Sept 5
I am loving my course work! (Okay, it’s day two… but still… #nerd)
In an article by Kathy Short on “Inquiry as a stance in Curriculum”:
“Vygotsky argues that the most conductive space for learning is defined by what can be learned with the support of collaborative others. This space is located between the point of what learners can already do independently and the point at which they can only function if someone takes over the task for them.”
Side note: I have been very fortunate to have grown up in an inquiry-nurturing environment. For example, I can remember, back when I might have been about 4 or 5, questioning whether shampoo made more bubbles if you hair was dirty or clean. My hypothesis was that if your hair was dirty the shampoo made lots of bubbles because bubbles were the product of the cleaning process. So my dad suggested I wash my hair once when it was dirty and to take note of the amount of bubbles, then wash it again when it was clean and compare the amount of bubbles to find out if I was correct.
I was not.
Therefore, my new hypothesis is that if your hair is clean, the shampoo has nothing to do but become bubbles.
While reading this article by Kathy Short I look back on that, any many more, experience(s) I had that fit into the space between what I could do independently and what I wouldn’t have been able to do at all. Taking those experiences into account I am now thinking of ways to expand my future student’s inquiries into that “zone of learning”, let’s say. How does a teacher get students into that zone? Well, later in the article it mentions asking students what they know now and what they want to know about something they have seen or been wondering about.
I think in my practicum I will try that out. Have a time at the beginning of class where the students come in with inquiries and write down:
Inquiry Topic:
What I know now:
What I want to know:
Where I can get more information:
For example:
Inquiry Topic: The connecting section of an articulated bus
What I know now: The middle section rotates as the bus moves in any direction. There are seats that people can sit in that are placed over the rotating section. There is some kind of black rubber circle guard that rotates alongside the section that protects people’s feet from getting pinched.
What I want to know: How does the mechanics work so that the middle of the articulated busses can have seats people can sit in?
Where I can get more information: Vehicle Manual (if I can find one), Internet, People I know
Then we might follow up the next day with:
What I learned from my inquiry:
For example:
What I learned from my Inquiry: Starting with trusty-old (not!) Wikipedia, I discovered that articulated busses usually have a leading section with two axels with a rear section that only has one axel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articulated_bus). The driving axel can be mounted either on the front or rear section with some models having an axel in the rear turn opposite to the driving axel to allow for ease of negotiating turns. And the most surprising thing is that I discovered that there is a bus model that has TWO articulating sections and can get up to 80 feet long. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi-articulated_bus) It’s basically a mini train. From that page I discovered an “Ask Engineers” Reddit page (https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEngineers/comments/3wpn6b/how_do_bendy_buses_work/) that led me to this wonderful page: https://www.hubner-group.com/en/Articulation+Systems-path-1,3144,3150.html
Which shows different models of articulation systems. From looking at the pictures, my hypothesis is that that one end is attached/a part of the front section with the rear section rotating around it. Therefore the seating in the articulated portion moves with the front section of the bus, and the rear end rotates around it. So if a person sits in the articulated portion’s seats, they will have the same movement orientation as the front of the bus and not the back when going around corners.
Okay, wow. I really ran with that. Back to course readings for me!
Update!! (Sept 11)
On the bus home today I was able to observe whether or not the articulating section moved with the front or back of the bus… my hypothesis was correct: the articulating part is fixed to the front of the bus while the back portion/section rotates around it.
