Learning in Spiral Prgression

Today, dad decide to extend the learning of the concept of 'Ark and water' to learn with Joshua through spiral progression to enrich the learning experience.

photo of the 'futuristic' looking ark constructed using Lego bricks yesterday.

What is spiral progression?

Spiral learning refers to the view that learning takes place over time as a
process of maturation, so that the same or similar ideas are met again and again
but each time with greater sophistication requiring further maturity.
Extracted from http://www.ncetm.org.uk/Default.aspx?page=22&module=enc&mode=100&enclbl=Progression

These were the specific activities for this evening:

• 8.30pm- 8.45pm Warm UP: Whats Up Today?



• 8.45- 8.50pm Revisit Story of "The Animals and the Ark" <Word recognition: Dad recorded the time taken for Josh to arrange the form alphabets>




• 8.50 -9pm Underwater creatures <Science: Dad showed Joshua a series of underwater animals and discussed the difference between land and sea creatures>



• 9-9.15pm Origami: Boat making < Computer and Craft: Dad and Josh surfed the web and did a comparative study of Noah's ark by analysing various images in Google. Then they found this great website http://www.origami-kids.com/ >
  



• 9.15-9.30pm Water invasion <Science: Dad first asked Joshua about why can a large bottle float while a smaller sea shell can sink. By testing out the two objects, dad introduced concept of buoyancy. Next, they placed their paper boat in the tank and allowed water to splash to create the 'rain' effect as part of Noah's ark>

The intent was simply to allow Joshua to construct various examples of the same above-mentioned concept (unit of learning: Sea). By revisiting a story i.e. The Animals and the Ark" the activities became then the extended example spaces (new educational concept on the breadth and depth of the mental collection of examples). By showing how the same idea can be developed through different subjects, the child's dimensions of possible variation expand and thus the transfer of learning is researched to increase his ability for interdisciplinary learning (also a key advantage in problem/project-based learning).

In education, teachers realised that to build confident independent learners, it is critical for students to gain a high degree of competency in a particular skill/ learning area. Thats why daddy particularly emphasize to teachers that a well designed rubrics can be a powerful means to scaffold learning of a child (read daddy's blog for teachers- http://think-learn-grow.blogspot.com/)