When "I Don't Know" Becomes a Starting Point

 

I've always wanted to give my students the opportunity to learn about our National Parks and try podcasting with my students. Combining these two options has been proven successful, and the perfect antidote to end of the year motivational struggles.

I researched and found a terrific podcasting resource from Spark Creativity. The author is has a Language Arts background, but so many of her resources, from blackout poetry, to one pagers, to hexagonal thinking, are very adaptable to our History curriculum. We began this unit on the last day of school before Winter Break but shelved it to create National History Day projects.

A few Fridays ago it became evident we all needed a change. I decided from the next Friday forward we would bring back the National Parks podcast project to end our week.

We started (again) by viewing a "See All of the National Parks in One Minute" clip. This built some excitement and curiosity for selecting a park. The next step was to think of a podcast title and create cover art in Canva. Students were motivated and engaged in this novel lesson.

The second day was to listen to the beginning of a podcast, compose intro and outro music in GarageBand, and begin their script. They really enjoyed their music creations and were invested in recording next week.

We have 4 more Fridays to continue our project. My students naturally have questions about specifics related to the project.

Student: "How long does our podcast need to be?" 
Me: "I don't yet know, we've never done this before."

Student: "Will we be able to finish and focus on a second Park?"

Me: "I don't yet know, we've never done this before."

I mentioned to my classes that we are going to take each Friday as they come. It's really important for me how they are progressing, and take my instructional cues from them. I made clear my 3 goals for this project are: 1. To learn more about our National Parks. 2. Convey that knowledge to the best of our ability to an audience through podcasting. 3. To have fun on Fridays as we close out our year. 

As for specifics, we will probably complete one podcast, and at least start a second before our last day of class. If they are truly working and utilizing their time wisely but only finish one podcast, that's ok, too. They will guide me and I'll know more for next year.

"I don't know" can be incredibly empowering, both for students and teachers.

It's been a good year, I'm looking forward to wrapping up with 8th Grade Promotion and the district Social Studies vision meeting in early June.