Week 10

Designing learning experience

For this learning experiences’ workshop, my friends and I chose to work on shape topic by designing a learning experiences focusing on the 3D shapes. We used the book, ‘Wyne’s New Shape’ by Calvis Irons and Peter Shaw. Basically, the story is about Wyne, a lumpy piece of wood and he did not have a smooth and neat shape like his friends. He was very sad until he found a wood shop. There, Wyne was transferred into a new shape. He has been rectangular, then cylindrical and finally a round ball. To make learning more meaningful, we decided to use some 3D cubes available.

Firstly, we planned the lesson. We constructed some questions to be asked while reading the big book. The minimum of question was one per page. Here were the questions:

1. Look at the cover, can you tell how many shapes is there? Which one do you think is Wyne? Why is this guy frowning? Do you think this story is a sad story or a happy story?

2. Can you identify which one is Wyne now? Can you count how many shapes are there?

3. What do you think that shop is that? Why do you think this shop is amazing to Wyne? Can you guess what will happen next?

4. What do you think the owner of the shop is doing?

5. What shape is that? Why does Wyne feel great? Can you find one shape here that is similar to Wyne now? (Students need to pick up 3D shapes provided). Anybody knows the name of this shape?

6. What shape do you think Wyne now? What will happen to Wyne now?

7. Can you find a shape that is similar to Wyne now? Anybody knows the name? Can you find an object that is similar to Wyne in this classroom?

8. What shape do you think Wyne now? Which shape is similar to Wyne now? Why do you think he is so happy?

We also thought of several extension activities;

- find similarities and differences between these shapes

- find similar objects at home

- do shape walk

- play dough- transformation of Wyne’s shapes.

Then, we conducted the activity with a group of students. We put them on the carpet in a circle and they could see each other. They needed to act as four to five year old children. One of us read the story and another one was asking the questions. And another member was taking photographs of the lesson conducted. At that moment, I felt that everything went smoothly, but in the middle some of them lost attention. They started yawning. They tended to be passive and not respond to the questions asked.

At that time, I was the photographer and I observed my friends’ decisions regarding this matter. She decreased the number of questions per page and it still gave time for interacting with the ‘students’. From my observation, I found that students like the open ended questions such as asking for their opinion and also ask them to find similar objects, in the classroom.

We were lucky to have some feedback on our ‘lesson’. First, the story itself, it was a good story to teach students about 3D shapes. It also had a good moral value for students to have a strong will and never give up in their life, like Wyne did. Students also experienced touching and feeling the shapes itself while Wyne had transferred into new shapes. This activity gave them ‘real’ experience of 3D shapes (Wall & Posamentier, 2007). Students also had a chance to relate it to their real life and real environment as they were required to find similar objects in the classroom.

However, some of the ‘students’ claimed that too many questions were asked and it hindered their attention and focus on the story. One friend of mine said that she can only focus in the middle and towards the end, she got lost and daydreamed. She didn’t have any idea why and what happened. She related it to the teacher who read the book, she said she tended to pause too long and kept repeating the questions.

Therefore, in the future, I think that I as a teacher need to be aware of young children’s attention span. Once they got bored or lost, they tended to distract other students and misbehave. One of my classmates suggested that we read the story first and the second time, we ask students questions. But, for me, it may hinder a suspense that we are going to create from the story. So, it depends on the story itself.

Another good lesson that I have learnt from another group was giving clear instructions. One of their ‘teachers’ confused us while dividing us into groups. It caused chaos and we ended up wasting a lot of time and therefore interest before we sat in our own group. Indeed, the teacher needs to give clear instructions especially for young children who need this.

In short, I found that this week workshop not only about designing learning experience to be used, but it actually a learning experience. It gave me some insight related to real teaching and the learning process in a classroom.

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