Integrating Knowledge, Ideas and Skills
There were three parts to our day in the classroom. It began with six math or science questions on the blackboard.
The class and I observed the selected students calculating, solving individual problems.
After the math and science questions were evaluated, we quietly listening to two or three individual students read a page from a novel. Sometimes they answered questions.
The point of testing is to observe if a student used logic in answering a question and determine if a class, as a whole, has accumulated the necessary information and skills to go onto a higher level.
After completing our morning testing, I focused on information and skills I had to teach that would enable my students to move on. This information might come from me, a book or an information video.
By this time of the day my students were ready to go on to the creative part of their day.
Because students enjoy drawing and making projects, orthographic and isometric projection, based on the metric system, was the perfect vehicle for students to use in developing skills and gain new knowledge they would use later in life.
When students’ existing knowledge is combined with new information and integrated into a project they enjoy working on, the stress of learning is significantly diminished. Learning takes on a relaxed atmosphere because the project allows the student to consume new content seamlessly.
First lesson, How to draw and make a cubic decimeter.