Using technology to research!

So my students are doing research, on the footprints in the wild. The students were to find evidence on the footprints of animals and they were supposed to use their iPads that was to be assigned to them at the beginning of October. Of course teachers are known for their resourceful nature so my CE and I just had the students to do research from a book based upon their groups type of animal that was picked.

Some students did really well with doing the research and worked in groups just fine. While others had problems working together. I was working with one of the groups in the floor they were doing so well, and then I had another student come to me and tell me that one of the boys in her group was being mean.

The students were working on a chart in which they were to put what they learned, what they wonder, and something WOW! from the book. The girl that came up to me wondered if a porcupines claws were sharp so she wrote it in the "I wonder" column of the chart. The boy that was being mean told her "DUH of course a porcupine's claws are sharp!" So I when over to the group and asked what was going on. I was told, and I asked the boy if he meant to hurt the girl's feelings, and replied with a "no". I told him that even though he did not mean to hurt her feelings, he did. I asked the girl how it made her feel when he said that and she said " it made me feel dumb", when the boy heard this he apologized to her, and said that he was sorry for making her feel that way.

This all happened in less than two minutes. Not only did the group begin to work together better, their work was also better than all of the other groups. It amazed me how much it helped fix the problem when the other student was able to see exactly what the student that was hurt was feeling.

This made me think of my classroom management plan, and second grade standards for health education. We are supposed to teach students about bullying and teasing both of which happen so much to other students. Also, one of the goals for my school's improvement plan is to alleviate bullying and educate students about it. It is so awesome to be able to put things into practice that we have been doing in our classes at GWU.