Exploring the explorers

Although many around the world have already started the summer holidays and some will soon be going back after their winter break, for most schools in England, this week is the final week of term!

To celebrate this, we've made a lot of our iPad apps either half-price or completely free, temporarily.

An example of one of our apps is an exciting history mystery about a Spanish explorer who set off to the New World. It is now £0.79 in the UK, $0.99 in the US and $1.29 in Australia. It's aimed at 11-14 year olds.

In pairs (small groups or alone are options too), students work through this topic together to discuss the motivations behind Pablo's venture.

They are given lots of illustrated slips/cards of information and asked to sort through them. To do this, they go through different stages (a structure based on Moseley et al.'s (2005) integrated model for understanding thinking and learning. Firstly, they gather information and read the slips, then they move towards building understanding by classifying the informaion and identifying relations. In the sequencing stage, they then focus on reasoning and understanding.

To download 'Digital Mysteries: Spanish Exploration and Conquest', half-price until 21st July, click here.

If you would like more information on Digital Mysteries, please go to www.reflectivethinking.com/digitalmysteries-ipad.

A screenshot of the grouping stage

Great artists in history - Art curriculum

Click here to download the app

30th March marks Vincent van Gogh's birthday. He was born on 30th March 1853, which means he was born (as of this year: 2016), 163 years ago. His work and life story makes a big impact all these years later, and is on the curriculum of schools across the world.

We have worked with a teacher to create an engaging iPad app dedicated to Vincent and his contribution to the history of art. In celebration of what would have been his birthday, we have dropped the price of this to the lowest: 79p (UK), 99c (US) and $1.49 (AU).

Digital Mysteries: Vincent van Gogh is a unique app which allows pairs of 7-11 year olds to work simultaneously on one iPad with a task mapped to the art/English curriculum. They can also do the task alone if preferred.

Users are given illustrated slips of information which they read, organise into groups and lay out across the screen. These are all about the interesting story of Vincent van Gogh’s life, and the controversy surrounding how he came to lose an ear, to introduce students to his – and fellow artist Paul Gauguin’s – work. It can be used to contribute to the requirement to teach pupils about great artists in history.

A screenshot of Digital Mysteries: Vincent van Gogh

The 18 slips include letters between Vincent and his brother, a diagnosis of Vincent’s health by Doctor Rey, a newspaper report and statements of many of the people involved. While these are central to the story itself, the mystery also brings in many of Vincent’s paintings which can be viewed very clearly in the largest slip size. There is also a self-portrait by Paul Gauguin included too.

Click here to see on the App Store.

It is hoped that the students will be engaged in the dramatic story behind the famous artist while at the same time be able to learn about his style and whether/how it was different to others. The mystery could be used to support the development of group discussion and interaction, as well as encourage students in their development of generic thinking skills.

Once students have finished and came up with their own answer to ‘Why did Vincent lose his ear?’ they can generate a printable PDF report which outlines the session; students involved, their notes, groups and answer, as well as colourful screenshots of each stage. They can also go to a Reflection Stage in which they can playback the process and discuss it as a group, with their teacher or even as a class.

The task might serve as a spring board to further research comparing and contrasting the differing approaches and subject matters of Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin.

To find out more and see the full list of learning outcomes, click here or email info@reflectivethinking.com.

The history of Mysteries

For those of you who don't know, our collaborative learning program Digital Mysteries is based on a popular paper-based tool called Mysteries.

In this guest post, David Leat, who founded Mysteries and is now a Professor of Curriculum Innovation at Newcastle University, tells us the story behind them.

Professor David Leat

"When the Thinking Through Geography Group developed mysteries as a paper based activity, it quickly became apparent that there was something very interesting going on as students manipulated the little snippets of paper.  With friend and colleague Adam Nichols, we started taking pictures and videos of groups as they progressed through a mystery and we found recurring patterns in the arrangement of the paper.

Through playing back the video to the students and asking them about what was going on at crucial moments and linking this to our observations, we were able to describe some typical stages that many groups went through.  These are the basis of the stages in the current digital mysteries.  One of the interesting outcomes was the realisation that the stages represented increasing complexity and sophistication in thinking, moving from comprehension to classification (grouping) to more complex processes of hypothesising and evaluation.

If some groups got ‘stuck’, it suggested that they had reached a temporary plateau in their thinking.  So the intriguing question was – how could skilled teachers intervene and scaffold more sophisticated thinking and in effect move the students on?  This was diagnostic assessment but instead of being interpreted from written work after the event, when the underpinning thinking has long gone cold, it was in the moment when students’ thinking is still potentially plastic and malleable.

The problem then was that it was a minority of teachers who got it, and could interpret what they were seeing and hearing.  It is perhaps not surprising that many teachers found it hard to get away from the idea of a right answer.  In addition, one teacher is spread a bit thinly across 6 to 10 groups.

Digital Mysteries on laptops or tabletops go a long way towards playing the role of the skilful, scaffolding teacher who does just enough to move pupils on, to challenge their thinking or provide a hint.  However the computer and the software don’t replace the teacher; there is still tremendous scope for the teacher to listen and watch, and critique and nudge students’ thinking.  We called our early paper based research ‘Brains on the Table’ as mysteries provided a window on students’ thinking.

Digital mysteries provide enhanced opportunity for teachers to intervene in the development of thinking – but we still need to articulate and share this sophisticated practice knowledge."