What is technology?

On Monday morning, I embarked upon a unit of inquiry with my grade 5/6 class by using our usual 'warm up' routine to reflect on and discuss the slide below.

 

As students arrive in the morning, when possible, I project some sort of provocation, sometimes directly connected to our inquiries, sometimes specifically not, and sometimes just for fun (link to 'warm up' slides).

Many students sit down and begin writing or sketching immediately, while some prefer to converse before working independently. After a few minutes, we share and discuss our ideas.

This 'technology' provocation was effective and I was pleasantly surprised by students' insights. Their responses included definitions with words like 'tools'. 'useful', and 'solve problems'. Some also alluded to negative as well as positive effects of technology. At the conclusion of our brief discussion, I introduced our central idea for the unit: Scientific understanding constantly evolves to build and destroy. (link to unit planner)

Before setting the students loose, we will conduct a modeled inquiry into 3D printing. The purpose will be to model a standard inquiry process as well as generate interest in various aspects of technology including scientific, social, artistic, and cultural. It was extremely effective last year and, especially based on my current class' formative understandings, I'm confident that the next few weeks will be fun and enlightening.

Deeper Learning Student Work

Looking at student work

I'd like to share three pieces of student work, each of which shows unique applications of deeper learning.

Landforms

The first is a Grade 2 'landforms' project. The task was to build and paint an island with landforms. The example shows a few examples of deeper geographical understanding, especially that the river is carved into the land, rather than simply painted on, and that it flows from the hills to the ocean.

However, it would have been better to provide greater opportunities to practice with the clay and paint in a creative way. The student's reflection, 'I could to better', is very revealing of the fact that this little project utilized too many different, new skills. I should have planned a stand-alone art unit using these tools before applying them in this Geography activity.

Autumn Leaves in Japan

On Saturday, my wife, son, and I went to the park. After arriving and eating a snack, we began wandering and playing. While chasing my two-year-old, I noticed the rich variety of autumn leaves blanketing the ground. It dawned on me that it might be my last chance to make good on a promise to my friend, Kevin Hodgson, to remix his Learning Walk Photo Blitz: The Autumn Leaves here in Japan.

Independent Inquiry: Nature Photography

This was a perfect example of how an apparently simple goal, "take nature photos", can become a deep inquiry. The artist discovered that time of day and perspective were critical to her project, so was forced to rearrange her daily schedule to go out shooting at the ideal times.

As an added bonus, the photo was emailed to me in the evening! A perfect way to make a teacher's day.

Earth Day Composting

In observance of Earth Day, my class started a compost bin. They were not too keen on tearing up lunch leftovers, but very excited to hold worms.

Yes, that's a blackened banana peel in the foreground.

Independent Inquiry: Nature Drawing

Student made ten attempts at drawing this! Has a student ever tried a worksheet ten times to make it 'perfect'?

Water Resources Inquiry

To inquire into the effects of access to water around the world, we gained perspective by graphically representing water resources per capita in various countries. The bars at the bottom represent the data.

The lowest bar for Iceland stretched over three meters!

It was supposed to integrate mathematics (division & ratio) into a mainly 'social studies' unit, and worked brilliantly except for the fact that the numbers we used were extremely large and not exactly appropriate for early in fourth grade.