And as the leaves fell down,
And the breeze swirled around me
My mind was buzzing with a new idea for my predicting probabilities lesson.
It's amazing how once you get in the mode of thinking, "How can I ramp this up?"
How that thought just keeps nudging you in that direction.
As I ran, ideas popped into my head at how I could incorporate the idea of predicting the colors of M&Ms from a fun-sized bag to a large bag of M&Ms.
Should it be teacher-directed?
Or maybe student-directed?
How should the students show their learning?
Should I go with one presentation model or let the students choose?
I tossed ideas back and forth, occasionally spitting some out to stomp on them along the way.
Some ideas got tossed because it was too teacher-focused.
Some were too predictable.
Some didn't allow for enough differentiation.
That's another thing we could discuss...how incorporating technology and ramping up lessons actually allows for more differentiation. But I'll leave that for another time.
Anyway, the idea I finally settled on was giving the students just enough information to wet their appetite (no pun intended) and then let them take the reins. After all, I didn't know the answer of how many of each color would be in the big bag of M&Ms! I would let them choose how to present their findings. They could choose iMovie, Smartboard, ScreenChomp, a poster, etc.
I created a rubric and we were off!
What a great way to incorporate 21st Century Skills while at the same time ramping up the relevance (I'm putting this at a 5 for unpredictable real life) and also ramping up Bloom's (right now, it's at a 3...applying, but we will go even further after we present to analyze/evaluate how to have made this experiment more accurate).
Stay tuned for final presentations...or final thoughts if I can't upload the student products.
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