EMILY MACLEAN
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Resources
  • About
  • Connect
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Resources
  • About
  • Connect

Starting with the Big Concepts, Asking Smaller Questions

1/31/2015

0 Comments

 
​My students were beyond thrilled when I told them they could create online sites for our entire unit of inquiry this time around. After discussing our central idea, key concepts and transdisciplinary skills to give my students a general overview of what the unit of inquiry we were supposed to be learning about was supposed to be studying, I did the unthinkable for most students.

I gave the students a document with what would be on their report card for Unit 4...word for word. To the shock and amazement of my students, I pushed it even further. I told them they would be marking themselves and those would be the marks they get on their report card for the most part. Unless I saw something that was different then they did, I would use what they had given themselves. I don't know if I've ever seen my students so speechless. I've had them self-evaluate before but knowing they were completely in the driver's seat wasn't what they were used to.

I thought it was only fair they knew what they had to be 'assessed' on if they were creating the course. In order for them to succeed, they needed to be able to extract the big ideas or concepts that they would need to cover in their course. Essentially these would create their different lessons/sessions/levels. Each group was given a piece of chart paper and asked to think about what those big concepts might be. I suggested they read through their lines of inquiry, central idea and assessment sheet again to figure out what they should be focusing on. They could be as big or small as they felt necessary to be considered it's own lesson.

From there, we discussed as a class some of the bigger ones that popped out frequently on the different pages. We also discussed that some topics could be combined to create one lesson with more detail. After that discussion, students were given time to discuss which lessons they wanted as part of their course and circled them.

After that it was important for the students to order the lessons in a way that made logical sense. As a class, we discussed how you can't have a lesson about something more specific if you haven't had a general overview and that you had to be strategic in the way your order your course. 

Whenever students take notes for research, I let them do it whichever way makes the most sense to them. This time around I wanted to add another strategy to their repertoire that they could choose from. In a Google Document, the student would make a  table with the first row being the different lessons by the concept in the correct order from left to right. Then in the columns underneath each level, students could write down all of the questions they think they might need to find out to be successful. It was important to discuss with the students that they could come back to this list and add more questions to the chart at any time. Sometimes what you are reading while researching prompts you for another question and the students are encouraged to include it in the document. This method of recording information is not fixed and is able to be changed and modified at any time.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    August 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014

    Categories

    All
    21CenturyLearning
    ACARA
    Accountabilitty
    Action
    Assessment
    AUP
    Beliefs
    Capacity
    Caring
    Challenge
    Change
    Classroom Management
    Coaching
    Code Of Conduct
    Collaboration
    Communciation
    Community
    Connections
    Connectivism
    Constructivism
    Creating
    Creative Commons
    Curriculum
    Design
    Digital
    Digital Citizenship
    Digital Literacy
    Distance Education
    Documentation
    EdLeaders
    Education
    EMT503
    EMT504
    ERR501
    ESA501
    ESA513
    ESC515
    ESC516
    Excursion
    Game Based Learning
    Gamification
    Gender
    Global Connections
    Google
    Gratitude
    #gratitude #positiveeducation
    Growth
    Growth Mindset
    Holistic
    Innovation
    Inquiry
    Inspiration
    IWB
    Labels
    Leadership
    Learning
    Literacy
    Mandarin
    Mathematics
    Mindfulness
    Mistakes
    Motivation
    Music
    Online
    Parents
    Passion
    Pastoral
    Pedagogy
    Perserverence
    Perspective
    Plagarism
    PLN
    Portfolios
    Positive Education
    Positive Leadership
    Presenting
    Privilege
    Professional Development
    Professional Learning
    Provocation
    Public Speaking
    PYP
    Reflect
    Reflection
    Relationships
    Research
    Responsibility
    Risktaker
    SAMR
    Sharing
    Skills
    Social Media
    Student Agency
    Teaching
    Technology
    TPACK
    Transformation
    Typing
    Values
    Websites
    Wellbeing
    Writing

    RSS Feed

    Tweets by @msemilymaclean
© COPYRIGHT 2021  EMILY MACLEAN.​ ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.