My apologies to all former Social Studies students who had to sit through a mapping lesson, while I demonstrated how grids, symbols, legends and tables work.
This year using the knowledge of last I am deliberately structuring my lessons to be problem-based. I am sorry to admit that I used to put maps on the overhead, point out the grids, show how to use them blah, blah, blah.
This year I put my students into groups and gave them road maps of Ontario with no instructions. Learners hovered over them in excitement making discoveries, finding places they had been to and most of all discussing with each other their observations. They were fully engaged. I then gave the students two problems to solve. The first was to locate the town of Janetville a place all were unfamiliar with. Students began searching for the town, discussing strategies and ways to find the town. Eventually one group realized that there was an index; they also discovered the letter/number grid. They figured out that the town must be located within a specific square and promptly found it. Their excitement was audible. After giving other groups a few more minutes to perhaps make the same discovery, I pinned the map to the board, gathered students in our "gathering spot" and the girls who had figured out the method taught the class how to do it. My only task in this was to help them with vocabulary and to summarize more precisely what the steps were.
The next task was to find out how far it is from St. Thomas to Marathon - again unfamiliar places. Groups used their new learning to locate the towns and then began devising strategies for measuring distance. Rulers came out, the scale was referred to and then one group suddenly discovered the distance table. They figured out how it worked and once again excitement and pride in the accomplishment was audible. Shortly after another group made the same discovery. I then sent learners from these groups out to share their discovery with others. It only took a few minutes for the entire class to understand the process.
I'm feeling rather foolish for having tortured previous students with my mapping lessons. I am wondering now if any of them had actually learned anything at all!
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Hiedi, I love reading your Blogs! I don't comment on each, but I am following you... It is so exciting to actually see evidence of your growth as a teacher. Your students are so lucky (and they know it).
ReplyDeleteKeep at it!
Your students are lucky...great realisation you made. And DON'T beat yourself up about whatever it was you did last year! It was the foundation for the 'Janetville lesson' that worked so well.
ReplyDeleteHi Scotti,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments. Beat up? No. Laughing at myself, always!
Hi Heidi,
ReplyDeleteI've been out of action for the past few weeks in terms of more than cursory twitter engagement but looking forward to continuing discussions with you and your brilliant kids on your blog again! :D
I'm puzzling over stuff within school curriculum regarding this post...
* I understand paper based roadmaps are important thing. There will always be maps that are made by hand instead of using digital. Does your unit on social studies cover digital maps? What will Class 72 be doing in 7 years when they graduate from high school? What will be the overwhelming type of maps they'll use (my gut says it'll be on their phones.) How would you integrate learning of digital maps, like Google maps with what they're learning in this unit? Are they able to learn how to approach it from both sides eg. the "legacy side" learning about concepts like scale and legends versus the "current side" learning about how to wield Google Maps as a tool to make it do what you want it to do? For example, the distance issue between two towns is trivial in Google Maps. Just tell it two locations and ask for directions and it'll offer walking/driving/public transport variations and the distance plus the time estimation. At that point, my gut approach would be that it would be more interesting to point out things like the Great Arc and the Haversine formula (real world math showing why high school algebra actually has real world use). Some links for your reference:
http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/Silvestre-60492-Great-Circle-Lesson-le-Education-ppt-powerpoint/
http://www.livephysics.com/ptools/great-circle-path.php
http://www.movable-type.co.uk/scripts/latlong.html
My other questions (and this may be too much to cram into a curriculum schedule) would be:
* why is GPS more useful than strict X/Y cartesian legends for accurate maps
* how does GPS work? (I mentioned some links earlier when we started with broad strokes for your DIY app)
* why would cartesian maps be more useful than GPS maps (I think think of a bunch of reasons - it would be interesting to hear what Class72 thinks)
* what does Class72 think of this Apple patent on a new type of map that may or may not appear on a future iPhone/iPad:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/08/11/apple_looking_to_simplify_maps_on_iphone_with_dynamic_emphasizing_exaggerating.html
Best,
- Ian
Hi Ian, it's taken a while for me to get back to you. Learners still enjoy the paper maps. I think it's the size - it creates an impression of the "bigness" of their world. They also like to point, touch, show where they've been, where their cottages are, where grandma lives. It's still a very useful tool and a nice introduction to the development of maps. Many of them do not yet have GPS in their cars; parents may have no idea that it is available on their mobile devices ;)
ReplyDeleteOur social studies curriculum has not yet been updated and so your questions are useful. I will bring this up with my classes - both 6's and 7's. It would be a great inquiry topic.