As part of the Manaiakalani CoL, we are asked every year to think about a "Causal Chain". Previous year's causal chains can be seen on this link
I have decided to keep revisiting this year's causal chain and use it to check in where we are up to and also use it to log the evidence as we go. I have been including links to specific blog posts along with each step of the chain so I can see how it went this year when I am analysing it.
My Year 11 inquiry group are currently in the middle of researching different materials that could be used for their design ideas of chairs.
So far we have read about different types of wood - blog post here - I took the information from the original source, chunked it and presented it to the students in a different way. We looked at some of the words from the text so they had some definitions to start them off and then they did information transfer and answered specific questions. They then related what they had read to their own design work. This exercise was done in the class but by themselves, in their own time.
We next looked at types of metal - blog post here - We read directly from the source material on the internet this time and I read it out to them while they read along at the same time. They had to write down words that they did not know and we looked these up together.
I asked them for feedback about the two sessions and they liked a mix of the two. So for this session I have tried to combine what we have been doing over the past two weeks.
Our guest reader was Ms George. I had been telling her about last week when it was me reading the information about types of metal and trying my hardest to make it sound interesting. She is an extremely experienced teacher of English and has lots of experience reading to classes. She agreed to come and read about plastics to put emphasis and interest into how it was read out.
When Miss George left after the reading, the students gave me feedback that they preferred her reading to mine. I need practice!!
Here are some examples of student work form today. They have had copies made so student names do not appear.
Last week, we started our materials research where I broke the information down for them and presented it on a Google slide. Blog post here.
This week, I sent the students the link to the website - Metals and Alloys. I made sure they all had a piece of paper and a pencil and then I read to them from the website while they read it in front of them. If they came across a word that they did not know, they had to write it on the paper. At the end of the reading, I collected in the papers and scanned them to see where the main problems were in understanding and we Googled meanings and answers together while I wrote the answers on the white board.
I have not read out loud to students for a LONG time. I have been in the classrooms of English teachers when they have been reading to their class. They are able to put emphasis in the reading and use different tones of voice. After this lesson, I was laughing with an English teacher colleague, explaining how I was trying to make information about stainless steel and aluminium sound interesting as I was reading it.
My Year 11 class already know that I am doing my inquiry with them this year and that I will be trying different things with them that I have not done before. We went over what we did last week and how it was different to what we did this week in regards to their research. I then asked them to write down what they thought about each approach.
Next week, we will be looking at different plastics, so I think a combination of approaches will be tried. I have also had a volunteer to be "guest reader".
My inquiry group Year 11's are up to the point where we need to do research about lots of different materials so they can decide which ones will be best for their designs that they have been busy doing.
For this template, I decided to take the information away from its source on the internet and present it on a document of my own. I could then control how much information is given at a time to read and I could take it away from all of the distractions that are on a website.
The Tamaki College literacy specialist, Marc Milford, has been working with us for a while about information transfer. I have tried some of this work with my Year 9 Food Tech class, with their recipe planning.
