Setting Up for Deeper Collaboration

Light & Sound is such a big topic that we spent a lot of time in the immersion phase exploring and doing experiments.  During the immersion phase, I try to help students be aware of the big ideas we need to cover in the NGSS so they can use and apply these ideas later in their smaller inquiry groups.  At the end of the immersion phase, we start gathering any questions that we still have about our current topic of study.

For our study of Light & Sound we sorted and categorized our lingering questions on our padlet wall, and ended up with this:

At the top of each sorted group I listed bigger questions, and at the bottom I listed possible topics of study for smaller inquiry groups.

Finally, I provided a ranking sheet so that students can have a choice in their topic for small group inquiry circles.  We can then easily divide each topic into smaller sub-inquiry groups, as needed.

Blake & Maddy will be studying how light behaves.

Logan S, Ryan,  and Kreed will be studying about how plants and animals use light or sound. 

Logan K, Austin, River, and Kyle will be researching different light sources. (2 sub-groups)

Alex and Makenna will be researching about color and light.

Brianna and Jack will be researching instruments and sound.

Erik and Jacob will be researching how people communicate with light and sound.

We'll need to start gathering resources on these final topics.  If you have ideas or suggestions for resources, please let me know!