Safe to Fail Probes

Safe to Fail Probes

Provocations: We will keep our provocations the same as we had last term however we will have them out both before school and after lunch to see if there is a greater level of participation and discussion in one over the other. Wk 4 design  

Initially when we designed our safe to fail probe we changed quite a few things.  We shifted the timing from the morning to the afternoon, we provocations part of the learning experience so they went from voluntary to compulsory, we made them link more strongly to our iExperience topic (previously they were more random, designed to inspire and provoke curiosity for iExplore and iExperience).  In week one we found that there was a much higher level of participation, energy and discussion from the learners (wk 1 design).  Some learners who previously did not join in with activities were joining in and getting something out of the learning.  We asked a lot of questions as the learners participated to provoke their thinking, this worked differently to last term where our questions were less frequent and broad.  This questioning strategy meant that many of the learners had lightbulb moments (particularly during the screwed up paper activity).  

After our discussion with Chris and Leanne we discovered that we'd changed too much at once, meaning that we were unable to pinpoint what actually made the difference, if there was a difference. We have decided to stick with changing the timing only, we will go back to doing the types of provocations that we did last term only we will offer them in the morning and in the afternoon.  We'll be watching to see if there is any difference in participation (new Safe to fail probe).

At this point I can't really predict what is going to happen.  Either the learners will be just as unlikely to engage in provocations in the afternoon because the types of provocations just don't interest them or they don't see the point in them OR they will be more inclined to participate because the afternoon time slot isn't their time, it's learning time therefore they'll engage because they have nothing else to do.  It will be interesting to see who notices/participates and what sort of discussion comes out of it. I'm wondering if it will give us any useful information or not due to the afternoon time slot being learning time and the morning being the learners' own time.