Group 1 Inquiry: What season is it?
Inquiry Day One!
In school, I had always found inquiry lesson to be the most fun. I mainly remember the lessons I had done through middle school and high school, but I remember doing problem-solving lessons earlier than that. I really enjoy problem-solving and trying to figure out the solution to a problem. I find it very satisfying to find the right answer after doing hard work to test my hypothesis. I think an inquiry lesson is what really gets the students to understand the material. Sure, the students can memorize facts they learn in a direct instruction, but an inquiry lesson is where the students' learning comes to life.
Group One had a very interesting inquiry lesson. In their lesson, which was called "What Season is it?", the students had to use the clues they were given to help a weather lady tell what season, time of day, and phase of the moon there was in the town that day. The task was presented to the students by Voki. I really like the program Voki. I had used it for my introducing my project at the beginning of the year. It is really simple to use and it is a lot of fun designing the character. I also really like the option to record your own voice for the project because it allows it to feel more alive. I wish Group One had taken advantage of this option because it would have helped the students understand the task with a little more clarity. I also think it would have been a fun idea to have the Voki come back to ask for their findings or say that the results were in when the answers were passed out in the envelopes.
I thought it was a really smart decision to give the student's reference sheets to go along with their clues to make decisions on what season, the phase of the moon, or time of day the clues were hinting at. I think this made the activity more true to real life. If a student did not remember the name of a certain phase of the moon in real life and they wanted to know, they would have access to the internet or another person with the answer. However, I think these references sheets should have been modeled or at least explained as to how they were meant to be used. I feel that if I were a student receiving the reference sheets without instructions, I would have felt overwhelmed as well.
Overall, I felt that group one's inquiry lesson was well balanced between independent practices and small group discussions. I believe the students enjoyed working on the lesson. I think the only major areas of improvement that could be had would be in explaining the directions more explicitly and having the students share their results with the class at the end. Outside of the lesson itself, I really like the popsicle stick behavior management technique Group One used. I think it was very smart of them to pass the popsicle sticks to a different teacher every so often so that the students never knew where they were coming from. The students had seemed to respond to this very will technique, especially when one of the teachers had explained why the student was getting a warning possible.
In school, I had always found inquiry lesson to be the most fun. I mainly remember the lessons I had done through middle school and high school, but I remember doing problem-solving lessons earlier than that. I really enjoy problem-solving and trying to figure out the solution to a problem. I find it very satisfying to find the right answer after doing hard work to test my hypothesis. I think an inquiry lesson is what really gets the students to understand the material. Sure, the students can memorize facts they learn in a direct instruction, but an inquiry lesson is where the students' learning comes to life.
Group One had a very interesting inquiry lesson. In their lesson, which was called "What Season is it?", the students had to use the clues they were given to help a weather lady tell what season, time of day, and phase of the moon there was in the town that day. The task was presented to the students by Voki. I really like the program Voki. I had used it for my introducing my project at the beginning of the year. It is really simple to use and it is a lot of fun designing the character. I also really like the option to record your own voice for the project because it allows it to feel more alive. I wish Group One had taken advantage of this option because it would have helped the students understand the task with a little more clarity. I also think it would have been a fun idea to have the Voki come back to ask for their findings or say that the results were in when the answers were passed out in the envelopes.
I thought it was a really smart decision to give the student's reference sheets to go along with their clues to make decisions on what season, the phase of the moon, or time of day the clues were hinting at. I think this made the activity more true to real life. If a student did not remember the name of a certain phase of the moon in real life and they wanted to know, they would have access to the internet or another person with the answer. However, I think these references sheets should have been modeled or at least explained as to how they were meant to be used. I feel that if I were a student receiving the reference sheets without instructions, I would have felt overwhelmed as well.
Overall, I felt that group one's inquiry lesson was well balanced between independent practices and small group discussions. I believe the students enjoyed working on the lesson. I think the only major areas of improvement that could be had would be in explaining the directions more explicitly and having the students share their results with the class at the end. Outside of the lesson itself, I really like the popsicle stick behavior management technique Group One used. I think it was very smart of them to pass the popsicle sticks to a different teacher every so often so that the students never knew where they were coming from. The students had seemed to respond to this very will technique, especially when one of the teachers had explained why the student was getting a warning possible.
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