During the
past few weeks of discovery quests I have been stressing to the students the
importance of involving your audience. When I submit a proposal to present at a
conference I am now asked how the audience with participate. Gone are the days
of listening to presentations from your seats. The passive audience now needs
to be active and presenters need to look for ways to include their listeners in
the presentation. Slowly this shift is occurring in our own classroom. Emily
and Olivia took my advice and used the mutli purpose room for their presentation.
Emily taught us some ballet moves and Olivia taught us some basketball handling
skills. Oliver turned our classroom into a science lab where we all made
something during an experiment. Lexie became a magician and needed student
volunteers for her tricks. Some students include quizzes or BrainPOP videos in
their presentations. The DQ assignment began as a way for students to hone
research and public speaking skills but over time I have watched it evolve into
a student directed learning experience where students are teachers and
learners, growing with each other in more ways than I could have imagined!
Over
vacation I received an email from Maelyn.
Dear
Ms. Freedman,
I
hope you had a wonderful vacation! I am doing cars for my DQ. I am going
to be doing an activity. The students will be in four groups of six. The
activity is really simple. Groups will need some coloring tools, scissors, and
a glue stick. They will be making an assembly line.
Sincerely,
Maelyn
I had to
share with you all because she has taken the initiative and ownership over her
presentation, teaching our students about cars, and then turning our classroom
into an assembly line so her fellow classmates can really understand the
concept of what car making was. Learning is alive during these DQs and students
are showing the power of presentations beyond the slideshow!
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