As I watched, I realized that the students were teaching each other. At least one student in each group knew what she was doing. That kid, who must have remembered from Mr. Dixon's computer class, taught the other two in a fraction of the time it would have taken me to lead everyone through each key stroke. All of this made me start thinking about my own assumptions. These questions came up during a computer lesson but I felt like they had implications for my Earth science teaching as well.
Kids spend a lot of time outside.
They collect rocks, they watch the sky, they fly kites. I try to give kids opportunities to talk and teach one another in a structured environment. This year my first few Kids as Global Scientists lessons went quite smoothly. I determined how familiar students were with computers and the Internet before beginning the unit and assigned small groups to include students with varying levels of expertise. Michiko, Joshua and Amanda chose to concentrate on wind.