I was struggling to come up with a provocation or ideas for our Shape and Space Unit. We are doing a unit the looks at monuments, so I wanted to try and incorporate some kind of building or creating into the unit.
This unit really made me think how about how I could make it engaging for students. I didn't want to just go through property after property of different shapes. I wanted to give the students ownership of their learning and make them have to use the knowledge they have gained in some way.
So I thought, what if I give the students the summative task as the provocation for the unit. One that requires them to draw a structure or monument that has to incorporate certain properties?
I have never tried this before, but I thought no harm in trying... I hope!
First, I used the Teaching Student Centered Mathematics text (a wonderful resource), to find out what learning outcomes or big ideas that I need to address at a Grade 2 level.
I then gave my students time to go through the outcomes and identify what they knew already and what they needed to know. This also turned out to be great formative assessment task that allowed me to find out my students prior knowledge. It also allowed me to challenge those students how needed it.
Here are some of the student going through the expectations.
I told students that it is ok not to know any of them... just write I don't know it yet!
I also gave students time to try and draw it ... most found this challenging.
The kids are now really keen to go and find out what these outcomes mean and then use their acquired knowledge to draw their monument.
I am not sure how this will work out. My one reservation is that, does it give students the scope to inquire? As I mentioned earlier I was really having trouble thinking of how I would get them to do that. Time will tell if this works out.
If you have any ideas then please share.
... I will post again with how it worked out.
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