Setting the bar too high
What an interesting morning.
I thought I’d challenge a group of 10 year olds to a project. Ted McCain style. I am only in the class today so it couldn’t be too involved.
I began by setting the scene through an email I recieved from a bookstore requesting the design of an e-mailable newsletter.
The news letter required the following:
A top ten bestsellers listing, a book review, a voucher that they could print out and take into the store to redeem along with contact details etc. Student’s could add anything they wished to the newsletter.
What was interesting was the fact that they immediately reached for the coloured paper and the glitter. I thought that mentioning the word ‘email’ in the piece would spark the need to use something like publisher. But nobody asked if they could access any of the 4 computers at the back of the room.
Several asked if they could go and ask the librarian for the bestsellers list. Not one did a google search for that information. I was anticpating a problem-solving session aided by technology. Instead several groups created individual drafts and then chose ‘the best one’
Despite not one of the groups writing a book review, creating a best seller list and only 2 groups designing a voucher in hand drawn bubble writing I hope there was a lot of learning going on at the plenary session: I asked the question What did learn from that the mindmap revealed the following answers:
Working as a team: sharing the jobs
Focus on the work and work faster
Listen more carefully to the presentation at the beginning
Ask more questions as we go on
Listen to the team leaders- they have ‘the plan’.
How can technology help us best?
If they think about these things the next time they do a group activity they will ha ve done well
Did you ask them how they were going to email out what they had made? Glitter and all? Could have been interesting to watch their faces!! Sounds like you are really enjoying your new role and the relieving!