Setting The Stage
In the very first session I wanted to raise interest for the subject and elicit lots of prior knowledge and good questions. It was supposed to run over two 45 minute lessons with half an hour for lunch but in reality with had one 20 minute lesson and one half and hour.
How do you interest a group of 16 children in a topic they don't really care about? Play spot the teacher of course! My opening line was "I am a Viking". There was some disbelief at this statement but after showing several pictures with my alter ego "Fiac the Viking" hidden within and challenging them them to spot me they soon believed what I said. After explaining how the lesson was going to run "I don't want to teach you, you can teach yourselves", we ran out time but I asked them to think carefully of any questions they might want to find the answers too while out at break. I then played this video.
To my surprise they didn't all instantly get up and leave to play football but each and everyone stayed to watch. I have never seen them be so attentive or be this quiet before.
After break I played another video and asked them to right down everything they think they know about the Vikings. When I got the group to feedback what they wrote we got some very interesting answers. As expected we got the usual, "Vikings killed everyone", but there was talk about what they wore, what they ate and what they looked like. There was even some debate about whether or not they had horns. I have to admit I didn't expect such a good response and when it came to asking questions, "What do you want to find out?", they appeared to be genuinely interested in the topic and asked some very interesting questions. They weren't soul searching or particularly open questions but they could be put into brackets such as "how did the Vikings live?", "Where did the Vikings go?", "Were they really bloodthirsty killers?". This is where I believe I made a mistake. I didn't focus on anything in particular but left the questions on the board and sat back to see what happened.
So How Did It Go?
The children charged into the library, argued a bit about who had control of the computer, sulked, momentarily refused to join in, then set to work researching the Vikings. Imitating moths to a lamp all the children directed attention to the computer screens talking in Finnish and every now and then mentioning the work 'Viikingit". This may have been a ploy to keep me happy but I have reason to believe they were trying their best to answer the impossible questions I had set. This is where lack of focus doesn't help. Although they all found the same website with the annoying pop-up and translated the questions written up, having three to look at and work on meant they weren't really looking for anything in particular and thus, just browsing. They didn't look at what other groups were doing and didn't opt to change groups around. The common pattern was of one working the computer, one writing, another sometimes chipping in ideas and the last just day-dreaming.
When we came to feedback time there was little to say. They hadn't written much down and apparently not being used to using blank paper had tried to write in bullet points or draw in lines. Yes they did find out a bit about the Vikings but not very much.
The Next Steps
When something doesn't work, try again. Failure is only the point where you give up. This is a new way of learning for the children. They have me, a mad teacher from England who knows no Finnish. They have to work in groups and 1 computer and they have very open ended questions. Of course it will take a while for me and the children to work out what to do.
In the next session I want more focus: just one question which they can all work on. The nature of the challenge means that each group will find out something different. I will also talk about ways of using the internet to search for information just to double check that they know how.
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