What are the key concepts (form, function, causation, change, connection, perspective, responsibility, reflection) to be emphasized within this inquiry?
Form, Function
What lines of inquiry will define the scope of the inquiry into the central idea?
- How and why inventions happen
- The process of invention
- How inventions change live
- Why do people invent things?
- How have inventions changed people’s lives?
- What are the negative effects of inventions?
- How are things invented?
Class/grade:4Age group:9-10 years
School:GermanEuropeanSchoolSchool code:650249
Title:Great Inventions
Teacher(s):Nontha and Burnett
Date:January 7th to February 24th2008
Proposed duration: over number of weeks5-6 weeks
1. What is our purpose?
To inquire into the following:
•transdisciplinary theme
“How the World Works”
•central idea
People invent things to meet their needs
Summative assessment task(s):
What are the possible ways of assessing students’ understanding of the central idea? What evidence, including student-initiated actions, will we look for?
Design an invention that you feel is going to make life better. Make it out of recycled materials. Write about why you chose it, how you came up with the idea and make a list of advantages and disadvantages.
Notes:
Students designed their own inventions
(Created an inventor’s data sheet. Their very own to reflect the invention they made.
They had to find a problem, make the invention to solve that problem, and describe
how their invention works; form-function)
Inventions book report-oral presentation
Students made a book report about an inventor and the invention using a rubric as a
guideline. They had to learn how to do research first, do rough drafts and revise their
report for the final draft. Later on they had to do an oral presentation
Student Inventions through Persuasive advertisement
Once students finished creating their inventions, they had to design an ad to persuade consumers to buy their product. Using persuasive language they needed to mention the problem they were trying to solve, solution and how their design works.
4. How best might we learn?
What are the learning experiences suggested by the teacher and/or students to encourage the students to engage with the inquiries and address the driving questions?
Tuning In:
Teachers shared with the class various articles about student invented products. From that we had a class discussion about the types of inventions out there past and present.
In small groups, we wrote down inventions in the categories of transportation by air, water, land, communications, medical inventions, recording and transmitting sounds and images, calculating and tell time, exploring and observing, improving nutrition and exploring space.
We later on discussed the advantages and disadvantages and then made a list of that.
Going Deeper-Discussed difference between inventions/discovery
Making Connections/Applying:
Individual report on a profile of an inventor, their inventions
Wrapping It Up:
See summative assessments
What opportunities will occur for transdisciplinary skills development and for the development of the attributes of the learner profile?
TD Skills:
Research skills- research inventor
Thinking skills- development of the invention
Profile- Thinker
3. How might we know what we have learned?This column should be used in conjunction with “How best might we learn?”
What are the possible ways of assessing students’ prior knowledge and skills? What evidence will we look for?
See Tuning in activity
What are the possible ways of assessing student learning in the context of the lines of inquiry? What evidence will we look for?
How an why inventions happen: list of reasons for inventions, invention’s report
The process of invention:Students research various inventions and how they were discovered accidentally or purposely made to solve a problem. After researching the inventions and actually looking at some inventions in class, we looked carefully at the design of the inventions.
Example: a sailboat (looking at it’s form and function of the parts)
Student reflection when making own invention
How inventions change lives
Student explanation of how their invention can improve lives.Students created an invention seeking a solution to everyday problems or creating a product that could help a specific population group such as the elderly or people with disabilities.
5. What resources need to be gathered?
What people, places, audio-visual materials, related literature, music, art, computer software, etc, will be available?
wiki site by Elaine Fong
See attached book list on inventions-discoveries
How will the classroom environment, local environment, and/or the community be used to facilitate the inquiry?
Trip to SingaporeScienceCenter an participate in Robotics workshop
6. To what extent did we achieve our purpose?
Assess the outcome of the inquiry by providing evidence of students’ understanding of the central idea. The reflections of all teachers involved in the planning and teaching of the inquiry should be included.
We categorized some inventions according to their purposes. Small group activities-students had to list inventions in the field of communication, transportation, medical science and present how they helped people in their daily lives
Ex: planes- they are used for faster travel
How you could improve on the assessment task(s) so that you would have a more accurate picture of each student’s understanding of the central idea.
I think the assessment tasks were straightforward as to why they needed these inventions. We went into deeper discussions of the importance of having these inventions.
What was the evidence that connections were made between the central idea and the transdisciplinary theme?
Some students demonstrated a device using solar energy and how it protects the environment. Some brought in news articles and shared what they heard about in the news.
•When they made their own inventions, there were lots of focus on how their inventions would impact the environment. They took a long time brainstorming for ideas trying to find a problem, coming up with the solution and for what population their invention could be used with to make that groups’ lives easier.
Example: Use of recycled material, solar energy powered, electricity, how their inventions reused-reduced-recycle materials
7. To what extent did we include the elements of the PYP?
What were the learning experiences that enabled students to:
In each case, explain your selection.
•develop an understanding of the concepts identified in “What do we want to learn?”
•Students made their own inventions. They looked at what machines look like and looking at the individual parts that make up that invention.
Example: a sailboat- rudder-sail-lever (form and function of parts)
•demonstrate the learning and application of particular transdisciplinary skills?
•Thinking Skills: They took a long time brainstorming for ideas, took lots of notes to get the flow going. They had to think about what problem they could solve, the solution to that and how their invention can improve lives. They also focused on which population group they wanted to help.
•Research skills: Students researched various sights for inventions, read for information (form -function-purpose)
•develop particular attributes of the learner profile and/or attitudes?
Thinker- solving problems through the invention
Knowledgeable- Explored the pros and cons of inventions
Ex: Is the invention made from recycled materials?
Are they safe for the environment?
9. Teacher notes
Both teachers felt this unit worked very well. We also worked well as a team by exchanging ideas and checking in with one another. We did think that we dragged it on too long. Of course, there were school breaks and other disruptions along the way.
- Did not include math integration into this unit.
- We could’ve elaborated on “What are the negative effects of inventions?” a little bit more
- Did do some negative side of inventions-environmental issues, weapons- Wayne
- Students had a great time building their invention. The process of brainstorming for ideas was difficult for some as well as trying to illustrate the inventions
- Would’ve been nice to have an inventions display for whole school to see but we did have a successful mini-exhibition between the two classes. Both classes invited one another to their classes and displayed their inventions along with a data sheet about the inventions-inventor
- Lots of great material for this unit
- Research on internet hard for some to do and not kid friendly language especially when you have students with second languages and learning disabilities.
- We played an inventions game online where you had to build a device to put a ball into the basket using gears, pies and levers- Amphone
- Could make a patent form and laminate it with the picture too and the inventor (Wayne has a patent form w/o picture)
- Did not focus enough on timeline of inventions and how much they changed over time
8. What student-initiated inquiries arose from the learning?
Record a range of student-initiated inquiries and student questions and highlight any that were incorporated into the teaching and learning.
- What does patent mean?
- Who was the first inventor of things?
- Does their first idea always work?
- Where do the inventors come up with what inventions to make?
- How long does it take to make an invention?
- Has inventor made more than one invention?
- What materials did they use to make their inventions?
- Can you use someone’s idea and make it your own invention? (perfecting it?)
- When is downloading music theft?
- What is the difference between a person who discovers something and someone
What student-initiated actions arose from the learning?
Record student-initiated actions taken by individuals or groups showing their ability to reflect, to choose and to act.
Some students demonstrated how to make a device using solar power. They made a connection to what they were learning in the unit about an invention being environmental friendly. From there, they built a device that would light up using solar energy. When it was done, students explained the parts of the device to the class and illustrated how the sun’s rays would go through the wires and light up the tiny light bulbs they attached to their device. It was well thought out on their part. (Oliver and Jonas)