PYPx -Week 2

Central Idea: Passion, purpose or curiosity inspire us to lead and take action.

Ideia Central - Paixão, causa ou curiosidade inspira-nos a liderar e agir.

Objectives of the Week

By the end of this week, students will be able to:

choose topics and create powerful questions
differentiate between recounting and reflecting
clearly define the difference between a concept and topic
analyze key concepts and identify their role throughout the PYPx process
identify their talents/skills and how these can be used to help take action on a need/issue

Brainstorming and Powerful Questioning

To enquire deeply and develop strong understandings, powerful questions must be created. While all questions have a purpose, H.O.T. (High-Order Thinking) questions truly drive investigations. We are encouraging our students to move away from Factual questions towards questions which fall within the predictive, analytical and application synthesis realm.

Students brainstormed various topics this week with the purpose of identifying H.O.T. questions and related key concepts. Check out some of their work below!

Recounting vs. Reflecting - Why do we Reflect?

Reflection_poster_1_(web).pdf

Reflection_poster_2_(web).pdf

"We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience." – John Dewey (1933)

Often, both students and adults alike forget the importance of reflection upon the experiences we have in life. Without reflection, we cannot grow and learn from what we have seen, heard, and lived. However, we often mistake recounting events for a proper reflection. To engage students in proper reflections, we reviewed the difference and created success criteria in order to ensure all students succeed. Try these sentence starters to help you stay on track!

Did You Write a Recount?

Only discusses the past
No stated solutions or next steps/action
Talks about some emotions without explanation
Is written down and never reviewed in the future

Did You Write a Reflection?

Discusses the past, present and future
Identifies solutions and/or next steps
Talks multiple feelings with explanation
Is reviewed consistently as a tool to improve future learning.

Featured Reflections

"Making a DEG (planning tool) is harder than it sounds. When you think about your Exhibition topic you think "I have a lot to find out!!" but when asked to sit down and get an idea of all your questions it's hard to put it down on paper.... you really have to think, what do I wonder, what do really HAVE to know about. Then you just need the power of curiosity, paper, a pencil and it came naturally. Probably I should have tried that first, instead of thinking of something and generating questions. Honestly, reflecting on my DEG I could have taken more time to come up with questions that really, really... hit me." -Ainsley (6.1)

"I think that it was pretty cool to start something I have never done before but it was pretty easy to choose a topic. I think that now in the beginning, I am pretty excited to officially start exhibition!! I have had so many questions that have passed my mind millions and millions of times, and I am sure that's a sign that you are passionate to learn. At the opening ceremonies, I was terrified, trust me, even paying attention was hard. I have a lot of goals for myself, for examples, to develop some skills. Maybe this year I will learn how to take and continue with actions I create and maybe even staying passionate for what I have created for myself (my action)." - Melanie (6.2)

"Doing this work made me wonder about the Exhibition and how the Exhibition will work. The Present, Connect, Reflect activity went well. My mom came in and I showed her my work, but I think that I should have managed my time better. Maybe next time I will make a planner with a checklist to help me. I felt comfortable and responsible when chatting with my mom. It also made me thing of what I will do to be a better learner and how to push myself even more." - Lara (6.3)

Topics vs. Concepts

This is an idea that year 6 has been discussing all year. The students understand that if they simply choose a "topic" as a focus for their inquiry, that their research and action will be quite limited. Instead, the students are encouraged throughout the process of the exhibition to think about their exhibition conceptually.

ConceptsVsTopics.pdf

Present, Connect, Reflect

Thank you to all members of our community who were able to come into our classes and engage our students in their learning process. Students expressed their thoughts and reflections from the week and were able to identify areas of interest for their Exhibition.

Parents/guardians were kind enough to work with students whose parents were unable to attend. Hopefully, we will have even more parents attend during the next Present, Connect and Reflect on Feb. 27th.

PCR sentence starter slips 2019

PRC 1 - 15/02/19

Community Contributions

This week we had two guest speakers talk with the year 6 students. These two community members, Ms. Selina (who was a year 5 teacher at LIS last year) and Cooper (a year 5 student from Mr. Perico's class) spoke to the cohort about topics they are very passionate about.

Ms. Selina is now living in Rwanda working with VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas). She helps local teachers incorporate modern pedagogical teaching practices into their every day routine. She is very passionate about education. Her chat with the students encouraged them to find their passion and stick with it!

Cooper is a student who is very passionate about fishing. He began when he was very young, and was very knowledgable about the subject. This year, he took his passion to a new level and set a world record for the largest fish caught in his age group. He main message for the year 6 students was to find a passion, and work hard at achieving your goals!

Snapshots from the Week

Report abuse