#teachingstrategy

Active Learning is anything that students do in a classroom other than merely passively listening to an instructor's lecture. Research shows that active learning improves students' understanding and retention of information and can be very effective in developing higher order cognitive skills such as problem solving and critical thinking.  The site below will help you create and plan active learning activities in your course.

  This lesson is aimed towards having children view themselves as writers, understanding the expanded definition for writing: "writing includes any and all efforts to represent meaning on a page" ("Already Ready" by Wood Ray and Matt Glover). The foundation for the lesson is in that children must learn that writing is a way to make meaning and must have a writer's attitude in order to learn about the process of writing, which includes:

problem solving

problem posing

imagening and innovating

taking risks

    Learning these skills and gaining a writers attitude is the starting point to make literacy meaningful for children and pathing the way for teaching other skills related to reading and writing. 

    The inquiry cycle used for this learning experience was Kolb's Learning Cycle.

Experiencing:

    Different kinds of books were set out for children to explore (illustrated story books including the following: lots of text, only a few words, large illustrations, a few illustrations, no words). Children were asked to talk amongst themselves about what calls their attention.

In a group discussion some of the following questions came up:

What was interesting in the books?

In what ways are the books alike and different?

What should a writer consider when writing a book?

Processing

   Children were told they would be writing books that may be as varied as those they explored (with many, few or no words; many or few illustrations).

      Pre-stapled paper and pencil was given out for chidren  to create their books. Ample time was provided for children to work and discuss as they did so. 

  Some guiding questions used while interacting with children were:

What type of story would you like to tell?

What is the first thing about your story that you are going to tell?

How can you make sure that others will understand your story

What can you add so that others can understand this idea?

Generalizing

Children were gathered in a group to have a discussion along the following questions:

Why do think others will understand your story?

What did you do that helps others understand?

What may writers to to make sure others understand their stories?

Conclude on these ideas with the ideas given by children

 Applying

    Pre-stapled paper and pencils in a special writing area were provided, where children could write during play or choice time. Children were allowed and invited to work on their books for various days; interaction was provided to scaffold their progress in the meaning making process and the different products were saved for on-going assessment.

  "There once was a snake that was poisonous. It threw poison on the grass. It is throwing poison all over the grass. It threw poison in the jungle."