Innovation, Creativity and Success #2...

I have realised that the more enthusiastic I am about our learning the more enthusiastic my learners are, so with that in mind I introduced our pick-a-path story challenge. We began by exploring an interactive advertisement that gave my learners, who were working in pairs, a choice of which path to follow. I knew I had picked the right hook as the initial giggles were quickly replaced by excited chatter as the outcome of each choice became evident. We then went on to explore some pre-made pick-a-path stories that allowed a wider choice of options.

                                   

Once I knew my learners were hooked we began planning our own versions. We began by planning our ideas in pairs as I knew the discussion around the storylines would be richer if we did this. However the final piece of completed work was done independently as each person was given the freedom to add their own twist to their shared planning. the I used a planning template that Matt Goodwin shared with me to help us organise our ideas. The screenshots below show our twist with this. We found we needed to colour code the ideas that went with each other as this helped us organise our responses on the google form. 

We had a few hiccups linking between the sections on the google form. The pictures below show one pair's problem solving strategies.

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Te Pounamu is happy for me to share his pick-a-path story. He has done this with other teachers and classes in our school and absolutely loves reading the response sheet. This YouTube clip is a great resource that explains the process using google forms.

 

Te Pounamu said on his blog post 'I like this story because it was a new experience and I want to do this again because it is fun, new and interesting. It is a awesome way to do a writing lesson. I think everyone should have this experience and have fun.'

What I noticed most of all during these writing sessions was that everyone was engaged and motivated. There were even moans when we had a change to our timetable that meant writing wasn't going to take place one day! When I think of what we did through the lens of self efficacy, I can say that on this occasion the boxes were well and truly ticked. My challenge as the teacher is to now capture this so that we can hopefully transfer the same level of self belief to our next writing focus.