It’s Time!
With a focus on developing good inquiry questions and developing strong work plans, students and faculty in grades 1-8 are grappling with big questions about time.
What are students wondering? Developing the Inquiry Question: Students are working on approximately 200 different questions this week. Here are a few samples of the types of questions different students and groups are asking:
- How do designers of games use time to affect the players’ experience?
- How does tempo affect mood in dance?
- Why has Western dress fashion changed from the 1850’s to today?
- How have the rules and gear of soccer changed over time?
- How can we make a device that can bend gravity and go through time?
- How can we design a pendulum clock that tells time in Vietnam?
- How can we design a ball distribution device that will allow a player to continually hit volleyball serves?
Investigation: After each student/group has drafted their inquiry question, they start the investigation phase of the design cycle. This investigation helps them to better understand their topic and is essential to enabling them to develop their plan.
Developing the Plan: With a focus on planning, students are working to develop and design good plans that lead to the answer of the question, clarify the product/outcome, detail tasks, estimate timelines, and identify needed resources both materials and experts.
Opportunities to see it for yourself?
You can join the Parent Coffee on Thursday from 8:15-9:15, led by Dr. Keller, ES Principal and Mrs. Burger, MS Principal. You will hear more about Project X and take a walk through the Worlds.
Come can also come hear from the students themselves on Friday at the World Expo – 8:15-11:00. We can’t wait for you to see what they have learned.
Are you wondering more about Project X? Check out the website: Project X 2019
Description
This is a curriculum project involving educators and students across multiple grades in all three divisions of the school. This project challenges traditional school structures, such as space, time, student grouping, direction of learning, and assessment of learning. This experience engages learners (students and educators) in short-term open-ended inquiry projects. This project may be viewed as a week-long incubator of innovative teaching and learning.
Purposes
The purposes of PROJECT X include:
- For all learners (students and educators):
- Develop inquiry within our lives
- Promote a sense of community through heterogeneous collaboration by temporarily removing common collaboration boundaries (age, division, department, schedule, rooms, curriculum)
- For students:
- Promote critical thinking, self-management, collaboration, leadership
- For educators:
- Promote understanding of inquiry by analyzing changing roles of students and educators in the open-inquiry experience.
