How to teach an investigation - Step One

Measuring the drop height

I  am lucky enough to be working with a group of 11 and 12 year old students for a couple of hours per day over a couple of weeks. I have been tasked with extending their learning. The ultimate goal is to improving their performance on NAPLAN tests later in the year.

The pretest that I used showed that their interpretation of data was a weakness. The cause, I suspect is that they don't fully understand the how data is collected, interpreted and interrogated.

The best way to do that, I feel, is to challenge their higher order thinking with an investigation.

I decided to revitalize my Table Tennis Drop investigation and incorporate the use of a spreadsheet (in this case MS Excel) to collate and interpret data.

STEP 1 - is to collect the data.

In this investigation we are exploring the relationship between the drop height and the bounce height of a table tennis ball.

So for 30 - 45 minutes kids are bouncing tennis balls, measuring bounce heights and recording data in their books.

Collecting data

Sure, there is noise as kids work together. It takes experience to differentiate between productive and unproductive noise.

Learning is much more powerful if kids get the chance to talk about it and even the kids who might play up in a passive learning situation, seldom do when learning is more active.

Boys appreciate when learning is active.

STEP 2 - That's tomorrow.