Project Based Learning T2 Wks 2-4

 Over the past few weeks, my students have been working on constructing research questions related to their chosen topics related to our overarching theme of living sustainably. To start them off, they went away in groups to have a go and writing questions they thought were important to their topic and what they were interested in finding out. I noticed a lot of students' questions were closed and/or did not include elements of sustainability. So I decided to construct a few activities to scaffold them into being aware that there are open and closed question types. 

Introducing new terms: closed/open ended questions

I began by introducing the terms 'open ended questions' and 'closed questions' and let them discuss in their groups what they though these terms meant. Students could not come up with reasonable definitions for either. I then explained that a closed questions has one answer e.g. yes/no true/false or a short fact. I then told students that open questions were the opposite of these. They discussed what they though an open question may be once again - with one group saying 'a question that has the answer as 'maybe'. 

Watching a video

The next lesson, students watched a video explaining and giving examples of open and closed questions. Students seemed to be interested in the video and I paused throughout to clarify the ideas it talked about to insure students understood. We then practised asking each other closed questions such as 'How old are you?' 'What is your name?' etc... Students seemed to have a good idea of what they thought a closed question was now. When I asked them what an open question was, most of the responses aligned with the message from the video - 'A question that has multiple answers and requires someone to think about.' 

Organising questions

Once students appeared to be able to explain what closed/open ended questions were, they went back to their original questions they developed as a group and organised them into two separate columns using google docs. One was labeled closed questions and the other open ended questions. They had to re-read their questions and decide as a group which were open and which were closed. Students appeared to be highly engaged in this activity. They then shared their questions with the class to receive feedback/forward about whether their questions were categorised correctly or not. One thing students still weren't including was a sustainability element. So I asked the students how they might create a question containing the word 'sustainable' and their topic. A few students were able to come up with ideas which enabled all groups to develop at least one questions containing a sustainability element. 

Examples of students' question tables.

Next week, I would like to work on students understanding of collaboration and the skills needed to collaborate effectively. I feel like this will be a crucial next learning step to make sure they are successful in their project based learning ventures.