May
13
Learning moments
Posted by: Natasha Chiang | May 13, 2013 | Leave a Comment
I have been guiding my students to have inquiring minds. I am learning to plan less activities, and more meaningful spaces for students to fill up with their own wondering and thinking.
During Math today all I had were 3D blocks and geometric objects. We spent half an hour exploring the parts of a 3D shape and all the ways we can sort them into groups. The students started taking charge of their own learning and asking interesting questions such as, “Why do 3D movies not work if the glasses aren’t on?” “Why is the core of the Earth the balance?” “What is the core of the universe?” “Where do we put cones, spheres, and semi- spheres?”
Our science lesson was an extension of our inquiry placemats activities from last week. I typed up all the questions that they had about interesting plants. Students chose one or two to focus on, to find out information for the rest of the class. I pulled books from the library to have a little collection of all the books that have to do with our topic. I also found many magazine articles from EBSCO Kids through our district library resource website. Still, there was not enough material for every student to look through. This lead into a teachable moment when I revealed to them that there are many, many answers for one question, and that the answer does not reside in me, nor simply in books, nor simply in technology. Research is hard, and I encouraged them not to abandon their question just because they were stuck. I modelled for them how to gather information, and by the end of the lesson everyone had a sheet full of facts gathered about their question.