Today we had our first Mystery Skype with a class in Illinois, and my students did a remarkable job! I was so impressed with their focus, drive, and critical thinking skills. Of course we learned a lot, mostly ways to improve the experience and make it even better, but overall it was a worthwhile adventure that taught the students deeper thinking and questioning skills and teamwork! One area that impressed me the most was how quickly my students guessed the state, they did an excellent job narrowing down their search and asking the right questions to get to the state quickly. However, from there we struggled to guess the city and never finished. In the end, everyone had a job, they worked great together, and it was a learning experience we can continue to grow from and work on in the future!
What we did well
What we learned:
What we did well
- Using search tools like Google and Google Earth to narrow down the location and find clues.
- Working together as a team
- Understanding roles and remaining respectful
- Critical thinking skills, Communication and thinking “on the fly”
- Working on a timeframe
- Setting a high standard for future Mystery Skype events!
- Roles that worked well: photographers/videographers, questioners, researchers
What we learned:
- Deeper thinking skills to hone in on a more specific area after we pinpoint a general location.
- Stay focused from start to finish, work together on the document to pick and choose the right questions to ask.
- Practice what types of things the reporters should “tweet,” more focus on what we are doing than just questions
- YES/No answer cards to hold up are helpful, especially with our technical difficulties (we may need a microphone)
- More practice using the shared document to record and choose questions
- A better way of posting whose turn it is to ask a question and provide an answer. The students had worksheets but in all the excitement it got harder to keep track. Maybe even assign a person to be in charge of the question order?
- More practice time for individual roles, making sure that students fully understand what they should be doing and how they can get more involved.
- Roles that need work: questioner’s assistants and task/question masters.