I find myself a trained, experienced high school teacher totally out of my depth, feeling like I am almost drowning in Deep Waters, currently teaching “Slime Madness” to Kindy to Stage 3 students on a weekly basis – what on earth am I doing??
The course Slime Madness was developed for students as a response to student voice.
I developed a course that would get the students involved, hands-on with making different types of slime but firstly having students determine criteria that we try to meet and or better on a weekly basis.
Can I firstly say that the engagement of the different stages of students involved is fabulous, I not only have students who want to make slime the moment they walk into the room, but they ask about writing/sequencing the steps so that they can make slime again at home. We talk about the criteria for making great slime – is it stretchy? is it sticky? is it a good consistency? can you poke it? does it have foam beads? etc. After only 3 lessons we have students being able to identify the ingredients that activate the slime and we have students who can determine if they need more of a specific ingredient to improve their slime.
From my high school Food Tech lessons to primary slime lessons its funny but there isn’t a huge difference. The surroundings and location may not look like the Food Tech class, but the actual making of slime, the participation and engagement are very similar to my previous experience – the only difference is that we can’t eat slime!
My biggest learning from this so far is not to underestimate student interest. I can be honest and say that Slime Madness is not my passion, but Adventure Learning isn’t about me, it is all about our students. Our students are our non-negotiables! We are trying to give our students choice and voice in what they want to learn. If we continue to spoon feed students with what we want to teach them they will not develop to be the critical thinkers, we need in the 21st century.
It would seem that our students, and it doesn’t matter their age or stage come to their Adventure Learning class, Slime Madness, and are interested and invested and involved, they are present in the moment, they love to get their hands dirty and want to continue their learning journey. The excitement that comes into the classroom every week is inspiring. We do not have any behaviour issues as students are 100% invested – our only issue is trying to get students not to play with slime when we need their attention.
I see our attempt at St Luke’s Catholic College in giving student voice and choice, known as Adventure Learning, as a success. I base this success on the excitement and engagement present in our class every Wednesday. I look forward to our course presentation, where students will present their learnings. This can be done in a number of ways and I look forward to how students will demonstrate their learning and how the different stages of students will show a deeper understanding of what we have learned.
Will the course Slime Madness continue? How can we take Slime Madness deeper? Will we be able to take students from surface – deep – transfer? This is all in the student’s hands. I look forward to the challenge!!
Yours in Slime!!