I suggested to my grade 8s that in the next several weeks I would be giving them opportunities to begin making music that allows them to follow their own interests in different ways. For example, a few friends could work together to make music of their own and share it with others...
Well, there has been some feedback on this. One student has been very favourable of the idea of working with a few friends.
Great tasks are hard fun.
- They are challenging and multifaceted.
- They require students to use technology to play with ideas and build things.
- They require sustained amounts of uninterrupted time (be prepared for a good task to take days or even weeks for students to finish).
- They require students to stretch their thinking.
http://www.myio.org/IO/Modules/Projects/dsp_map_technology_to_task.asp?io_projectid=5114 This is the hyperlink to http://myio.org
Great tasks develop what Deborah Meier calls strong "habits of mind." Here are the kinds of thinking Meier thinks meaningful tasks should promote.
- Questions of evidence or how do we know what we know?In a really good task, students will encounter issues of proof, reasoning, argument and persuasion. They have to make conscious decisions about what will count as evidence or knowledge. They need to make judgments about the reliability and validity of information and consider what important sources and ideas they may have overlooked.
- The question of viewpoint or who's speaking?In a good task, different viewpoints are not a problem to be solved or a difficulty to be overcome. They are an essential component of understanding. Great tasks can help students understand that the privilege of perspective is an essential component of power. Such tasks might help them discover voices and points of view that have been systematically silenced. In a great task, there should be more than one possible answer or path.
- The search for connections and patterns. This might involve asking, "What causes what?" Or it might cause students to question how one thing is related to another – especially when the relationship might not be obvious.
- Supposition or how might things have been different?Here, great tasks allow students to manipulate variables, create different scenarios or ask, "What if?" in powerful ways.
- And, finally, why any of it matters or who cares?
