she wouldn't be grading, but she wanted something of value to them, not just some busy work to pass the time. She contacted me, and we set up a debate. They chose the issue, then we flipped a coin on Google Hangouts during her class time, and chose sides.
We shared resources back and forth about how to run a debate, how the format looks, what the scoring rubrics are like, what pieces judges need to see (neither of us had any experience with debate prior to this). Each group researched and built their arguments, and we met again on Google Hangouts about a week later. There were some technical difficulties, but the amount of effort and polish that both sets of kids came up with was impressive, and they did a great job. We were both very impressed.
This is the kind of thing I see an innovative type class doing, technological/cross-country sharing with other groups.
I plan to put this into place next year, and I am already excited about the possibilities. I've already had one ask about going before the town council to petition them to allow chickens. That would be a fantastic project to let one or more of them explore and address.
No comments:
Post a Comment