Discovery Hunt (Group 3 and 4)

For this lesson, Dr. Smirnova asked us to collaborate with group three so we would have one full hour to teach. All of us were very happy to have the extra time, but it was a challenge to work with so many people in such a short time. Despite all of our conflicting schedules, I think we worked well together and pulled off a very successful lesson.  

This lesson was an Inquiry lesson; the students went on a discovery hunt. Corey introduced the lesson and explained how to plot the points on to the map while Jen and I made sure that the students understood what they had to do. Claudine and Irene were outside protecting the clues from the WIND . When the students were finished with their maps, Jen and I put them into groups and we lined them up to go outside so they can go and look for their clues.

The lesson was very successful, all of the students understood how to plot the points on the map and also how to use the map to find the clues. Once they found their clues, Corey, Irene, Claudine, Jen, and myself thought they should open their clues inside because of how windy it was.

When the students came back into the classroom, they worked with their groups to make predictions to who or what the clues could be about. During this time, the other teachers and I were walking around to each group and listened to their predictions. All of the groups did a really great job working with each other and had a lot of fun. 

To end the lesson, we had each of the groups present their clues to the class and allowed some time for the rest of the classmates to guess who or what their clues were about. The students really seemed to enjoy presenting their clues and really liked this activity. I would definitely use this type of activity again because not only did the students have FUN, but they were also LEARNING.

One thing that could have been improved was the amount of time that we allowed the students to work in their groups to think about their clues. Because we allowed so much time for that, there was not a lot of time left over to have students present their clues to the class. The students really seemed to enjoy presenting and I wish they could have had more time.

Overall, I really think we did a great job The students were on task at all times and really enjoyed the lesson. All of them were so eager to share their findings with the class and to also guess who or what the other groups had.