Primary 3 Plant lesson

Getting students to generate ideas

The teacher conducted an experiment with the class. She put a celery stem and a caixin plant into separate conical flasks with water added with strawberry flavoured food dye. The teacher encouraged the students to predict what would happen to the two plants. This experiment made students asked many questions. One student is especially inquisitive and posted his list of 17 questions on Knowledge Forum:

Getting students to connect ideas

She asked them to post their ideas on Knowledge Forum and build on to one another’s ideas. Students then started discussions, making predictions concerning different aspects of the plants (colour change, health, edibility, taste, and if the plants will turn into strawberries) and the water (changes in water colour and water level). This shows idea diversity.

This is how the teacher encourage students to connect ideas:

Teacher: Okay. Now I want to give you some time to go to KF (Knowledge Forum). I want-
Students: Yes! Yeah!
Teacher: Did I say go?
Students: No

Teacher: I want to hear you views about what we have observed. I want to hear some questions that you have, now that I have shown you another caixin leaf. It’s actually from the same bunch, just that I only took out one leaf for you to see. Why is it that we have different results?
Students: (chorus)
Teacher: I want to hear you explanations. You have a lot of interesting ideas and questions. Like, Victoria said that we added Sin Ying’s water in, that’s why-
Students: (chorus)
Teacher: White water? Never mind. I want to hear your ideas. I want you to build on to your friends’ comments.