Wednesday 12 June 2013

Sparking Interest in Adventure Learning

I'm often asked by other teachers how they can start Adventure Learning in their own class. As mentioned in a previous post I spent the majority of the first term running group challenges. Following the group challenges I spent two weeks with my class looking at the difference between passions and talents, as well as sparking interest through other blogs, sharing items or photos/videos from previous years, I wonder questions, YouTube videos and by using Pinterest.


 We got the name Adventure Learning from the movie Up. The name was inspired by the character Ellie and her passion for adventures. This was one of the first YouTube videos I showed my class, as they are all familiar with this movie. I then gave each child their own Adventure Book. 

 This year (2014) the children in my class are designing a visual model for Adventure Learning, called Adventure Island. Each group will also receive an Adventure passport where they will earn badges for visiting the different places (stages) on the island. The six badges will be designed by my year 4 class. This hooked my class in as two of the boys in my class have just started cubs and brought the excitement of earning badges into our classroom. 

 Scroll down for a smorgasboard of ideas I've put together that may help you to spark the excitement of Adventure Learning in your own class. 






  • Create a class Pinterest account. This is a great way for children to find ideas and save them for later. What I love about Pinterest is how visual it is and how easy it is to use for younger children. A lot of the children in my class who struggle to search using Google have found this really useful. Here's a link to the start of our Pinterest boards http://pinterest.com/room2smarties/boards/
  • As well as having an online Pinterest account we cleared a wall in our classroom and created a physical class Pinterest board too. To start with I pinned a few pictures on the board to spark interest in different topics. The kids soon started adding to the Pinterest board and it wasn't long before we took most of the photos I had put up, down. 

  • We talked a lot about what our talents were, what we were passionate about learning more about, as well as the differences between talents and passions. You don't have to be talented at something to be passionate about it, but if you're really passionate about something you are more likely to become talented at it. We then wrote our talents and passions on giant beach balls. 

  • One morning I put a few 'I wonder...' questions on the interactive whiteboard e.g. Why do glow worms glow? How are jelly beans made? How does kiwifruit get to the supermarket? From there Room 2 went away and wrote their own I wonder questions. They came up with some awesome questions. See the photos below. If you want to get kids started with a few have a look at the Suzy's World DVDs. I've got a few of my own that I picked up at the Warehouse for $10 each. Here's a link to the DVD titles and questions http://www.suzy.co.nz/suzysworld/Videos.asp#Vol14
  • Watch the Coca Cola Let's Go Crazy YouTube clip. It's an awesome clip and a great way to inspire kids to choose an Adventure Learning topic that may help someone else in the community. 
  • Share examples of previous children's adventure learning projects. You'll find lots of examples on my blog, especially if you visit the 'celebrating learning' label on the side of the blog. 
  • Start a classroom Twitter board. My class uses Twitter online, but the Twitter board has been a great way for them to connect with other children in the classroom that they wouldn't normally have much to do with. I simply wrote a tweet asking Room 2 what they would like to learn about or create during Adventure Learning time. The love any excuse to write a tweet so this was a great way to hook them in. 

 

  • Spend some time talking and coming up with ideas for what we can do when we get stuck with our learning. This was one of the most useful things that we did. At the start of the year a lot of my class thought that the best person to ask is the teacher. I asked all of the children who thought they were good at skateboarding to put their hand up. I then asked them if they wanted to learn about skateboarding for Adventure Learning if they would come to me? There was a lot of laughing before deciding that I possibly wouldn't be the best person to go to. Room 2 now know that they can ask each other for help because everyone is an expert at something, use the class Twitter board, tweet on Twitter to ask other children in other schools, use Google, email an expert, ask family etc. 

If you're wanting to read more about Adventure Learning/ Google 20% Time here are some links, as well as a couple of authors that are often referred to when discussing Google 20% Time. 



YouTube clips 













Posted by at
Labels:

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)