Over the past two months I have had the opportunity to work with some really great kids.
In one school, I worked with a small group of challenging grade 5 students. With low attendance and low literacy skills we tackled the topic of Heroes.
Presented like an inquiry project, we brainstormed definitions, types of heroes and decided to focus our efforts on one particular individual who inspired them all: Spencer West.
I was really inspired by this group of students as they brainstormed questions, some easily answered by Google and others that really required a lot of consideration such as: How does he describe himself? What helped him become the person he is? What inspires him?
These questions really made my students think, read and infer which are generally difficult skills. They watched videos, read newspaper articles, listened to me read excerpts from Spencer West's book: Standing Tall and struggled to answer their questions in a meaningful way. However, nothing excited them more than a tweet from Spencer and the possibility of Skyping with him. Together they created a prezi that summarized their work however, the skills they learned that can not necessarily be evaluated through a presentation (cooperation, communication, collaboration) were invaluable lessons.

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