This year I made my students a gift for them to take with them over winter break. It was something I have always wanted to make and this year everything my super supportive wife encouraged me to just do it (as well as helping me out creating them!). The task? Make astrolabe kits!
Anytime Learning
Showing kids that learning occurs at all times, not only in school or for a grade is one of the most important parts of my educational philosophy. Allowing students to explerience something we have studied in class on thier own is the best way to have them gain the enduring understandings we are looking for. In the picture above you can see the QR code on the label. I made this to send students to the instructions found on each classes blog page (see
here). Bringing them to a central place online allowed me to set the directions up in a manner that was easy to follow and also made embedding an instructional video smooth and look great.
Reflections
While it may be difficult to guage whether each student used their gift and was successful, that wasn't really the point. I want students to realize that learning can be interesting and happen at any time. Many students expressed disbelief that I wasn't going to be grading or testing them on this activity- a truly saddenning aspect to this experience. I am confident that the absence of summative assessment will inspire my students to experiment with their astrolabes when they are interested in them. In the mean time, I anxiously await going back to school next year to hear how the astrolabes worked- from them. In the mean time I used an astrolabe like the one I gave them to measure the angle of Polaris while on vacation in Florida.
