A Rumor

Last night I went through our course watching Priscilla link learning to living and living to learning.  We did it through a mystery that she had set up in which we were to sift through data that the class had derived.  The mystery ended up having us play a bit of detective and solve a problem in which Priscilla made up.  As quick and busy as I feel right now, both in class and in my other duties of life, I'm never sure how much is going to stay in me.  The problem is, I want it all.

Knowing that we had class the previous night I was sitting at my desk getting ready to go through a pretty standard day.  Not because I wanted to, but just out of exhaustion.  I got out my favorite worksheets to work with.  They're my favorite because they have a riddle on them.  If you solve the problems, you can decipher the riddle.  So, I was, for whatever reason, reading the answer to the riddle of the worksheet that I was going to give them.  It said, "Did You Hear About...." with a bunch of blank lines on it.  Answers streamed down the sides with words and problems filled the middle of the page.  The answer was "the boy and the girl who went into the revolving door and started going together".  Instantly, I thought of rumors that are spread in our school.  Once that popped in my head, all hell broke loose.

I started thinking about what we've learned.  Come up with an end product for the students to hand in.  Have an entrance and exit strategy on an authentic question.  How can I incorporate software skills?  How can I make a real world problem from this????!!!!!  I quickly wrote a scenario of rumors being spread in the school.  I figured out that I would have the students recreate the same type of problem as I when we get finished.  That way I can assess them.  I figured I can introduce the lesson as a real problem in the school and used a software program that allowed me to have our Security Specialist read my scenario.  Listen to our security specialist.

I then went ahead and explained that our principal had confiscated the new coded words and also found a key on the ladies bathroom floor.  I handed them slips of papers with the same problems from the worksheet, except they were cut up.  I put the kids in groups to solve a few and put someone in charge to put them in order as groups completed them.  The kids totally bought into it!!!  They really wanted to find out what the rumor was.  They worked as hard as I've ever seen them.  After they solved it, I walked them through how it was created.  Discussed with them the technologies used (word processor, cell phone for podcast & pics, podcasting host site) and how I used them.  Then I let them loose in groups.  Again, they worked happily until the bell and some even came in during lunch to finish their projects.  These are my at risk kids.  Now that I've tasted the authentic problem thing and so have the kids, we both are going to crave more.