Last year was my first turn at facilitating a PYPX, lots of things went well and the students really did develop their thinking and learning in diverse and creative ways. What follows are some wonderings and thoughts about how best to empower the students and truly allow them to take control of their own learning. Not just take control, but to also develop a truly enriching learning experience which is tailored to themselves.
How do we encourage the students to consider all six of the transdisciplinary themes in their own inquiry, when the models they have been exposed to in every other teacher developed central idea is explicitly linked to only one: Who We Are, How the World Works, Sharing the Planet, Where We Are in Space and Time or How We Organise Ourselves. Is it sufficient for them to consider each of these and then choose one which will become their overarching transdisciplinary theme? The key concepts offer a similar challenge, how to explicitly employ them all?
They've had some thinking time, engaged in loads of discussions, brainstormed and talked through ideas with each other, peers and classroom support teachers; they've decided that they want to spend the next 6 weeks learning about basketball. How do we help them think about basketball from a different perspective, how do we help them to see it's the sportsmanship, or the game strategies and quick decisions that players make. How do we help them to uncover these big ideas without putting words in their mouth or leading them with our own interpretations? How do we get them to inquire into fat central ideas?
This initial questioning time is where I felt most uncomfortable last year, worried that I was going to put words in the mouths of inquiring minds. Thinking of the questions to ask which allow students to develop their own ideas is the biggest challenge I think I have ahead of me as we begin to discuss PYPX at our school for 2011.
How do you prepare your learners to develop their own unit of inquiry?
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