coming up with ways to use them for all MIs. I was
amazed at how many ideas i was spouting out! Getting
quite comfortable with MIs now.
We then entered the arena of designing activities for
children. To start off, we explored the definition of
"Activity", and came up with some key elements we felt
an activity should have: be open-ended; child should
set the goals (within framework of the teacher's
objectives); enjoyable and stimulating; focus on the
process.
Motivating kids to draw 5-cm circles using a compass
by saying that everything in a village is made up of
precisely 5-cm circles… this automatically fires the
imagination, brings in an element of fun, and is
therefore stimulating. I would never have thought of
this approach!
We then dived into how to design an activity. It
begins with reading a lot, & becoming intimately
familiar with the subject. The more research you do,
the greater your understanding.
Write down a whole lot of questions about the subject
and then identify a key guiding question (KGQ). [The
research done in the first step helps you frame
relevant questions.] A good KGQ will have an activity
idea waiting to be discovered when you explore the
question.
Once you pick a KGQ, now you can write the teacher's
objectives for the activities, activity ideas will
come to you, and can start developing activities.
Bring in Bloom's Taxonomy and MI in this phase. Have
to consider materials needed for the activities also.
After activities are designed, now design
stimulations. It's important to have the children
EXPERIENCE your objectives.
I've been thinking about some stimulations for the
"how do you experience gravity" KGQ we did in class.
Some ideas are:
a Guided Visualization where you are an
absent-minded space adventurer visiting planets with
varying gravities and you keep getting into
gravity-related mishaps;
ask kids to play hopscotch while pretending they are
on the moon, Jupiter...
Sujata
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