I cannot stop thinking about how much I have been inspired by my Professional Learning Network on Twitter. Looking back, it's been almost one year to the date that I tweeted this out after reading about a
Gothic Cathedral Project created by Tracy Hare:
There is nothing more satisfying to me than when a vision or an idea becomes a reality. This Wednesday my three 85 minute 7th grade classes completed 11 tabletop sized Gothic Cathedrals in 1 day, that's right, 1 day! To break it down, I had broken down specific goals for each class period of the class whiteboard. After reviewing the goals and work flow, each tabletop of 3 students began working together to complete the tasks. As they were working I filtered around, monitoring, helping troubleshoot, and provided additional materials. At about 10 minutes before the class period was over I had groups clean up and communicate. Each tabletop had their own whiteboard to communicate to the next class whatever did not finished. Then the next class period came to class, reviewed their goals/work flow on the classroom whiteboard and started off finishing the tasks left that were written on their tabletop whiteboard from the previous class. 10 Minutes before their block was over I had them clean up and communicate to the final class what needed to get finished. This process of collaboration and communication was a KEY ELEMENT to the success of this large scale project.
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| Goals/work flow for every class period written on the whiteboard |
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1st Period had the goal of transferring cathedral blueprint outline onto cardboard and building upon it with cardboard pieces. The last piece was securing the cardboard cathedral pieces to the cardboard base with tape.
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Notes left from 1st period on the "Communication" whiteboard.
Notes left from 2nd period on the "Communication" whiteboard.
11 Finished Cathedrals
