A day for collaboration

Today our lessons all contained elements of collaborative learning. We tried to get the pupils to work in small groups with no more than 3 children in each. We wanted everybody to be involved and on task and we wanted different members of the group to have different roles.

Our first lesson looked Pirniehall's local wildlife. The children in Grades 2-3 really enjoyed looking at Primary 4's work.

Primary 4's pictures went down a treat

They used the P4's pictures to help them to come up with different words to describe the animals as part of a group. Each group worked on a different animal and then the pupils became the experts, sharing their descriptions with the class in the form of a short talk.

Learning from each other

For the last couple of years we have given out disposable cameras and the children have come up with some fantastic photos. We have given them out again this year and have asked the children to take pictures of local wildlife. We can't wait to see the results.

The best homework ever!

While working with Grades 4-7, we asked the children to work in small groups again. This time we looked at Pirniehall's food miles. This is links to our Eco Work at home and our environmental theme at Say Ta Nar. Each group created a mind map based on a particular food.

Mind maps

We then did a carousel activity where we moved the food and mind map from group to group so they could read and build on the previous groups ideas. The children picked up the idea of a carousel easily and by the last rotation were moving the mind maps themselves. We need not have worried about the classroom organisation falling apart!

Everyone working in small groups

We then located the origin of each food on a world map and got the children to think about the implications of transporting such large distances. We have asked the children to go home and find out about where their food comes from. We hope that comparing Say Ta Nar's and Pirniehall's food miles will spark of some interesting discussion.

Being experts

After a delicious lunch and a bit of much needed down time we returned to the feelings topic to follow up on Pho Cho's lesson on the Cyclone yesterday.

Happy times across the world!

Our collaborative work continued and this time we tried to incorporate a few more collaborative methods. We randomly put the children into groups, gave the groups names and gave pupils specific roles.

Vanessa trying hard to remember groups and roles!

We think the pupils thought we were crazy, asking them to move around the room and find their friends with the same coloured bit of paper! Putting the children into groups worked well because there was a range of strengths in each. Giving the groups names and the children roles worked very well because it meant that it kept everyone on their toes as they knew they could be called upon to answer at any time.

Everyone has a role

The groups successfully discussed the range of feelings and made short role plays to demonstrate the feelings of the people affected by the cyclone.

Feeling hopeful

Feeling afraid

We reminded them of their targets from yesterday in drama. At the end they were able to highlight what they thought they had improved on.

Pho Cho's chance to observe!

Although we thought that we had perhaps bitten off more than we could chew we found that today went really well. Collaborative learning lends itself to working within the constraints of a language barrier because the children can communicate and learn from each other freely and are not dependent on everything being translated. It also worked well when working with a large class as it keeps everyone involved.

We enjoyed playing games with the Kindergarten and look forward to spending more time with them next week.

Which word?

We can't believe it's the weekend already. We feel tired but really pleased with what we have achieved. We're looking to seeing what next week will bring...

Hello? Anyone there?

Pirniehall hats, the new fashion accessory for the streets of Mae Sot!