As the first semester of the 2023-2024 academic year draws to a close, students have completed hundreds of projects and achievements in the project-based Xi Xi, and the Avenues community has welcomed a grand celebration of learning.
These are not only presentations of the Xi that Avenues students have learned this semester, but also their reflections on the problems and the world, and the project-based learning Xi make the Xi scenes richer, more vivid and more realistic, and the students realize the greater "meaning of learning Xi" through face-to-face exchanges with cutting-edge professionals and in the process of connecting many social practices with the real world.
Grade 4 Applied Mathematics Project "Urban Design of Shenzhen Jiuwei Area".
In the following, we will present an online project Xi and presentation of the results of the 5th grade Avenues Discovery Course, the construction of an amusement park.
At half past two o'clock in the afternoon of December 8th, visitors incarnated by parents and teachers have lined up at the entrance of the fifth-grade Jurassic Amusement Park, and the students in charge of checking tickets on the spot will give visitors a guide map after entering the park, which shows ten different amusement projects: Haunted House Horror Night, Pig Egg Surfing, Symmetrical Bumper Cars, Rainbow Rafting, George's Dinosaur Tour, etc.
Grade 5 students can get stickers carefully designed by students after designing tickets in Chinese and English, guide maps, and checking in different game facilities.
Tourists can learn about the characteristics of the project through the "project manual" prepared by the students, and they can also experience the project by hand. There are also students in charge of construction to explain the design ideas, the energy used in the construction process, and the uniqueness of the project, hoping to impress potential "investors" through wonderful speeches.
The whole amusement park was full of people, and the visitors looked at the project that used various energy sources to "move" and competed to experience different amusement facilities.
Students explain their design projects to their parents.
After experiencing the amusement park project, visitors can also check in the math blind box to see how students are learning Xi math in an interesting wayWith the help of your classmates, you will learn about the nine types of energy you have learned in classGo to the ** wall to see the students' investigation experience in Happy Valley and Nanshan Energy Ecological Park;In "How important it is to speak up!".The Themed Essay Display Wall showcases the unique spirit and attitude of Avenues students.
In this 6-8 week program, students take advantage of 1-1 every day outside of classes5 hours to focus on the design and construction of your own amusement park, and lay a solid foundation in the interdisciplinary Xi. Looking at the reflections on the project written by the Year 5 children in small groups, we believe that the whole project will not only bring them knowledge and Xi, hands-on skills, but also gain more important peer friendship, teamwork and Avenues' core values.
The students designed and drew posters to show the project process
Xi the elements of the Avenues world and the Avenues Code of Conduct.
After visiting the "Online Achievement Exhibition" above, I believe readers have felt that the core knowledge of amusement park construction projects is energy in scientific knowledge.
With "energy" as the core, Year 5 students need to learn Xi definition of energy, as well as different energy classifications and their applications, such as what is energy, what is kinetic energy, how to use wind energy, etc. When students understand the use of energy, they will gradually understand how to use energy to build playground equipment.
The construction of amusement parks also requires a lot of mathematical knowledge, such as how to use mathematical concepts such as "direction" and "coordinates" to draw maps, calculate the area of polygons, and how to calculate the cost of amusement park construction through area.
How much does it cost to build an amusement park?
In addition, at Avenues' bilingual immersion program, learning Xi and expression in English is a "must-have" for students. For energy knowledge and mathematical knowledge, there are a large number of English proper nouns, which not only need them to memorize, but also need them to understand the meaning of each unfamiliar word.
Even visitors have said that these words are very difficult to remember and understand, such as axle, screw, kinetic energy, potential energy, symmetry, etc.
Xi and understanding of six **machines.
In addition to this, they also practice Xi expressions in Chinese and English: writing and speaking. How to show the amusement park project in detail and accurately in words, and how to attract more potential "investors" with on-site speeches, are all abilities that they need to polish over and over again in the writing of expository essays and proposals.
Revised the project description in English and Chinese many times until it was finalized.
The knowledge of all subjects is organically combined under the design of the teachers, laying a solid knowledge foundation for the project, and also paving the way for students to understand and apply knowledge in the next stage, and in the whole project process, the Xi learning, understanding, application and reflection of knowledge become a perfect closed loop.
Since the project is about making a work, hands-on and hands-on experience is another part that is essential. Therefore, at different stages of the project, the teacher led the students to explore in an all-round way.
Visit Happy Valley.
In the Lego building experience, the students felt the joy of hands-on creation;During the field trip to Happy Valley, the students not only experienced the fun of the amusement projects, but more importantly, they analyzed the energy conversion and different mechanical knowledge used in each amusement projectVisit the Nanshan Energy Ecological Park and learn how Xi can turn waste into usable energy.
After learning about nine different energy sources, the students Xi hands-on experiments.
Among them, the most interesting thing for the students is the hands-on experiment, how to get nine different energy sources:
Insert different electrodes and use the fruit to conduct electricity to make the small bulb light up
According to the circuit connection diagram, make a traffic light;
Build a hands-on model to convert the wind energy of a small fan into electricity, and finally make the light bulb light up
Solar panels are used to collect solar energy and convert it into electricity to supply electricity
The ...... of using the hydroelectric power generated by the windmill device to move the boat out of the water
When the experiment is in progress.
From written knowledge to hands-on understanding and awareness, Avenues students understand the "wonders" of energy, which lays the foundation for their next steps in designing amusement park facilities, choosing different energy sources, and making their own creations.
Armed with interdisciplinary knowledge and hands-on experiments, the Year 5 students first designed a concept map of the amusement park facilities, applied energy to them, and finally turned the design into a three-dimensional work.
From drafts, designs, to finished works.
In the process, the students encountered a variety of difficulties:
The pulley is not sensitive enough, is there a plan B that can replace it?
There is no off-the-shelf motor in the accessories, how can I find a motor from other accessories to make the object spin?
There is a difference of opinion between the group peers, how can it be resolved?
How to let the friends find the parts they are good at and smoothly divide labor and cooperate?
Experiments keep failing, do you want to give up?
LEGO models are used to aid understanding and design.
It is fair to say that the Avenues students encountered problems at different stages of the project, but when they finally completed their projects in small groups, and presented each team member's summary and reflection on the project, the teachers felt their hard work, diligence and pride.
The first time we tried to form, it failed, Carol didn't say anything, the second time, we used a bamboo stick, and it failed again, and this time Carol collapsed!
The third time it worked!It's so much fun!”
Through interdisciplinary project-based learning Xi, students can discover a lot of knowledge and concepts that we think are far away from life, which are actually used in our lives every day, especially after the process of their own design and production, they will find that learning Xi is closely related to daily and real life, in this process, they find the interest in learning Xi, find the motivation to learn Xi, and even experience the greater significance of learning Xi. ”
Students who program and build amusement parks.
Ms. Xin Yun, who leads the fifth-grade Avenues Exploration Program, summed up the students' experience with the project, likening it to a seed planted in the hearts of the students, and as they enter the higher grades of middle school, they will deepen their inner self-exploration.
Some attentive parents found two sets of posters that looked "profound" at the exhibition (below):
It is written in dense English, what exactly does the kwl on the left mean?What does the circle and circle on the right represent in English with different colors?
In Ms. Xinyun's detailed explanation, we learned that this is the "magic weapon" for students to gain deep Xi learning in teaching, and this is the highest meaning of "exploration".
In the case of KWL, this is a pedagogy often used by Avenues teachers to take the initiative to explore knowledge through student-centeredness. where K stands for Know, W stands for Want, and L stands for Learn.