Spring break ended last week and we were all back to school. I tried to lessen the blow by doing some fun activities and trying to get the kids thinking about our next system: the digestive system.
We tried an activity that I received from a teacher in the College in the Schools (CIS) program at the University of Minnesota (big shout out to Murray Jensen and Jeff Adams!) called “Inside vs. Outside the Body”. It was an awesome inquiry/POGIL lesson that really got the kids thinking and coming up with great questions about what it means to be “inside” the body and what exactly that barrier is between inside/outside. I have never before had such interesting conversations as I did with my students that day. The discussion really flows because, especially with high school students, they’re so interested in their bodies (most notably in terms of reproduction), and aren’t afraid to ask any questions they have. It was so cool! This may be cruel of me, but I love to watch them think so hard they start to confuse themselves and then have to work their way out of the corner they’ve been backed into! 🙂 But, I know it’s for their own good, and they’re so much smarter and intuitive than they think, and activities like this really help to prove that.
I wasn’t sure if this activity was a better introductory activity for the beginning of the year or if it would work with a system, but it worked out wonderfully for my students and I will definitely refer back to it often with them, as it can easily be applied to any system. (Although hopefully with a bit more trial and error, I’ll be making steps away from a system to system approach…)
So, thank you CIS teachers for putting together awesome lessons!!! I’d love to test out more, and I’m really hoping to make it to your POGIL workshop!
For those of you unfamiliar with the CIS Program, here’s a link to their website!
Thanks for using the “inside / outside” activity, Erin. We’ll have about 10 to 15 POGIL activities ready for the Las Vegas HAPS meetings. They are indeed fun way to run a class – and fit well with the “flipped” classroom. I’m bringing two CIS teachers to Vegas this year (Jeff Adams and Ann Marie Froehle) to talk about POGIL, cooperative learning and even our student kiosk project ( http://msjensen.cehd.umn.edu/kiosks/ ). Should be a great conference.