“The test of a good teacher is not how many questions he can ask his pupils that they will answer readily, but how many questions he inspires them to ask him which he finds it hard to answer.” ~ Alice Wellington Rollins
This term I’ve been setting some research challenges in the Resource Centre for students to investigate during lunchtimes. The challenges are designed to stimulate curiosity and get students thinking and talking about how they might approach researching a topic.
Challenge#1 A Time Challenge
I went to Perth in the holidays. When I came home, I didn’t change my watch back from Perth time to Adelaide time. What was the time on my watch when I woke up at 7am on the first morning of this term? (Apart from the usual time difference, the extra complication is that Adelaide had changed to Daylight Saving Time).
Students used PhotoBooth to record their answers, then put these in a folder in the shared Resource Centre area of our Intranet for other students to view. I can’t share the video as it identifies the students, but here’s some audio to give you the idea. Student responses to Time Challenge (Note my personal struggle here – can’t just upload the audio files without upgrading WordPress, but wanting to stay with the free version, so I know the limitations of it when I’m working with staff. So I ended up putting the audio files into a PowerPoint page that you have to download! Sorry, it’s a bit of a pain, but it’s a way I can share.)
This was a great way to record students’ thinking and gave me an opportunity to talk with students and progress their learning. To hear an example of this, click here: Clarifying thinking
Challenge#2 Identify the object
We have several objects in the Resource Centre that we need to identify. We would like to work out which country the objects are from. Have a guess, and then provide “evidence” to back up your guess. This evidence may be from a book, internet site, or may be from personal experience (for example, you lived in the country and know of the object).
Challenge#3 What Buildings are these?
Two students brought in some 3D models of buildings. We are trying to work out the names of the buildings and the city that they are in. (Those students know the answers and will tell us who is correct later on). Students can guess, give their reasons and then provide evidence.
Challenge#4 – Solve the Riddles
One of the year 7 students approached me and offered to provide the next challenge. His suggestion was riddles. We’ve had a couple of discussions. He’s come up with the riddles, I suggested the strategy. For the first couple of days, we’ll supply the riddles to see if anyone can work out the answers, then we’ll supply the answers (but mixed up) to see who can match them.
Teleportation - Are we there yet? 