Sunday, August 30, 2009

Inductive Reasoning

Recently I designed a lesson about inductive reasoning (Dim 3) which was used as part of my university assessment. The students were given very little information about the upcoming activity, however, you could almost feel the wonderment and awe (HoM) in the air, as they knew they were going to be doing something fun and exciting.

The lesson began with an introduction to inductive reasoning through the observation of two students sitting on chairs in the front of the room facing the IWB. I was looking crankily around the room and the students were looking from me to the students, not game to speak. After a minute I smiled and began the lesson by eliciting their thoughts and conclusions about what they thought was happening. The discussion was effective and all students participated. It was then explained how they would be using inductive reasoning today to form their own conclusions on their previous observations about how battery operated devices worked.

The students then:
  • put their names into a hat
  • groups of three were drawn out
  • each student was given a role: Manager, Speaker, Director
  • the manager collected the resources from the front of the room
  • the speaker was the only student able to ask the teacher or other groups for advice or questions
  • the director kept the students on task and elicited student conversation

The task:

  • write down predictions about how they would construct a circuit
  • students to construct a working circuit involving a battery, two wires and a light globe
  • students then construct a working circuit using a battery, one wire and a light globe
  • students must keep their successes quiet so as other students have opportunity to complete activity without assistance or help
  • fill in the record sheet, observations, comparison of prediction to conclusion
  • draw a diagram of the circuit
  • write a procedure for the construction of a circuit including a diagram

Once completed students were able to collect extra resources and try different circuits using wires, bulbs, batteries, paperclips etc

The lesson ended with a discussion about conclusion reached, a short verbal quiz about new knowledge and watching the folowing Youtube video to help store the new knowledge.

Creating a Circuit

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