When curiosity is sparked...

However, “drill and kill” activities that promote assimilation of content do have their place in the classroom and can often provide a great opportunity for entertaining review activities that can help build community. When these assimilation activities are placed after the inquiry and accommodation process, their purpose is more evident and their application more relevant. This week I introduced a game called “Lower Blooms Basketball” as a way to promote assimilation. We are in the process of studying chemical equilibrium, and the ability to predict which direction an equilibrium will shift when a stress is applied (Le Chatelier’s Principle) is a skill whose solution comes quickly, but one that requires a lot of practice. 

To do this, I created a sheet of ~ 25 different, quick problems, and then made ~ 100 copies. I the cut the problems into little slips, placed them in bins and distributed them throughout the classroom. These were the “basketballs”. Below is a screenshot of one sheet:

Using duct tape, I placed a “three point” from one end of my classroom to the other, and placed a garbage bin in front of the classroom as the “hoop”. The rules of the game are as follows:

• Grab a problem, write your name on it, and solve the problem.
• Crumple it up and shoot it in the hoop.
• For every problem you make in the hoop, correct, you get 1/10 of an extra credit point.
• You can shoot as many times as you want, but each shot must be a new problem.
• I will be roaming and shot blocking :)

By the end of the 30 minutes, each student, on average, solved ~ 50 problems. One of my weakest, most disinterested students said he solved 150 problems. The next day, I sprung a pop quiz on my students, however the quiz comprised the toughest Le Chatelier problems I could find (most having to do with changes in pressure and temperature). Student performance was incredible. Although this task promoted rote, “drill and kill” learning, assimilation of this concept, AFTER students battled their misconceptions in the laboratory proved to be a meaningful use class time. Below are a few pictures: 

This summer I spent a lot of time trying to organize my thoughts about the use of video as an instructional device. Currently in my practice, I use video for a) content delivery after inquiry and b) to spark inquiry. In response to that schema, I created the below model to help me think about video as it applies to instructional spaces:

The model shows a simple allocation where video that is used to spark inquiry is allocated to the classroom space or “community” and video that is used for content delivery is allocated to the homework space or “individual” setting (of course, not to beat a dead horse, but this occurs after classroom exploration of content). This allocation was motivated by a previous model where instructional spaces were allocated along a spectrum of Bloom’s Taxonomy, placing more rigorous tasks such as inquiry in the community space, and procedural tasks, common in content driven videos, to the individual setting. 

In addition to reflecting on the use of video, I got motivated and finally transferred all of my video content (movie clips, etc.) to google drive. My current collection contains video clips taken from movies, commercials, talks, and other random events. I draw from this collection primarily for inquiry purposes as content videos in Explore-Flip-Apply are made on the fly in response to student misconceptions during the inquiry phase. Click here to access the g-drive folder of vids.

Click here