A Lesson in Inquiry

Here is an inquiry-based lesson I did with my students at the end of last year. Our unit of study [inquiry] was called "Expression Through Art and Music". Before we began discussing the different art periods, I wanted them to see if they could tell the difference between the periods themselves.

This was a lesson I did for the IB Level 1 Teaching Award. Before they started, I was prepared for a disaster, but I was pleasantly surprised how well they worked together.

Life is not Fair

I know that life is not fair.

Although I feel fortunate for where I am, there have been times in my life and career where I have been treated less than fairly and sometimes I have been taken advantage of.

I get it. I understand what is happening. I also understand why it is happening. Something happened today that I felt was unfair, and while I was stewing about it, I wondered about what my students think about.

Do my students think I act fairly? Do I act fairly with them?

I think I am pretty good at giving students chances to be heard. But...

How can I become better at it?

I wonder what they think of the way I treat them.

Educational iPad Apps

Last week I was approached with the news that our school was to get 20 iPads for the elementary students to use.  In the middle of doing my happy dance I was hit with, "Could you come up with a list of apps that would be suitable for elementary students to use?"



I am not an Apple user (yet) and I have limited experience using an iPad, so I was a little overwhelmed. Then I remembered an article I saw in PYP Threads, and so I went there.



One thing led to another and I had a huge list of just links that I had to go through.



I let it rest for a few days and decided to make a spreadsheet of my findings. I am pleased to say that I found several very useful free apps.  That will make everyone happy.



Here is my spreadsheet so far.

Lesson Inspiration

I usually find inspiration for what I do from my coworkers and to a lesser extent - the Internet. Last year I was watching one of my favorite shows, The Universe, and I was struck with inspiration.

The astronomer was at the beach to explain how they calculate the number of stars in space. Using sand, it was explained that the number of stars are calculated by counting the stars in a given space, and then estimating the number in the entire space.

I decided to take this idea and use it for my class when we were studying mean, mode, and average.

My challenge to the class was to estimate the number of blades of grass on the soccer field. I gave the students the challenge as a homework problem to simply brainstorm ideas on how to solve it at first. I then explained to them how we would figure out the solution. I had them cut out a 10cm by 10cm squares in graph paper.

We then went outside to count the number of grass blades in the squares they cut out. The rest was simply calculating.

A New Year

This year I am focusing on how to make my lessons and my classroom more inquiry based. With the crew I have, it's a challenge.