What I learnt by letting my students have a go!

Today, a student was moving back to Saudi Arabia so we decided to compare the temperatures of her country and here in Korea. It seemed like a relevant and natural link to our unit. 

I was a bit worried that my students might not be ready to organise two sets of data and then create line graphs comparing the two countries. 

I decided to let them have a go! 

This is what I learnt...

1. Kids will make more mistakes. And MISTAKES help us learn!

2. They will have to think (I know this because they told me at the end of the lesson)

3. They will be challenged (kids love challenges)

4.What they still need help with.

5. Kids can supported each other when they need help and they learn from each other much better than from me. 

6. They had to ask questions.

Most importantly, I learnt that I need to provide more opportunities for kids to just get in and do it!

Our Central Idea

"Mr Boyd, I've run out of room!" - How could you order the numbers so they fit in?

Some created two different graphs!

He did it... with support from his buddies,

She's got it... what next?

From Using Materials to Using Numbers

In my last data handling blog post, I told how I asked my students to show me, using linking cubes, what the most common colour was? Automatically they organised then structured the data with ease.

To begin this activity I reflected with my students about the process they previously went through and that this time all they had to consider was changing their thinking from cubes to numbers. 

I gave groups piles of numbers and asked them to think of them as a group of different temperatures, as we are presently inquiring about weather for our unit on How the World Works, this seemed a natural fit. (Yes! I forgot the degrees symbol... I realised half way through). 

The question I posed now was, What is the most common temperature?

I was impressed with how well they all sorted then structured the numbers effortlessly. It made me realise how important using manipulatives are in transferring learning from using concert materials to using numbers. Using the manipulatives allowed students to visually and conceptually develop their understanding.

I then challenged them to show this data using a graph. We have explored a few different graphs, mostly bar and line, when looking at temperature forecast.

To gauge their ability I let them have a go. I will use this as a formative assessment task to form where to go next!

Key Concepts: Breaking down the Central Idea

After gaining inspiration from a blog post by Graeme Anshaw about using Key Concepts, I decided to give it a go myself.

To be perfectly honest, after teaching PYP for 3 years I am still getting used to using them to drive my inquires. But, nothing ventured... nothing gained.

My big take away was that straight away they made me think of different questions... funny that! 

My questions also opened new doors for learning. To my surprise, my students started to see things through different lenses. I was delighted with some of the thinking and questioning that took place. 

Being a Grade 2 class and using these for the first time in a maths setting, I created the questions rather than asking my students to come up with, for example, a 'function' question. My hope is that in the future my students will become more comfortable doing it themselves.

As we continue through the unit, I will reference these questions and continue to add them to our 'Reflection Wall'. 

Key Concepts are not that scary after all. 

Give students choices about how they display their data.

Responsibility was a big one! When creating graphs, what are our responsibilities to ensure that the information we displaying is correct? 

Reflection: Did our graph answer the question? 

Our 'Reflection Wall'

Provocation for Data Handling Unit

After presenting my students with a pre-assessment to gauge their level of understanding, I found that nearly all...except one wrote I don't know...yet! This then made me think that I need to really build a good visual and conceptual understanding. 

So I emptied out boxes of linking cubes and posed the question

Show me visually what is the most common colour?

I explained that I didn't want to know how many of each colour their were. I wanted to be able to 'see' their answer.

Without any prompting this team automatically started to organise into colours. They didn't do that in the pre-assessment I gave them 5 minutes earlier!

This team sorted and then counted. We discussed that the question required them to show me the answer visually. 

This team organised them straight into lines.

This team tried to go up, but soon struck a problem!

This group took a different route. They individually started to make groups of colours. After they finished the class reflected that it was difficult to see which was the most common colour. Someone then said if they made them all the same shape, then it might be easier!

My next question was, how could you have organised this better to make it even easier for me to see the answer. 

The result...

After about an hour of engaged students. I then shared that they basically just did the pre-assessment task without any help. They all went... really... we did? We discussed that all you have to do now is replace the coloured cubes with numbers. 

We also then reflected on how we could improve these visual graphs even more.

"Add" numbers at the top was one suggestion. 

We then talked about where we could add numbers, introducing X and Y axis.

On our reflection wall we shared what we had learnt from todays inquiry.

You need to organise your data

You need to show things in the same way, like using lines or shapes

You need to be accurate

You need to start from zero

You need to answer the question