TEAM 6W SOLE Project
TEAM 6W love SOLE!!!!
In February 2014 TEAM 6W completed their first SOLE activity. It has become a way of learning that permeates all aspects of our class timetable. Students have become accustomed to working in groups, sharing ideas and searching for answers beyond what I (as their teacher) give them to research. SOLE has given students who normally feel constrained by classroom work permission to follow their ideas, debate others ideas and work in a TEAM to find solutions to the BIG questions.
Can you kill a goat by staring at it?
What a fantastic question!!!
TEAM 6W worked in groups of four. Each group had a police officer (in charge of the computer), a materials manager, a timekeeper and an encourager. At first the quiet of the room freaked me out, nothing seemed to be happening. All of a sudden the kids started talking and it didn't stop until I rang the bell 40 minutes later. I was blown away by the depth of questions they asked each other and the excitement and discussion that went into reasearching ideas. Very quickly they became descerning in the types of sites they used for information, telling each other and neighbouring groups about valid tidbits of information.
At the end of the lesson groups were bursting to share what they found out about killing goats. When we went to back to class, they really wanted to delve a bit more into some of their ideas. Fainting goats, US government experiments and a movie trailers helped to consolidate their research ideas and helped students to answer the question.
Things to help next time- wireless that works!!!
Positives-group dynamics , kids working together, the questions they asked, on task behaviour, taking skills beyond the lesson and teacher student enthusiasm.
TEAM 6W worked in groups of four. Each group had a police officer (in charge of the computer), a materials manager, a timekeeper and an encourager. At first the quiet of the room freaked me out, nothing seemed to be happening. All of a sudden the kids started talking and it didn't stop until I rang the bell 40 minutes later. I was blown away by the depth of questions they asked each other and the excitement and discussion that went into reasearching ideas. Very quickly they became descerning in the types of sites they used for information, telling each other and neighbouring groups about valid tidbits of information.
At the end of the lesson groups were bursting to share what they found out about killing goats. When we went to back to class, they really wanted to delve a bit more into some of their ideas. Fainting goats, US government experiments and a movie trailers helped to consolidate their research ideas and helped students to answer the question.
Things to help next time- wireless that works!!!
Positives-group dynamics , kids working together, the questions they asked, on task behaviour, taking skills beyond the lesson and teacher student enthusiasm.
Do boys and girls think differently?
Have you ever wondered what girls are thinking? Or have you ever thought, why are boys doing that? I have too. Lets find out what goes on in boys and girls minds. Do their minds think similarly? Are their brains the same size? Is the poem- What are girls made of? Sugar and Spice and all things nice.... really true? Lets look into it and see what we find?
What did we find?
As we brainstormed ideas it became very clear that as a class, we thought that boys and girls think differently. So it was up to us to find sites to support our ideas. We found information and studies that said;
One group seemed to be really challenged sharing their computer. This left two students misbehaving because they had lots of ideas and they had trouble waiting for the computer. They came up with a two computer solution. Their group has two computers and two scribes rotating between each student. This worked really well and is now used by a number of other groups.
us
brainstorm ideas and we went off and found sites to support our
What did we find?
As we brainstormed ideas it became very clear that as a class, we thought that boys and girls think differently. So it was up to us to find sites to support our ideas. We found information and studies that said;
- Boys had more gray matter than girls. Girls have more white matter.
- Boys think differently than girls in because boys reason more with their gray
substance and girls with white. - Boys manage to do better tasks requiring processing, such as mathematics. But girls are better at language skills.
- Men struggle to distinguish subtle differences in shades of yellow, green and blue.
- This question helped us brainstorm our ideas before we used the computers.
- We had 10 minutes of discussion time. Students are very good at making sure everyone gets a fair hearing in group discussion.
- We made up a new role. The speaker now helps to organise people in the team to share their ideas with the class.
- We are able to solve our problems using the -Give me a Solution not a Problem Chart
One group seemed to be really challenged sharing their computer. This left two students misbehaving because they had lots of ideas and they had trouble waiting for the computer. They came up with a two computer solution. Their group has two computers and two scribes rotating between each student. This worked really well and is now used by a number of other groups.
us
brainstorm ideas and we went off and found sites to support our
Is it Disgusting to Eat Insects?
Collaboration Day!!!!! It is always fun when we get to work with the other classes doing SOLE work. Today we all got together and worked on the question, Is it disgusting to eat insects? Of course, we all had definate views about how disgusting we thought eating insects would be. However after working on this question most of us have come up with a positive attitude towards eating insects.
Did you know that?
Insects are high in protein.
More than 2 billion people use insects in their daily diet at the present
time.
Do not eat an insect if it is yellow, orange or red as they may be
poisoness.
Centuries ago people put bugs in alcohol to make it taste better.
Most people eat 1kg of insects by accident every year.
Insects will be our future food.
Make sure you cut the head off a maggot and gut them before you eat them...or they may eat you from the inside out.
Positives
n on Fridayss dried insects.
Did you know that?
Insects are high in protein.
More than 2 billion people use insects in their daily diet at the present
time.
Do not eat an insect if it is yellow, orange or red as they may be
poisoness.
Centuries ago people put bugs in alcohol to make it taste better.
Most people eat 1kg of insects by accident every year.
Insects will be our future food.
Make sure you cut the head off a maggot and gut them before you eat them...or they may eat you from the inside out.
Positives
- We went back to class and found our favourite insect recipe. We presented them
to class and costed the ingredients so Mrs Welsh could go to the store and buy
the ingredients to make the recipe. - Mr Heterick came all the way from Melbourne in Victoria to watch us work together on our SOLE question.
- We worked together on task really well. Most groups had a mixture of boys and girls and students from stage 2 and 3. Students listened to each other, they support the younger students and make sure they have a voice in the task.
We were able to find a Farmers Market in Parramatta which sell dried insects. It is open on Fridays. - We are going to try insects!!!!!!
- As a class we had a recipe competition. We found insect recipes and shared them with the class. The best presentation gets to organise a shopping and cooking session in which they will make enough of the recipe so the whole class can cook and taste test.
- Computers did not initially log onto
the wireless easily. However to rectify the problem we set up a group of
teachers in a computer fix up centre. Students brought iPads to teachers and swapped them for a working iPad. This saved the teachers having to move around the room and also made it
quicker to get working iPad.
n on Fridayss dried insects.