The students have done the inquiry for this unit for about 6 weeks. It's the time for them to demonstrate their understanding and whether they could achieve the following learning outcomes:
They were given freedom to choose the media for their presentation. Some of them used posters and Powtoon presentation, while some others made videos, 3D models and finger puppets. I must say that these students have reached beyond my expectation. They didn't just recount the previous stages they passed, but they were able to reflect from those experiences. One student, whose parents were in divorce process, told the story how she used to have family time but at that moment, she was struggling to cope with the unpleasant situation with the help from her sister and her mom. Another student who used to be the only child shared the adaptation process when he finally got a new sibling; forced him to received less attention. Some others expressed their plans on preparing for the new stage they face soon: adolescence! Surely, I was as excited as them to see them grow.
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Students often have difficulties to put their ideas on paper, especially those who are lack in writing skills. Thus, it is essential to give them opportunities to share their thoughts in some other ways. Debate is one of the effective ways to practice their speaking skills. However, another question emerges, "How can I know if my students ready to do debate?". To get the answer, I did this activity with them: Four corners Prior to this activity, I put some signs on the walls: "Agree, Totally Agree, Partially Agree and Disagree". Then, I gathered the students in the center of the class and read some statements, such as: •There should be a lesson in the school about how to play online game •It is cool if we stay in our childhood forever •Because many kids need more sleep, school should start two hours later than it does now. Then, for each statement, I asked them to go to a corner that suits their opinion. It was fun for the students to move around the corners and give reasons to their choice. Their reasons were sometimes unpredictable, like for the second statement, one student said, "It's pretty cool to always be kids, but we also need to learn to be independent, like going to college or work." Learning the expression Once I think that my students are more fluent to give supporting reasons and details for their opinion, it was the time to teach them the expressions used in debate. I took a list from here as a reference:
On the third week of UOI 1, on 24th August 2015, we watched a movie titled "Forrest Gump". This movie tells the life of Forrest Gump, a man who has low IQ but has a good heart. He got bullied in his childhood as he used bracelet in his legs to help him walk. A girl helped him one day and they became best-friends from that day on. They grew together but started to split as they chose different path of life. It shows some stages of life, from childhood until late adulthood.
An article in Parents Indonesia shares a quite shocking information that nowadays, puberty hits girls and boys 6 months to 2 years earlier than a decade ago. This info sends us signal that we need to give knowledge about puberty before they seek it from unreliable sources. It is a good news that in Al-Jabr, this knowledge has been introduced in Grade 5, since the beginning of he semester.
It is undeniable that we change as we grow, but we rarely observe and document our growth and the changes happen in each stage. Meanwhile, in each stage, there are some needs that have to be achieved so that they have a good sense of self as they grow up. Thus, to increase the students' awareness about these changes and needs, we asked them to identify the stages of life by observing people around them.
Basically, they mentioned some stages like baby, kids, teenage and adult. Then, we introduced term like "infancy", "adolescent", "adulthood" etc. We also showed the following time-lapse video of a girl's growth, which shows physical development. |
AuthorNajib chooses a path to be an educator, just like two Indonesian prominent scholars whose names combined into his, which are Prof. Nurcholis Majid & Emha Ainun Najib. Had been teaching Primary level students in Ananda (2013-2015) & Al-Jabr Islamic School (2015-2018), he is currently pursuing his Master's degree in University College London, majoring Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment. Archives
November 2017
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