A few weeks ago, I have asked my Year 10 French who wanted to be extended. (read this post if you are interested).So a group of around 10 girls have been working on different projects ranging from clothes designers to French actress.
The only two directions they had was to study a topic they were interested in and use their brain. I have asked a fellow teacher to (re)introduce the SOLO Taxonomy to this group in order for them to ask good questions.
Last week, was their final week and they presented to the rest of the class their work. MAMMA MIA !!! I was very impressed by the quality of their work. Their presentation skills were remarkable. A student spoke about pétanque. Her presentation was out of this world. She had great research, asked herself superbe questions and at the end of her presentation asked her peers a quiz. She wanted to be sure that her friends listened to her. I was very impressed by her deep understanding of the topic. She was actually capable of answering questions the other kids asked. I can say that we have now in our class an expert about pétanque in our class.
Not only this little experiment worked well but the kids cannot wait to carry on. Some are already thinking about what they are going to do next.
Speaking about engagement ??!!! Good way of measuring engagement in our classes =)
