Monday, June 23, 2014
Discovery!
Why do children come to school when they can learn anything they need to from home? Well some do stay home and learn, and that is ok. Children need to be in an environment with their peers and discover things with them. They need to learn from each other (yes, children their own age) and from other adults. They need variety, a safe place to grow, and a nurturing environment. In my first grade classroom we will be using a lot of technology to discover new and exciting things. I will hopefully open my student's minds up to the world of learning around them. I want to incorporate the engaging principles of technology as I do so. Inquiry learning to me means that children want to know something, so I give them guidelines and tools and they discover it.
As I think about my mini-lessons I am little overwhelmed. I do know that technology will be in every lesson. For one of the lessons I will definitely have my students using the curated list of plagiarism tools. I would also like to do an activity where they are putting together their own inquiry-based curated list of information, but maybe have a Wordle-type thing to tie it all in together. They could do a project on something science related, like seasons. We study those early on in first grade. The third project could be related to social studies when they study where they are on the map. It could be a lesson on culture where they have to look up information on Galileo for kids. Then they could use a Web 2.0 tool to create a presentation to show what they found. I'm sure that my ideas will change five times before I finally finish the mini-lessons, but that's the life of a teacher, right? :)
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I'm glad to know that I am not the only person who is overwhelmed with my mini-lessons. I do like that we have blogs that we can post about them and get insights from others. Maybe you could incorporate the weather in different regions for each season. I have never taught elementary school, but will first graders be able to work on a curated list with websites? I'm sure they are more technological advanced than I am. I can't wait to work with younger ones next year at my new job!!
ReplyDeleteSarah,
ReplyDeleteI liked your ideas of why kids come to school. I feel that a big part of school is that kids have the opportunity to learn from one another. Last year I had ESL students and truly I did not teach them English the other kindergarten students in the class did each day. I know kids can learn anything on the internet but learning to work with other kids and learning to collaborate in person at a young age is important.
I also understand your feelings about your mini lessons. Mine are running through my head and I honestly don't know where to start.
Thank you for sharing your ideas,
Leslie
In your definition for inquiry learning you said the words “children want to know something,” and I really feel that you nailed it with that statement. I go back to the article about Letting Go, and I think that we as teachers have to let go of the control and act as facilitators for this type of learning to occur.
ReplyDeleteYour lesson ideas are really sound. I completely agree with the fact that our lesson plans will change many times, but being a teacher for twenty years I can tell you that sometimes the best lessons occur when your are flying by the seat of your pants and you allow for teachable moments when the students are really interested in a topic. Sometimes what you are teaching leads down another road and that is the road we need to take for that particular group of kids.