To launch my photosynthesis unit I gave students an illustration of a chloroplast with different molecule entering and exiting the organelle. I have students work in groups to solve the puzzle without me giving any answers.
CONNECT - I have used this strategy in the past because I know that collaboration is a good way to active a groups's combined schema. Most students are engaged, too, by the challenge of trying to solve a puzzle together. I know, too, that a class discussion is an important step in the process. I also know the importance of informally assessing each student's level of understanding by having students do a quick write in their notebooks
EXTEND - Over the years that I have used this lesson I have extending my thinking from have students do this alone from working collaboratively. I have also made the lesson more engaging about making a group competition to see who can solve the puzzle first. I have also incorporated the individual writing piece into a n informal assessment rather than ending with the class discussion.
CHALLENGE - A challenge that I am often confronted with is some students know right away what is going on. It often spoils for other students in the group. I like to give this to students before I even give a pretest because I don't want them to infer that it is photosynthesis from the pretest alone. I suppose that I could mention before we do this lesson that if they already know, that I could have them complete it on their own at a separate table.
I have this great book called Zoom. It starts with a close up of an object and each subsequent picture backs out of the picture. It shows that if you look close enough, you may just see with a different perspective. I love the questions of this routine, "What do you see or notice? What new things do you see? How does this change your hypothesis? What new things are you wondering about? What lingering questions remain for you about this image?" It is so cool to look at history or a story through this lens. Thanks for sharing this routine. It is perfect for realizing that perspective is based on the piece we focus on!
ReplyDeleteI've had several discussions recently about the idea of "zooming in" on a topic or picture as a way of introducing a topic and engaging kids. It feels like the misconception is that we need to teach something first in order to provide schema. And yet, your experience with this lesson shows that by doing this routine, kids have the opportunity to think for themselves and "discover" the information and are therefore that much more engaged in their learning process. Considering how important the collaboration process and how we always gain a deeper perspective by hearing other perspectives, I wonder if there is a way to give those students who seem to already know the answer some other photograph or information to analyze so they can have the same collaborative learning experience but perhaps at a more challenging level.
ReplyDeleteI really like the puzzle idea and having the students collaborate to figure it out. Perhaps the students that already know photosynthesis could work together to create their own puzzle for other students to solve. I really like seeing what the upper grades are working on-thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteJon
ReplyDeleteThe puzzle idea is a great way to get the juices flowing among all students. It draws them all into the activity. You do run into the problem that we all fall into with the kids who seem to know everything way before the majority of the kids catch on. Maybe there is a way to incorporate some of the extention learning groups to solve a puzzle problem around photosynthesis while the other kids are discovering photosynthesis. It is a hard balance to try to engage them all and have them run through the thinking process without having few ruin it for other kids.