Four corners

Greetings my friends!  In preparation for this post, I thought about what every Tanzanian classroom has in it.  I realized that a common factor was walls and students.  Walls provide corners in the classroom.  This strategy uses four corners of the classroom and students. A teacher prepares  a selected response question.  Students are given the opportunity to select their response and commit to an answer.  The teacher has four possible answers posted around the room.  Students meet in the corner of the room that best represents their answer.  By meeting in a corner of the classroom, students have the opportunity to discuss with each other  similar ideas and prepare a statement of why their answer is correct.  After time for discussion, students are asked to explain their thinking.  This creates an opportunity for students to learn from each other. When they listen to each other, they will begin to notice gaps in their own understanding of the concept.  This allows them to adjust their thinking.  This can be done prior to a lesson regarding the content.  I did this recently in my classroom with the different ideas of the nuclear atom and electron arrangement.  I had students draw their ideas of an atom then meet together to discuss their similar ideas/drawings.  This allowed me to note that most of my students had an understanding of the nucleus and the Bohr model of the atom.  Several students were using the planetary model and very few students had an idea of an electron cloud.  This was valuable knowledge as I began my lesson.
Until next time,
Donna