Genius Hour Project
Sarah Garner
For my genius hour project I had my students complete two inquiry based assignments. The first assignment my students used their knowledge of slope intercept form (what they learned in the PBL project) to learn point-slope form. The students knew where to locate the slope in slope intercept form, and they used this knowledge to locate the slope in point-slope form. My students exceeded my expectations with this assignment. From experience, since it is not an assignment they are used to, I thought I would be met with hesitance and resentment. However, my students actually enjoyed it and learned a lot from it. I actually did my own little experiment. I completed the assignment with my first two blocks, but for my last one I did not. I started with just normal notes and was going to see how it went. After the first problem in the notes, my students were very lost. They did not understand why the point was positive when it came after the negative in the formula. The students that completed the inquiry activity came to this conclusion on their own. Since they came to that conclusion on their own, they understood why it was positive even though it came after a negative. At that moment, whem all my students were very
confused, I stopped notes and did the activity with my last block. I was very happy with this assignment, and I will definitely do it again.
The second inquiry assignment that I had my students complete was on parallel and perpendicular lines, and the difference in their slopes. The students were able to use color pencils and rulers. I felt like they enjoyed it. I loved this assignment because it incorporated every topic that they have been learning thus far. It incorporated graphing using slope intercept and finding your equation given two points. The student were asked some questions throughout the assignment that led them to the conclusion that perpendicular lines have opposite reciprocal slope and parallel lines have same slope. The students taught themselves! I felt like that students held on to this information more because they learned it themselves. I did have to make some adjustments from class to class. I learned that I had to stop at sections to make sure the students graphed the lines correctly and the math was completed correctly. I did this because if the students did not have the math right they would get the questions wrong later. So, for each class after my first, I broke the assignment up into sections.
Sorry that the last pictures are turned, not sure how to rotate them.
I love this! It looks like your students were very involved and learned a lot!
ReplyDeleteI love that you encouraged your students to seek the information and solve the problems on their own. You increased their opportunities to become agents of their own learning, and that is something that will stick with them even when you aren't present to encourage them.
ReplyDeleteHi Sarah,
ReplyDeleteI cheered when I read your Genius Hour reflection and how you did your own action research, implementing the inquiry based approach with two of your classes but not for your last one. You shared that your first two blocks understood the concept of the positive point when it came after the negative point because they figured it out on their own, through their participation in the inquiry based learning opportunity. You then shared how your second inquiry based learning opportunity was more of a cumulative assessment that provided students with the opportunity to apply what they'd been learning throughout the semester through the questions you prompted and the problem you provided. I am glad that your students are building confidence in their understanding and application of their math skills as you are gaining and building confidence in your understanding and application of project based learning.
Sincerely,
Dawn