Day 1 Our first activity was an introduction game for which everyone had given me a little factoid about him or herself. I, in turn, made a list of these unique personality traits and distributed it to all of the participants and facilitators. For about twenty minutes, everyone mixed and mingled, trying to discern which factoid matched up with which person. The game put us at our ease, and we moved into the next game Steve had planned for us.
The next game was an exercise that combined a little bit of math, a lot of exploration, and even more community building and learning. We split into two groups of eight. Each group formed a tight circle and joined hands with different people in the circle, forming a knot of arms. The mission of the game was to untie this knot without breaking any handgrips. One group was totally knotted for the entire time, while the other group successfully untied the knot three times and then went on to try to discover how they could intentionally knot their arms.
At the end of this discovery period, we all sat down again and discussed the ramifications of this exercise in the classroom. Ben Preddy pointed out that if this exercise was not somewhat planned, a group of students might assume certain characteristics about the knot. For example, the group that continued to be knotted might have concluded that no combination of handgrips could lead to an eventual untying of the knot. The other group might have assumed that there could be no knot that could not be untied. He suggested that students might easily jump to these conclusions.
Allison Venables then continued the discussion by commenting that it would be a great advantage to be able to teach students the modes of inquiry that would lead them to a thorough investigation of this kind of problem, rather than jumping to easy conclusions. The discussion touched on the differences in the way adults, high school students, and elementary students might approach this problem. It was also suggested that the differences in approaching this problem might parallel the differences between conjecture and proof. Allison also spurred a conversation about how this kind of exercise might encourage natural leaders, while leaving less adventurous students in the background. Many ideas about group learning and relations were discussed.
Overall, we had a great beginning. We hope the events of the week will continue to run smoothly. I plan to post a note about the happenings of each day in the evening following the last event.
By the way, my name is Heather, and I'm a student working for the Forum this summer. I can be reached via e-mail at heather@forum.swarthmore.edu. Until tomorrow!