Week 5 Day 2

Today Mr. Rick didn't come to school, so there is Mr. Mak who replaced him. We have to do LdL by ourself and discuss what we are going to do for the Team Activity 1.

The first thing we do in class is the LdL. This is our teacher for today, but she doesn't want her picture to be taken, so here is her laptop with the material in it.

And this is the rest of the class doing the LdLs and there is Mr. Mak with his headphones.

After the LdL, we have to discuss what we want to do for the Team Activity 1. We can do either a team poster, a team presentation or a Team landscape (3D Model). The submission is Friday 5 September.

Week 5 Day 1

Today we begin the new LdL 2. And Mr. Rick has to catch up with all the textbook material that he has missed.

1. Mr. Rick tells us who is going to teach for today's LdL. As he reviews, he asks us what our team name is. Our team name is Faith. Then Mr. Rick asks us what does faith mean, but nobody knows. So then Mr. Rick tells us to search for it...

But finally we got it. (Hebrew 11) So Mr. Rick now has to teach the material from last class (Week 4 Day 2) and this class. So that is the Peace and War Textbook page 32-41 (Changing needs for transport)  and 50-63 (Was life getting better?).

2. Week 4 Day 2
During the Industrial revolution, the world is changing in great and fast pace. They are pushing science and people for this thing. People are making more improved things, and more people are needed to make them. From the Domestic System, people now use the industrial system.

The problem is that there are limited resources and unlimited demands. So like in the 1750s, farmers grew crops for themselves (and sell the others to get extra money) and then it was enough. Then in 75 years, the farmers now have to feed themselves and the rest of the country. Imagine, 20% of the population feeding the rest 80% of the population plus themselves. They need something faster.

One example is broiler chickens. The regular chickens have smaller meat, but there are so many people in the world that need to eat, and there is no way the chicken farmers to make chickens grow instantly. So some people did research and then they made a solution. These chickens were injected with Hormones so they can grow very big, and then can feed for more than one person. That is one way of quickly solve the limited resources problem (but it's not as healthy as normal chicken).

In the Victorian times, England was the most top in industry. Mr. Rick explained about the triangle, about the slave trade. Someone like John Newton. Ships from England that send finished goods go to Africa to get slaves. Then the ships go to America and they trade slaves for raw materials. Then they send the raw materials back to England so it be processed and then turn it into finished goods. Then they do that again... and again.

Week 5 Day 1
During the Industrial Revolution, people are getting rich because of their business that they make. Then they made so much money that they don't know what to do with it. Never has people had money to do whatever they want with it. They usually have enough money to survive on necessary things like food or house. (Rich people make these things nicer) But now that they have so much money, they can go on leisure. (Rich ones, the poor ones still need to survive)

People go to certain places, and one of them is Brighton. They go to the beaches. At first their purpose is actually not swimming in the beach, but people say that swimming in the beach is healthy, so the people go there. Then more people started coming, and then soon it was the beginning of the new industry called "Tourism".

At first these people don't actually have swimming suits invented yet, so the men actually don't wear anything. The women wore their underwear, which is awkwardly very long, and seems like it's not used for swimming...

3. Now it is time for the LdLs. Mr. Rick had a lot to teach, so there wasn't a time limit for the teaching. The group members in the team forgot to take picture of the one teaching, so there is no picture of them. But here are the rest of the class, a few people left that are still teaching

And then the people have to give the LdL submission form. Mr. Rick announces that there is going to be a project, and we have to choose between what we want to do, a Landscape Project, a Poster or a PowerPoint presentation. We start working on it tomorrow!

4. The team should start working together. Maybe listening to the person in front who is teaching would be nice. The team also should remind each other of the responsibilities.

Week 4 Day 2

I don't know what happened, maybe I was clumsy and accidentally deleted this post or I was not paying attention. So sorry for late updates.

I couldn't remember what we did, but Mr. Rick told something about how to make PowerPoints for your LdLs. There wasn't any textbook teaching though.

Today there was LdL, but only for a few groups because they had 4 members in one team. The rest of the groups get to rest while they teach. Our group gets to rest, and here is Mr. Rick grading the others in the other groups (Sort of)

By the time next week, we should get a "disciple", and get a Grade 7 to teach. This is for the extra-dextra score! 

Week 4 Day 1

Today there is no textbook lecture by Mr. Rick. We learn how to do homework (yes), BHI and BHQ.

1. The first part of the class

Today we have the last member in our group to teach for LdL 1. The next day there will be no teachers and we would have a break.
Mr. Rick is supposed to teach about the textbook topic for the day, but he taught us something else.

2. Mr. Rick tells us on how to make Homework. Making "homework" has a few steps to do. The full document can be downloaded below. Everything that Mr. Rick tells us to do is in the document.

CLICK!

Here is part of the document

The highest stage of learning is learning by teaching, called LdL (lernen durch lehren). You need to teach for you to be able to learn, and make sure you have an active classroom. The way to make the homework is...

1. Read the topic. You need to know about the thing you are searching for. 
2. Get the BHI. BHIs are Big Hairy ideas. This can be in just one sentence. 
3. Create 2 BHQs out of it. BHQs are Big Hairy questions and this is what you want to find out more about the BHI.
4. Create Hypothesis. I think this happened because of.... etc. Something like that.
5. Chase your threads. Go and research! There is the vast world of internet out there full of content and information.

Everyone does this for their homework. But the teacher assigned must put it in a PowerPoint presentation. This year our PowerPoint is based on our BHQs. Your PowerPoint must not be contain the textbook, because you are teaching new things to your team. And then time for LdL.

3. Today the last member in our team does her LdL (we only have 3 members in a team).

She did quite well! Hoping that everyday would get better...

The next day there is no one teaching. So, we have a break from the teachers. The next week we will restart again.

Plus since we are Grade 8, the first year to experience active classrooms, we need to get a "disciple" from G7 and teach them about how active classroom works, presentations, Google Drive, portfolios, blogs... etc. By next week we should have one.

4. We did great, but let's hope that we actually listen to the teacher and take down lecture notes. And if there is a team member struggling, we should be there to help them!

Week 3 Day 2

Mr. Rick thought us that the need of things keep on rising but the supplies decrease.
the population are doubling every 70 years
he great issue about economics is limited demand and limited resources
growing population and shrinking woods

There were many theories about what cause disease, most people didn't work and when you're sick the medicine given to you could sometimes made your sickness worst.

—The demand of spun cotton increased enormously in England

—Machines for carding and spinning had already been developed but were inefficient.

—Spun cotton was also produced by means of the spinning jenny

—But it was insufficiently strong to form the warp of a fabric—

So they use linen thread

—Producing a type of cloth known as fustian

—In 1769, Richard Arkwright patented a water frame to use the extra power of water mill 

—He chose the site at Cromford because it had year-round supply of warm water

It is from the Cromford Sough which drained water from nearby Wirksworth lead mines, together with Bonsal  

Brook

Here he built a five-storey mill, with the backing of Jedediah Strutt, Samuel Need and John Smalley

Starting from 1772, he ran the mills day and night with two twelve-hour shifts

—He started with 200 workers

More than the locality could provide

So he built housing for them nearby

He is one of the first manufacturers to do so

Most of the employees were women and children

The youngest being only 7 years old

Later, the minimum age was raised to 10

the children were given 6 hours of education a week so that they could do the record-keeping that their parents

could not.

The children working their work twelve hour shifts.

From 6 am to 6 pm or from 6 pm to 6 am

They get 3 breaks

In the morning and afternoon for breakfast and tea

One at midday

—Hair and clothing might get caught in the fast moving machine

—Hands could be trapped

—The air was laden with dust

There was also danger of slipping because of the fast moving water.

The factory was very noisy

—It it hard for the workers to talk  to each other

—They were experts in lip reading

They develop sign language to communicate to each other


There are two teachers for the day, but unfortunately one picture was not taken. Here is the other one.

Mr. Rick teaching us how to do BHQs

Week 3 Day 1

Today we start the beginning of the book. And a good thing is... There are pictures in the blog!

1. The first thing we do in the class is discuss about Active Learning.

Mr. Rick passed out a chart that decides who should teach today or tomorrow. (And our group is called Faith! The letter F) And Mr. Rick also says that if we don't know what the thing that Mr. Rick is talking about, then google it! Some words...

• Infrastructure
• IDL
• Epistemology

What do these words mean? Don't know? Then GOOGLE IT!!!

Mr. Rick also laminates a piece of paper, and it is about "Reflecting on Personal Understandings." Here is a picture of it. (Some words are quite small, but I think you can work out the titles)

Mr. Rick is going to teach about the topic "Britain 1750-1900: What Changed?"in the textbook called Peace and War.

2. This topic is quite boring for the first half of the semester, but we need to study about it and have some research...

The changes in these times include things such as: Population, Work, Health and Medicine, Transport, Culture and Politics. As the times change, these following things improve or increase. This is the start of the Industrial Revolution.

Britain 1750: The population was little, because health and medicine was not good many children died before their first birthday. People still didn't know that germs caused sickness. The most important industry was farming, because most things are not automated yet and it uses hand, but steam engines are beginning to be used. Getting around the country was slow. And King George ruled in these times! There's also still more.

People use the domestic system. At these times, there were no factories. So for example you want to build a wagon, so you have to contract people to build the parts of the item, and it can take really long to build stuff.

Britain 1825: Things are starting to improve after 75 years. Machines and Steam power are being used more often. People are inventing newer technology. But why?

So this market system. If you can build something, for example, you supply people. If you ask for the built thing, you are asking for a demand. If the demand is more than the supply, you can raise the value of the item and make it more expensive. If the demand is lower than the supply, you can make the thing cheaper. The problem was that items were being slow to process, and items were getting more and more expensive. So people invented a new and quicker way of doing things to make things cheaper.

And then there are roads. Do you know why Romans were so powerful a long time ago? They built roads and transporting things were faster. There are also roads being built here, and then there are turnpikes. Turnpikes build tolls and charge money for you to go to it.

Britain 1900: Well, during this time, Britain is modern. Many people used machines and many children went to school (I don't see how that is a good thing but oh well). There was also Louis Pasteur who knows that sickness was caused by germs.

3. There should be teaching today, but the schedule hasn't been set up. So Mr. Rick explains on how to make a good PowerPoint presentation.

You do not make a powerpoint out of the book. That's what Mr. Rick teaches. You have to teach out of the book. To do that, you need to make 6-8 BHQs (Big Hairy Questions) related to the topic and then find it out. You can look in books, and there is a big world of the internet that you can use as well.
Then when you make PowerPoint presentation, make it with little words and a lot of pictures. You do not read the PowerPoints with small tiny and lots of words to your friends. You need to explain it better, and with depth. It will show you that you did something.

And finally the class ends. Since there is no teaching today, there are going to be 2 teachers tomorrow, and hoping that we have time to do all of them.

4. What we learned today is that we need to communicate more. We need at least one way to contact the other members in your team and inform what will happen. Hoping that we would improve!

Week 1 and Week 2

Introduction to the new academic year! (2014-2015) We will start this new blog. There are no pictures in it currently, but there will be soon!

1. We have the introduction to the class. We discuss the 5 rules from last year. There are actions in this one to help you remember!

1. Follow directions quickly. (Wave gesture)
2. Raise your hand for permission to speak. (Raise hand and then make speaking gesture with hand)
3. Raise your hand for permission to leave. (Raise hand and then point to the back)
4. Make smart choices. (Point to head)
5. Make your facilitator (teacher) happy. (Smile...)

We also have more introduction things. As last time everybody knows how to do this blog. Don't rush in making it, it would be impossible to finish!

2. We elect some class leaders. 2 admins and 1 treasurer. The admins have a busy job with the teacher. The treasurer collects the money from students (or late teachers) that don't follow the school rules or don't bring all the things they need from the class. Then the money will be collected for a pizza party for the class. 

There are also jobs in a group. Like scribes, moderators and time keepers. Scribes and moderators manage a lot of things. The time keeper has an easy job of keeping the time. 

3. We also need the computer for this class... So we are taught on how to make a coursework file. A newer and easier template than last year. The coursework file is very important for taking down notes. 

There are also a LOT of other files in the KS3 History folder, you can click the link at the top of the blog to have a look at all the files we have to download. 

There is also an important communication system called "Schoology". Most home works and annoucements are given in there, the link is also on the top of the Blog. 

4. That's all for now, let's make this the start of a great year!