Rose Mary's case
Telecollaborative project with three more schools
T.U. in the English class
This project starts with a crazy idea during our Practicum meetings. What if we challenged ourselves to do the same teaching unit in our four schools? What if we did a tellecollaborative project?
After doing some brainstorming and taking into account the requirements of each school, we found out the perfect project for us: Rose Mary's case. In my case, I decided to implement in the fourth grade. My requirements were to revise the professions that they had been previously working during the third term. |
Note: during the explanation of the T.U. there will be some text in black, which is the common one with the three schools, and some text in colour purple, which is specific of the school where I was implementing. |
What is Rose Mary's case? Rose Mary Connor is a fictional Australian rich woman represented by our tutor teacher of the university. In our project she is so alarmed because someone has entered in her house in Sydney while she was on vacation in Holland. She doesn't know who is the thief, what has he stolen, at what time and where is it hidden.
In our T.U. each school will be in charge to discover one of these items and collaborate in order to solve Rose Mary's case. |
Check my workmates' terrific websites!!! You will find the specific topics that they were working in their teaching units!
MY IMPLEMENTATION: session by session
1 |
Introduction of Rose Mary's case |
- 1h -
|
1. Introduction and finding the Wanted poster: The class is going to start with an unexpected Wanted poster all over the corridor of the 4th graders. Moreover, they will find another poster inside the classroom. We are going to analyse the poster and copy the link of the video in order to watch it.
2. Watching the video and doing the listening comprehension: We are going to watch the video. As it contains a lot of information, we will decide to do the listening comprehension in order to ensure that we understand everything. The listening comprehension will be done individually. We will play the video three times, at a slower speed in order that pupils can follow it better. This activity will be an assessing activity for oral comprehension.
3. Sharing the answers: After doing the listening comprehension, we will correct it by writing down the answers in the blackboard. This way, we can ensure that everyone has understood which the situation is and what we need to do.
4. Writing the email for Rose Mary: We are going to send an email to Rose Mary offering our help. To do so, first an example of an email will be provided in order to follow the same structure. Pupils are going to be asked to volunteer to write the email, each of them can write part of the sentences so that most of the class participate. The rest of the pupils provide language support by spelling the difficult words. We are also going to take a class picture to attach it to the email.
2 |
Learning more about Rose Mary |
- 45 min -
|
1. Wikipedia’s worksheets: I will start the class saying: “Hey guys, I was interested in knowing more about Rose Mary, and look what I found in Wikipedia!” Then I will give each student a photocopy of Rose Mary’s Wikipedia profile. Later on, using the distribution of the tables of the class (4 students per table), they are going to fill a colour cardboard of some of the topics presented in the Wikipedia worksheet (Basic information, Life career & background, and Properties). This activity will be useful to practice their reading comprehension.
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Hey guys, look what I found in Wikipedia about Rose Mary! |
2. Checking the results all together: We are going to share the information that we have found. Besides, as there are 6 tables and 3 topics to specialise in, there are two groups doing the same topic. This is useful in order to have more completed explanations. Then, we are going to hang the results in one wall of the classroom.
3. Reading Rose Mary’s answer and discovering the blog: To continue with, we will take a look on the email account and we will find that Rose Mary has answered us!!! In the email it will say that we have been selected to help her, and that our mission is to discover who the thief was. Then, we are also going to check which the other schools are and we will locate them thanks to the map posted in the blog.
3. Reading Rose Mary’s answer and discovering the blog: To continue with, we will take a look on the email account and we will find that Rose Mary has answered us!!! In the email it will say that we have been selected to help her, and that our mission is to discover who the thief was. Then, we are also going to check which the other schools are and we will locate them thanks to the map posted in the blog.
4. Doing the letter soup: Moreover, in the blog we will find a clue specially for Mogent school. Rose Mary will inform us that the Australian police are collaborating with us and that sometimes they will be sending clues that they discover. The first one will be the letter soup. When we complete the letter soup, we will have the name of 12 jobs of the possible thief. |
3 |
Clues about the suspects |
- 1h -
|
1. Checking the email and the secretary: We will start the class checking the email, as always. There, we will find useful information: the Australian police have sent some clues to the school that they are not able to solve. They will tell us to check if a box has arrived to the school. Two volunteers will go to the secretary of the school and there the secretary will give them the box (Important note: to talk in advance with the secretary, otherwise she will be so surprised!).
2. Getting the box and discovering what students have to do: Inside the box we will find a lot of colour cardboards with different information (Name & gender, Age, Country, Profession, Place of work and Relationship with Rose Mary). There will also be 25 Supect’s profile worksheets and one sheet with the working groups for the class. These working groups will be all of 2 students, except one group of three (in fact, the groups will be done by the teacher and will take into account the attention of the diversity by making them balanced. During the clues, a part from English, there will be more teaching areas worked, like Mathematics and Geography). Talking with the students, we will find out that the topics of the clues are the same as the ones in the Suspect’s profile, so we will understand that it is very important to solve them in order to have the essential information of our suspects.
2. Getting the box and discovering what students have to do: Inside the box we will find a lot of colour cardboards with different information (Name & gender, Age, Country, Profession, Place of work and Relationship with Rose Mary). There will also be 25 Supect’s profile worksheets and one sheet with the working groups for the class. These working groups will be all of 2 students, except one group of three (in fact, the groups will be done by the teacher and will take into account the attention of the diversity by making them balanced. During the clues, a part from English, there will be more teaching areas worked, like Mathematics and Geography). Talking with the students, we will find out that the topics of the clues are the same as the ones in the Suspect’s profile, so we will understand that it is very important to solve them in order to have the essential information of our suspects.
3. Refreshing the sentence structures: Before starting guessing the clues and writing the suspect’s profile, we will remind the importance of writing correct English, as we are talking with Australian people. For this reason, we will refresh how the basic sentences are written: “His/her name is…”, “She/he is ___ years old”, etc.
4. Working by groups to solve the clues and writing down the information: Then, pupils will sit down with their partner and will start working to solve the clues.
4. Working by groups to solve the clues and writing down the information: Then, pupils will sit down with their partner and will start working to solve the clues.
4 |
Clean version of the suspects' profiles |
- 45 min -
|
1. Finishing solving the clues: This session will not be so closed in matter of time. Students will keep working autonomously solving the clues with their partner.
2. Self-correcting the sentence structures and showing it to the teacher: Once they finish, the teacher will give them the sentence structure sheet, in order to self-correct themselves. Later on, they will show it to the teacher and she will revise everything and will correct possible mistakes.
3. Writing down the clean version of the suspect’s profile: The teacher will give the students another Suspect’s profile worksheet to do the clean version of it. If they do not finish it, they will have to bring it finished from home for the next week.
2. Self-correcting the sentence structures and showing it to the teacher: Once they finish, the teacher will give them the sentence structure sheet, in order to self-correct themselves. Later on, they will show it to the teacher and she will revise everything and will correct possible mistakes.
3. Writing down the clean version of the suspect’s profile: The teacher will give the students another Suspect’s profile worksheet to do the clean version of it. If they do not finish it, they will have to bring it finished from home for the next week.
5 |
Last clue |
- 1h -
|
1. Checking the mail and then, secretary: In fact, during this session we were running a little bit out of time, so we went the straightway: I told them that right when I was entering the school, the secretary told me that there was something for the English teacher and the 4th graders, so I brought it to the class. This thing was a wrapping paper that we opened all together. Inside, there was a message that we had to decode. In order to do it, we had the alphabet with some numbers written next to the letters, so we understood that we had to discover the relation among the letters and the numbers in order for the sentence to have a meaning.
2. Decoding the last clue: We posted the wrapping paper in the blackboard and each letter was done by a different volunteer, who stand up and wrote down the letters in the message. To attend to the diversity, if I saw that some children not very confident with English were raising their hand, I selected them first.
2. Decoding the last clue: We posted the wrapping paper in the blackboard and each letter was done by a different volunteer, who stand up and wrote down the letters in the message. To attend to the diversity, if I saw that some children not very confident with English were raising their hand, I selected them first.
3. Checking our suspects’ profiles in order to find the thief: When we decode the message, we will find out that the message is: “The thief is not from Australia. The thief knows Rose Mary. He is a man. He sells flowers in a flower shop”. We will take out our Suspects’ profiles from the folders and we will follow the clues of the message in order to reach the final suspect. In order to do it, we will go sentence by sentence rising the hand those who accomplish the condition of the sentence. Finally, we will discover that the thief was the florist!!!
4. Refreshing the sentence structures: I will tell them that I would like to know how much English they have learned during this case, and in order to do it I want them to complete the Australian policeman’s profile. We will revise the sentence structures in the blackboard and then we will erase it.
5. Doing the Australian policeman’s profile: They will split individually and I will give them the Australian policeman’s profile worksheet. The information about him will be provided by Rose Mary (she had sent an email to me with that information). They will do the worksheet.
4. Refreshing the sentence structures: I will tell them that I would like to know how much English they have learned during this case, and in order to do it I want them to complete the Australian policeman’s profile. We will revise the sentence structures in the blackboard and then we will erase it.
5. Doing the Australian policeman’s profile: They will split individually and I will give them the Australian policeman’s profile worksheet. The information about him will be provided by Rose Mary (she had sent an email to me with that information). They will do the worksheet.
6 |
Creating the video |
- 1h -
|
1. Distributing the different parts of the script: The teacher will bring the video script (it will have 25 small sentences). We will read it aloud once, while projecting it in the screen, so students can start familiarising with it. We will distribute the sentences among the pupils, taking into account their preferences and facilities.
2. Memorising the script: Students will memorise their sentence. In this session, it is very useful to have another teacher in the class who can help with the pronunciation.
3. Recording: The teacher is going to record the pupils in groups of two or three. In addition, some other pupils are going to be asked to volunteer to also appear in the video showing the material of the different activities. Finally, the teacher will gather all the class (in our case, both classes 4thA and 4thB) to shout who was the thief all together.
2. Memorising the script: Students will memorise their sentence. In this session, it is very useful to have another teacher in the class who can help with the pronunciation.
3. Recording: The teacher is going to record the pupils in groups of two or three. In addition, some other pupils are going to be asked to volunteer to also appear in the video showing the material of the different activities. Finally, the teacher will gather all the class (in our case, both classes 4thA and 4thB) to shout who was the thief all together.
7 |
Watching the final video and closing the case |
- 45 min -
|
1. Watching the video: They will watch the video and discover that the florist stole the paint the fourth day and that it was hidden in the hotel. An explanation of why this happened is going to be provided. It will be interesting to know what did the other schools do in order to reach the final solution of the case.
2. Assessing the T.U: pupils are going to be asked to assess the T.U and the performance of the teacher by answering a teacher assessment sheet. It will be anonymous.
2. Assessing the T.U: pupils are going to be asked to assess the T.U and the performance of the teacher by answering a teacher assessment sheet. It will be anonymous.
3. Sharing the reward: In the last part of the video there will be attached a comment by Rose Mary thanking us for helping her, and she will tell us to check if we have received something in the school. After checking in the secretary again, we will find that she sent Kojak lollipops for each student.