Room+5

= LIFE IS CHOICE!=  In Term 2, Room 5 have been doing the D.A.R.E programme. This had us focus on making decisions and peer pressure. Because this did not fit naturally with the inquiry process, we focused on mini-research projects that helped us to practice, and build on, the skills we looked at in Term 1.

We started in a very teacher directed way. Miss Cairns put us into groups and gave us our topic and our questions. She even gave us the resources (a library book) to use. We then had 30 minutes to answer 6 questions and be ready to present our findings to the rest of the class. It was a bit daunting at first! But the short time limit and the clear guidelines meant we could focus on getting our questions answered. This helped us to practice skimming and scanning for information and identifying keywords and key-points. We were also practising our management skills.

We did this a number of times in different groups, sometimes with 2, 3 or even 4 other students. There was always a group leader to help keep everyone on track. We presented our findings on posters and got better at standing up the front of the class to share what we found out.

Miss Cairns slowly gave us more choice about what we were doing. Soon, we could choose our own topics and then we could use resources that we selected, including the internet. And finally we could even ask our own questions. We got very good at this process. The whole time we knew there was a strict time limit to keep so we had to manage ourselves well. Working cooperatively was sometimes a challenge but it helped having a group leader who could make the final decisions.

We also evaluated our own work and the work of our peers throughout the learning process.

Then, Miss Cairns left it completely up to us. We all put our names in a hat and pulled out our final group for Term 2. We selected our own leader this time. We had to make all the decisions together. What would our topic be? What did we want to know? How could we find out? What was each group member responsible for? Etc. The only rules were that we had to ask and answer at least 5 questions and this time we had to present using keynote. We had 45 minutes to get all of this done! = =  Here are some examples of Room 5's mini- inquiries.