Easter Challenge..

The Easter Egg STEM activity Susan (our PD facilitator) shared and Michelle organised eggs and toothpicks for (thank you!) went really well in Room 1.

All students were engaged - one child did not actively participate but did sit close by and appeared to be watching closely.  The students were motivated, were helping each other and sharing ideas, were persisting, were celebrating their successes and were noticing and complimenting others' successes.

I realise there was the allure of a chocolate egg involved, but I think the students would have been engaged even without it.  It was an open ended problem, challenging and hands on.  There was no one right answer.

Thinking about my inquiry (promoting communication and participation through dramatic inquiry) - I recognised that this was a situation where the participation level was high and I heard children talking to one another about their designs, using some of the language introduced (such as 'structure' and 'construct'), describing their designs, and responding to questions thoughtfully.

I want to build on this experience.  Create another 'challenge' but this time incorporate some process drama conventions.  I headed to Mantleoftheexpert.com and found an interesting quote:

Dorothy Heathcote calls the level at which a class can work independently, and interdependently, their ‘social health’. A class with poor social health will need a great deal of support and structuring, a class with good social health, less, and a class with excellent social health, none at all. Interestingly, in our experience the level of social health of a class is not always directly related to their age. Some young children can work very cooperatively, while some older children find it almost impossible. Whatever level of support you decide your students need, the principle is always to guide them toward less and give them opportunities to work independently and interdependently. 
(From the Dinosaur Island plan, by Tim Taylor.)

Room 1 does not currently have a 'good social health'. 
I was interested to find out more about the Heathcote's concept of 'social health' of a class so used google and google scholar .

In the use of key competencies, deeply embedded in Heathcote’s MOE (Mantle of the Expert) technique, is the expectation that the method will enable the teacher to improve ‘the social health’ of a class. This concept directly relates to key competencies of ‘managing self’, ‘relating to others’, and ‘participating and contributing’.
Susan Battye, 2010

 Heathcote’s claims for drama, cited in Catterall (2002c, p. 62)

1.      Making abstract concepts concrete. 2.      Teaching a narrow fact so that it is fully learned—placed in a context for added meaning. 3.      Introducing artefacts so that children are curious about them and experience them at a significant level—an important quality of any learning. 4.      Inducing students to reflect on experience and see what they have in common with other people. 5.      Opening doors to curriculum areas students might fear to venture into, including science, mathematics, and literature. 6.      Giving students freedom coupled with responsibility. 7.      Clarifying values. 8.      Developing tolerance for a variety of personalities and ideas. 9.      Showing students how they can stay with something they don’t like, perhaps geometry or Tennyson’s poetry, to a point of accomplishment. 10.    Increasing students’ vocabularies and helping students develop a finer control of rhetoric through interactions with others. 11.    Bringing classes into situations that will increase their social health. 12.    Helping students discover that they know more than they thought they knew. 13.    Leading students to the real world more clearly in light of what they have learned in an imagined one. 14.    Helping students capture more of what is implicit in any experience. That is, dramatization encourages probing into the meanings of terms, the use of words in the context of action, the nature of human relationships and individual motivations—and more generally encourages reflection on experiences and what one is learning from them.

From Dorothy Heathcote - Four Models for Teaching and Learning

I realised that every single teaching strategy I’ve ever invented has been because I can’t bear to be in a position where I have to “tell people off’. If I reach that point I am breaking a deeply felt rule to do with power used to disadvantage. That seems rather high-minded and moralistic. What it means at bottom is that it isn’t based on collaboration. To get collaboration from classes, who really owe you no attention you haven’t won, needs subtle and honest strategies, which forge bonds rather than confrontation.

So I got a bit waylaid in my Easter hunt but this has been thought provoking and reinforced my inquiry.  Using Mantle of the Expert to improve communication and participation in Room 1 should improve the 'social health' of our class.  This will also relate directly to key competencies.

Re my inquiry, I need to think about how I will measure 'communication and participation' (videoing lessons?).  I will investigate indicators of 'good social health' and key competencies. Maybe there's a link with Leslee Allen's Dispositions here..?

Right, so back to the planning of open ended, hands on, engaging learning for Room 1....