Turning a flat activity into a super learning mission! (Second activity)

Hi bloggers! today's post is about another super learning mission, as you can see in the previous post, it is the perfect way to engage our students in our lessons. Do not miss it and check it out!

This post as the last one, is also the product of collaborating with another classmate, her name is Andrea, she is a good student and an excellent teacher, you can also visit her blog, it is full of good ideas, advises and educational tools which can be use in classroom.

The best way of learning is through collaboration, because as human beings, we live in society, and as teachers, we have to foment collaboration in our classrooms. We can find different ideas from our students in a collaborative situation, that means: “The sum of different ideas or suggestions, creates a good product”. The students can reach the same goal from several ways, and all members of the group can provide opinions, concerns and suggestions, for that reason, the result is more enriched.

As you know I have been developing the lesson of "Diet, Digestion and Excretion", but this time I am going further, collaborating with another classmate, and with the project "No me cuentes historias, dibújamelas" (Do not tell me stories, draw them), and what is more, turning flat activities into super learning missions.

The previous post was intended to introduce the applications in our classroom slowly, following step by step and offering lot of scaffolding to our students. This methodology helps students to become more confidents and autonomus, needing less help in the future. In this second super learning mission, the students become more independent because they have been following a process in the previous post. Let's start! 

SUPER LEARNING MISSION 2 EXCRETORY AND DIGESTIVE SYSTEMS

It can be very risky sometimes to leave the textbooks aside and create our own activity and learning mission, but I can assure you, that is it worth. For this reason we have created a guide to move from the explanation of the excretory and digestive system of a textbook, to an activity where students are going to be able to use their thinking skills, at the same time as creative abilities to generate a product and to think about processes and use their logic.

It is also important to include the use of the ICT in the classroom, for that reason we are taking advantages from the ICT to turn flat activities into super mission learning through the use of different applications such as explee.

Explee is a useful application to represent contents through drawing. It provides several options, which can be incorporated to the video, they are:

• Pictures
• Audios
• Music
• Static texts
• Text to speech (You can type a sentence and choose a voice to transmit the message in your video)
• Adjust the timing
• There are lot of drawings included in explee, therefore; you do not need to be an expert in drawing, the application provides you many examples.
• Once you have finished, you can either download your creation, or share it in your learning diary, twitter, etc.

This specific project will require higher order thinking skills from students, in the previous super learning mission, we started by using LOTS boosting their abilities to higher order thinking abilities, after the work done, learners will be able now, to start by using higher order thinking abilities instead of lower order. It is something important to consider as every task will require more higher order thinking abilities than the previous one, as we want them to develop themselves and at the same time they are learning by doing.

                  In the following sections will take part:

• An overview of the initial text book
• An analysis of the content needed for the activities
• The explanation of the different activities
• An analysis of the proper methodology
• The estimation of the time needed for the correct development of the activities

The book:

We have chosen a book that is based on a CLIL methodology, this is the reason why, the materials provided are already adapted for students and their age. However the main point for us

Below there are the two pages where we have taken the theory from. It is a textbook for third grade learners from Oxford education called “Think, do, learn!”

Previous activities to the super learning mission:

The first thing is for the students to understand how the digestive and excretory systems work, for this purpose the teacher and the students are going to analyse together the main parts and the function of each.

Once they have reach an accordance, they can work to generate a tree diagram that will makes it easier for them to see each part and to bear in mind what are the main ideas, like the following ones:

Contents and objectives of the supper learning mission:

From natural science:

• Our digestive and excretory systems.
• To know the functions of the excretory and digestive systems, and the organs, which are, include in these process.                 

From other subjects:

• Expressing ideas and thoughts
• To work individually and in groups, developing responsibility and trust in the children and also creativity, curiosity, and entrepreneurial spirit.
• To know and appreciate the values and rules of living together, learning to act according to the rules, providing the develop of the citizenship, respecting and defending the human rights, as well as the own pluralism of the democratic society.
• To learn and respect the different cultures and people, and the equal rights and opportunities for everybody, fomenting and offering opportunities, avoiding discrimination in people with disabilities.
• Use logical connectors.
• Design and make a project
• Develop projects and explain thoughts and ideas using creative tools
• Use of logic connectors such as: first, after, next, finally…

             Methodology

An active methodology is important not only for the students development but also for the activities which offer the possibility to discover and learn.

One of the main points is that the teacher’s role is to guide, monitor and facilitate students their learning processes, helping them to learn by giving them opportunities to explore and create.

Materials

The materials needed for these activities are:

-       Tablets, text book, paper sheets. 

Timing

For the correct development of the following activities we will have two weeks that makes a total amount of approximately 8 hours where students will be creating and learning.

• Explanation of the digestive system, with students reflection and the tree diagram (45 minutes)
• Explanation of the excretory system, with students reflection and the tree diagram (45 minutes)
• Creating a storyboard, with teacher’s explanations (1 hour and 30 minutes)
• Sharing the storyboard with the class (15 minutes)
• Making groups and agreeing in the final outcome (45 minutes)
• Producing the final outcome using scratch (3 hours 30 minutes)
• Sharing with the community (30 minutes)

*After doing the tree diagram, the teacher provides to the students a video explaining the next activity.

Activities

The following activities will be generated taken into account the necessities and interests of an specific class, but of course they can be adapted depending on the class as for instance a class can be divided into groups and each group can illustrate a different organ of the system, and program it afterwards using scratch so that if we put all of them together we will have both systems deeply explained.

Creating a storyboard

This is the first step to create the final outcome students need to decide the main character of the story, which in this case can be:

• Food for the digestive system
• Organs for both systems
• Water for the excretory system
• Water and food matching both systems

Then each student has to decide the setting where the characters will be, the text or audio they want to add and the main points that have to be explained to understand the story or process.

For this purpose, learners can fill in the following table:

Steps for the story:

These steps are just to give ideas to learners that might be in trouble with the activity, we can ask them to do:

-       Introduction: That may include the selected system and the function

-       Main body: Different organs of the system and what happens in each

-       Conclusion: The last organ of the system and what happens finally

Sharing the storyboard with the class:

After they have created their storyboards they should be ready to share them and express their ideas. This step will help them to be more creative, and to take ideas and change them generating creative materials. Because of it, each student, will stand in front of the rest and tell them the story we have already think about.

Designing the outcome in groups:

After hearing to every idea, they will have to put what they have in common or introduce a new item inspired by the previous activity, to design the final project. They can either fill in the previous table again, or plan the final outcome taking into account the settings, characters and script.

During this step or activity they can ask to the rest of the groups or the teacher for ideas, and they can also look for information on the internet, as probably they will feel they do not have enough information to create the story.

Creating the outcome in groups

Using scratch jr. and all the information they have already have they will be able to generate or produce the final outcome where they have to create the story illustrating it and use logical connectors so that it have sense. As in the first super learning mission the final outcome needs to be illustrated, either using their own drawings and taking pictures or using  the illustration that the program provides and their imagination.  

Sharing the final outcome

Once students have created their project, they can share them and collaborate, in this case the project will be share to do not tell me stories, draw them so that students will be able to see part of their projects on a public blog, that will enhance them to stay creative and to collaborate with others.

Assessment criteria

• Uses logical connectors and knows their meanings
• Shows interest for what his/her peers are saying
• Shares ideas and thoughts in public
• Matches ideas and opinions with his/her peers to reach agreements
• Knows the excretory system, the different organs and their functions
• Knows the digestive system, the different organs and their functions
• Interacts with empathy using different social abilities
• Express ideas using ICT tools

Conclusion/reflection:

I am delighted with the result, it has been an interesting challenge to collaborate with another partner, I can say that I have learnt several things from her and I have also discovered the application "Scratch jr." a useful resource to foment the use of the ICT in the school and to engage students in the lessons.

It was easy to work with Andrea, because she had the application in mind "Scratch jr." and I had the contents and another application related to drawing "Explee", therefore, it was like a puzzle, we had all that we needed and we had the ideas clear before starting. We have learnt how to use another applications, thus I consider my process of learning enriched.

I hope you like this post and you find it useful, see you soon readers!