big idea – discovery

Developing Inquiring Minds

Tomorrow our class is taking a class field trip to Water #10, which is an art sculpture near Aberdeen Station on River Road. We will be exploring what “Interdependence” feels and looks like, through our unit study on Plants and Growth.

(photo from VB Learn)

“The idea is for the teacher to ask more questions to stimulate thoughts and share their ideas. It is important to encourage no right or wrong answers and someone’s ideas can lead to new ideas and thoughts. Do not give them answers and let them come through with the answers – it may take longer but it would engage students and develop inquiring minds.”

— Katherine Tong from Vancouver Biennale

It is very exciting for the students to look forward to this walking field trip, but I am also curious about the students’ participation tomorrow. It is a little frightening at first, to let the students take charge of their own learning. The fear is that they will “get off topic” or “not have the relevant ideas”. But when I think critically about my teaching practice, I realize that it isn’t possible to ‘get off topic’ if the topic is where the students direct the conversation. When the idea is a BIG IDEA, any of the students’ connections and inquiries will likely fall under the BIG IDEA. I want the students to understand the importance of interdependence in Nature, and to begin to appreciate the complexity of a balance as created through inter-dependency. In our exploration of the space, and of our own bodies and representations of what it means to grow and depend on each other (humans and nature, communities), I am positive that the students will have a meaningful learning experience.

authentic learning

This week I am feeling more confident in my role as the classroom teacher in my practicum classroom. We have covered much of our science curriculum in the month of April, and we are easing into a classroom newsroom experience for our language arts unit. I am now shifting my role from “the sage on the stage” to “the guide on the side”.

Today I planned an inquiry based lesson, where I took the students out to feel and capture the essence of a tree bark onto a piece of brown construction paper. We went outside and did some bark markings off a cluster of trees on our playground.

The students asked interesting questions such as, “Why is there moss growing on the tree?” “Why does moss grow on my ceiling too?” “Why is there sticky brown stuff on the bark?” “Why are there white marks on the tree bark?” “Why are there tree mussels on the trees?” “Why is the root such a big bump?” “Why do plants grow on this tree but not the other?” They also noticed some things such as the smoothness of the inside of a tree compared to the roughness of the outside bark. I reminded them that living things grow together, and depend on each other. We keep coming back to our big word, “interdependency”. One girl remarked, “These things all live together in the tree, and the trees hold hands, and that is interdependency.”