Background:
On the evening of January 31, 2018, Super Blue Blood Moon appeared in space for the first time in the past 152 years. Children were very interested in this phenomenon. What caused Super Blue Blood Moon? Are there aliens on the far side of the moon? Is it true in the fairy tale that ChangE flew to the moon? Various problems from children received a lot of attention from teachers of all disciplines. To solve these problems, teachers and children decided to carry out the Great Starry Sky learning project.
Structure and basic context
Based on student's questions, the learning community divided The Great Starry Sky into four sub-projects: Humanities Sky, Science Sky, Art Sky and Technology Sky. Tasks in each field are connected with real life and reflect the comprehensive application of interdisciplinary knowledge. Through integrating, summarizing and analyzing, students discovered problems and sought solutions to these problems. This kind of three-dimensional thinking training breaks through the limitations of the linear thinking mode in single-disciplinary teaching.
What did we do in these four sub-projects？
Humanities Sky: From mythological stories, folklore, and classic novels, we can often see the illusions of ancient humans flying into the universe. In the field of Humanities Sky, students read Chinese and foreign countries' mythological stories, poetry essays, science fictions, and science essays about flying, constellations, etc. They also showcased the learning outcomes by making starry sky sci-fi books and holding a poetry and paintings show called "Me and Starry Sky". The students' work incorporated relevant knowledge of Chinese, music and art, which enhanced students' comprehension of humanities and art.
First, students created a book about starry sky literature. Students first classified literatures, and then chose a form of works to study according to their preferences. Teachers and students collaborated to learn through literature materials collation, page layout and beautification, layout, painting, etc.
Second, poetry recitation session under the starry sky theme. With the help of Chinese and music teachers, students chose the content, selected the background music, carried out the formation transformation, arranged costume props, etc. on June 1, the Children's Day, students presented a wonderful recital show.
Science Sky：Stars, galaxies, and the vast universe are distant and mysterious. Scientific research tools and methods can help us explore the mysteries of the sky. The learning goal of Science Sky is to demonstrate the starry sky in a visual way, letting more people understand it. Making a Big Dipper model and rehearsing a popular science drama can bring a new learning experience that when combining art and science.
First, the Big Dipper model. Under the guidance of science and mathematics teachers, students learned the relationship of stars in the Big Dipper and learned to use simple machines to determine their position using the principle of number pair.
Second, field observation of the starry sky. The Science Sky team organized an outdoor stargazing event. Parents and students set up tents in the playground together. In the evening, students used the high-powered telescope to observe the stars.
Third, "Starry Sky Talk" popular science drama. Students became small screenwriters, small directors, and small actors. They self-directed the popular science drama "Starry Sky Talk", and the students' stage performance has been improved by practice.
Art Sky：Students applied modern art methods, creating with a variety of tools and planning a starry sky art exhibition on campus. This cultivated students' abilities of activity organization and artistic expression.
First, art works exhibition about the starry sky. Sand paintings, mark strokes, clay three-dimensional paintings…… All these creative paintings, made from ordinary colored pens to daily waste materials, gave children a different artistic creation experience.
The students also actively participated in the scene layout of the exhibition, drawing different planets in the universe on a bubble ball. Every child enjoyed it.
Second, the starry sky fashion show. The children found that art is closely connected with our lives, so they started painting hats and painting clothes. Children of the art team showed their talents and presented a fashion show by spontaneously rehearsals.
Technology Sky: Human has never stopped its pace of space exploration. From the Apollo mission to the moon in the United States to the Lunar Exploration project in China, what great achievements have the world's aerospace technology achieved? How to show these achievements to other students? Through the research in the field of Technical Sky, students' informational and hands-on ability are developed.
First, an aviation picture exhibition that demonstrates the spirit of human exploration. It covered disciplines like research, labor, information technology, and Chinese. The students searched and arranged the pictures together, learned the picture layout design from the art teacher, wrote the text description under the guidance of the language teacher, and acted as the on-site commentator.
Second, the production of aviation models. In the classroom, students explored with their peers; when they got home, they worked with parents to explore the challenges and completed a creative work. They were so excited when they were watching at their aviation models.
Why did we do in this way？
Irmeli Halinen, director of the Finnish Board of Education Curriculum Development Center, said: “In my opinion, since the world has been changing, we have to reconsider everything about the school. We must also recognize that the capabilities needed in society and at work have already changed".
School education should keep up with changes in the world. The 21st century is an era of personal character, and it is also an era of cooperation and connectivity between people. This requires education not only to meet various individuals’ needs, but also to enhance the connection between students and the world, the society, and themselves. In addition, school education must help students build abilities required by the society, especially the 4C core competence, creativity, collaboration, communication and critical Thinking. The interdisciplinary learning project is an exploration and experimentation of advanced school education.
Project-based learning is not aimed at learning textbook knowledge. It is a process of comprehensively applying knowledge to solve problems. Learning outcomes can be presented in the form of works. Practice shows that it is more appropriate to use performance assessment to evaluate project effectiveness. Performance assessment is a kind of evaluation method that provides students with certain problem situations and evaluates students' development achievements by observing students' performance in actual tasks. There are many criteria in the performance assessment. The common form includes speech, debate, performance, experiment, investigation, observation, creation of artworks, and works exhibition.
