Amidst what I thought was a moment of fantastical creativity, which would undoubtedly be dismissed as unrealistic by my teaching colleagues, I devised and proposed the idea that our Summative Task for our second Unit of Inquiry of the year be one where we divide the students into groups cross-classes, having one team member from each class (5A, 5B, 5C, 5D, 5E). This design model means that teachers will work as mentors with specific groups, giving them the opportunity to work with students they don't know yet. It also gives the students to opportunity to work with other students they normally don't see during class time. My Gr. 5 teaching team is enthusiastically on-board plus approval and support from the curriculum coordinators and we're a go! It could have turned into a logistical nightmare, but we figured it out and have mashed together a schedule fairly straight forwardly with blocks of class time where we all have classroom programme time together in the mornings.
The students will work collaboratively on a WebQuest that I have been constructing about Matter & Materials. Each individual student will be assessed on their teamwork, cooperative group decision making and conflict resolution. The groups will be assessed for their presentation of knowledge and application of skills conducting research, evaluating online sources, problem solving and critical thinking. The project gives the students the opportunity to work independently and authentically practice their reflective writing skills with a detailed daily project journal.
Here is a link to the completed WebQuest. It focuses on the groups preparing a project about a material that they have chosen to investigate. They will present their findings in a Gallery Walk for all classes to see, after 2 weeks of project work. It was an awesome learning experience and Quest Garden is a great tool to use if you're starting out, especially to familiarize yourself with all aspects and relevant reasons for creating a WebQuest.
