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Beyond the Design: How does co-design influence learning during the project?
The next portion of my findings veers from the chronological style of previous sections and examines themes that I saw emerging as students carried out our codesigned project. As the project got into full swing, my observation journals shifted. We were no longer doing everything as a full class (with Ms. Wong and I as the lead facilitators). Students were now organized into 21 self-directed research groups, pursuing their own questions, going on field trips, interviewing experts, writing, creating art and designing a magazine layout. At this point, my job as learning facilitator became much more scattered. Consequently, my journals focused on striking moments during our project-block work time. After combing through my observations, student quotes, surveys and student work, I saw three themes emerge: I. Independent Inquiry II. Spirit of Collaboration III. Mastery of Content I believe these ideas are strongly connected to the culture and methodology of codesign.
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they were capable of directing their own learning. Co-design gave them the opportunity to try it out and build confidence.
How
comfortable
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choice
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The following stories, capturing moments of self-direction and agency with Gabe, Malcolm, Anoushka and their classmates, add convincing dimensions to the data discussed above.
These students independently scheduled a Skype interview with an expert (in Portland, Maine) on human population growth.
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reading their article aloud. I stood beside them watching for a few moments when they finally noticed me. I asked, What are you working on? Sam got a big grin and said, Were proof-reading our article to make sure it sounds right. Gabe added, Yeah, were looking for errors and stuff. It was still nearly a week before our first writing peer critique was planned. This group, led by Gabe, had initiated an impressive process. They organized and finished their first draft and had begun proof-reading their work. If ever there was an example of agency and self-direction, this was it. I later interviewed Gabe about his actions. I wondered if he would make an explicit connection with the co-design process. He didnt. He saw his actions as independent of any influence. Deep down, my teacher instincts tell me that Gabe came to my class with a predisposition for self-direction and acts of agency. However, I believe that being part of a co-designed project and given the freedom to act independently pushed him to develop these qualities even further as a learner. Gabe, who was characterized by his parents as immature, unfocused and needing an extra push, continued to show a sense of independent inquiry in our project. On one occasion, he developed an outline for his article to organize his ideas. Later, while researching Mayan gods, he created a PowerPoint presentation, profiling major deities. Both of these pieces of work were not only completed by Gabe, but designed by him. In the second semester (while in another teachers class), Gabe applied for the position of director and successfully led a student-produced movie about bullying.
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In order to find answers, students were asked to arrange a field trip and/or interview to conduct authentic research with professionals in a field related to their topic. Before Ms. Wong and I could develop the protocol or instructional aides to guide this step, Malcolm, Dimitri and Jack drafted an e-mail for an astronomy professor at San Diego State University (SDSU) (whom they had found via a web search). Ms. Wong proofed the e-mail and sent it immediately. A few days later, Professor Jerome Orosz invited the boys to visit his department at SDSU for a presentation the following week. The day after their field trip, Jack approached me and asked, Mr. Shaddox, I took photos at SDSU using my iPhone, do you want me to crop and edit them first, or would you like to do that? Of course, I encouraged Jack to do it himself. Then he followed up, What about the audio recordings? Should I e-mail those to you now or later? Photos? Audio recordings? Wow. Without explicit direction, Jack figured out how to document their interview with the professor. The amazing thing is that Ms. Wong and I never clarified how we wanted any of this done. Jack took the initiative to do it himself. He cared about this work - a recording of an astronomy professor discussing black holes. The work gave Jack pride and a sense of ownership. Its something he did spontaneously (without the reward of points). It had intrinsic value that went beyond a typical school assignment. It reminded me of what A.S. Neill said about learning at Summerhill: We have no new methods of teaching, because we do not consider that teaching in itself matters very much. Whether a school has or has not a special method for teaching long division is of no significance, for long division is of no importance except to those who want to learn it. And the child who wants to learn long division will learn it no matter how it is taught. (p. 9) When the work really matters, when it has real-world value, it gets done. Given enough time, Ms. Wong and I would have developed ornate lessons to help teach these topics to our students. But it wasnt possible since we were designing on the fly. And it wasnt necessary. Through our process of co-design we helped students reach a point where they wanted to learn what they were learning. They knew how to direct themselves to engage the task at hand. We didnt need fancy teaching magic to make it happen. Within a few days, the boys finished compiling their notes, writing their article, creating their illustrations and finished their storyboard for their Flash animation. They beat every deadline. However, I noticed that they continued to informally research their topic. One afternoon, I walked by their desk and saw them on a website about black holes (specifically Cygnus X-1). I peered over their shoulders and glimpsed the content. The graphics and information went beyond my understanding of black holes. As I
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watched, they pointed at the laptop screen, engaged in discussion. And honestly, as I listened, their conversation soared above my head. This was unboxed learning. I was no longer the authority, but a learning coach. The Black Holes group finished their project ahead of schedule. Seeing that they had a propensity for self-direction, I enlisted their help in writing a narration for a documentary about our project. Since Ms. Wong and I were busy overseeing the projects of 20 other groups, we needed Malcolm, Dimitri and Jack to complete this challenge with minimal guidance. I gave them a slideshow of photos, documenting our projects process and asked them to write a narration that could tell the story. Within three days, the boys had successfully written the narration. But, what struck me was that they enlisted the help of other students to critique their work (without instruction from a teacher). Malcolm explained, You think that your own stuff is really good, but then you get to see the reality of it by hearing what other people think. Next, they were asked to record their classmates reading the lines of the narration (to be used as a voice-over in the documentary). I gave them a one-minute tour of Garageband (an audio recording program) and set them loose. Within two days they had coordinated the full recording of the narration. Had our democratic approach to project design led to their sense of independent inquiry throughout the project? As in the story of Gabe, it is hard to prove an explicit cause and effect relationship. Is that the point? We know that the co-constructed class culture and design of the project laid a foundation for students like Malcolm, Jack and Dimitri to demonstrate agency and self-direction.
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Students visited the San Diego Veterans Museum & Memorial Center to conduct authentic research.
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What struck me was the self-direction and agency these students showed in organizing their research. Alexa Fernandez and her group did the same thing. Before I knew it, they had arranged a phone interview with a NOAA scientist in Hawaii about tsunamis. In every phone or Skype interview, Ms. Wong and I would chaperone the group for the first couple of minutes. The tsunami group began recording the interview with a laptop and I left the room to attend to other students. Thirty minutes later, Alexa and her group were gathered around the laptop in the 6th grade commons, transcribing the interview (something we hadnt explicitly taught or modeled). At the conclusion of our project, Alexa Fernandez wrote this reflection in her journal: The best way that we learned in my opinion was getting to interview the experts. We got to interview Sgt. Sandmeyer and Dailin Wang who are both tsunami experts. I enjoyed being able to ask questions that I had and they could answer the questions better than a website ever could. Another advantage was being able to ask an expert if they can explain the topic in detail. Contacting the experts was something that I had never done before. I liked how we got to talk with and email experts on tsunamis. When we contacted them we had little help from the teachers. I really liked being able to schedule a field trip or interview with little to no help. Time and again, throughout the interview/field trip process, I saw students like these initiating the pursuit of their inquiries and directing their own learning. Ravi bought a book about the Apocalypse and read it from cover to cover (even outside of project-block time). Gwyn taught herself about the human immune system in order to understand how HIV works. She did it all at home writing and illustrating a comic to explain AIDS and white blood cells. Isaac, Russel and Caetano brainstormed the idea for a student debate feature in our magazine. The three boys designed a survey to conduct with their classmates. Within a few days, they had gathered the data and selected two students to highlight on the page, representing two viewpoints.
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This debate feature (from our magazine) is one example of students demonstrating agency. Three students developed the idea, designed a poll and finally created this page using Adobe InDesign. Like every aspect of our project, this endeavor was not completed for points.
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A Question of Grades
One might wonder, Are these really examples of agency or self-direction? What kind of extrinsic motivation might be at play here? Its important to point out that Ms. Wong and I did not implement or mention points/grades for any of the work
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throughout our semester project. This was partially deliberate and partially an accident. The accidental nature of no grades was a result of being so darn busy co-designing and facilitating the students that we couldnt figure out how to grade what was happening. Sure, we were assessing, but attaching a number or value to what they were doing seemed moot. Around the time of my action research, I had begun rethinking the influence of grades and their effect on motivation and risk taking. Something Daniel Pink said in an RSA talk struck a deep chord with me: With tasks that are an algorithmic set of rules where you have to just follow along and get a right answer, "If-then" rewards, carrots and sticks [are] outstanding! But when the task gets more complicated, when it requires some conceptual, creative thinking those kinds of motivators demonstrably don't work. (2010) In the case of our project and democratic learning, a point-based grade system seemed oppositional to what we were trying to accomplish. We wanted conceptual, creative thinking, not one-dimensional rule-following. As we assessed students regularly through teacher/student conferences, informal check-ins and peer critiques, attaching points to the various assignments in the project seemed unnecessary. If the students were getting the work done without being strung along by points and grades, why did we need them? So, we abandoned grades. How did that affect students? Rochelle succinctly explained, If you dont see your grade, you dont have stress. You feel focused. Youre confident and then you see your grade and youre like, Okay. I did great. I did good. At the conclusion of the project, students completed a self-assessment. The document featured a section for teacher feedback. Many students assessed themselves much more harshly than I would have imagined. Ms. Wong and I balanced out the points if we saw someone being too harsh or too soft on themselves. Since our school requires a grade to be entered at the completion of a semester, a number was finally attached to the work. By no means was it explicitly used to motivate students. It is interesting to note that many students, when interviewed, mentioned the importance of grades (even though they were absent in the project). When asked about his above and beyond effort on his animation storyboard, Sam responded, We worked hard because we want to get a good grade and teach people about the Mayans. In the case of these students, I can only imagine that five years of schooling focused on test-scores and grades can take a while getting out of your system. The ghost of grades lingered for many of these students, but throughout our project, grades were simply dead.
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feelings 30.0% In pairs (2 students) toward 20.0% learning at 10.0% In groups (3 or more school. At the students 0.0% beginning of Survey 1 Survey 2 Survey 3 our project, 47 percent of those polled indicated that they felt really excited about learning at school. By the end of our project this number jumped to 67 percent. Students who merely felt good dropped from 51 percent to 33 percent. Bored dove from two percent to zero by
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the end. Since our teams learning was rooted in collaboration, these numbers indicate at least a loose connection between excitement towards learning and working with peers and teachers as a team. Throughout our co-designed project, students worked primarily in pairs. Our survey confirmed that this worked for the majority of students. In fact, their preference towards working in pairs increased by the end of the project (up by 10 percentage points). Something that really jumped out at me was the response to working independently. This number steadily declined from 24 percent to 14 percent. As you will read in the following section, many students developed a great appreciation for working in pairs throughout our project.
Did co-design alter students perceptions of control in their learning? The survey showed a solid decline in the sense that Teachers or Parents (alone) controlled learning. What I loved seeing was the steady rise in both the You and Classmates categories. By the end of the project students were really gaining a sense that they were in control of their learning. Co-designs use of collaboration was definitely an influence on this change in data. The following look at conversations and observations with students around collaboration tell the story that is hinted at in the numbers from our surveys.
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I like it a lot. When were together in a class, I know for me Im a very social person, if I cant talk to someone I feel like Im invisible. If we were doing projects by ourselves nobody would understand what were talking about. When we can talk about it with somebody else, its like that saying, Two heads are better than one. It works much better and we learn more things. - Anoushka My partners really supportive and helpful. Because of this, were getting a lot done. If youre one person doing one thing it would take us longer. This way, we can split the jobs and it helps us do it faster. Sometimes people are used to just working alone, not counting on somebody else to help. It helps them to be more social and less by themselves. Its helped me feel less shy. - Paige
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something. We couldnt get up unless we needed to go to the restroom. So when youre working alone and you have a hard question, they wouldnt help you. As soon as the teacher saw half of the people done, it was like, Were moving on. But in co-design were all working together and were all able to help each other out if we dont understand something, instead of working alone or independently. We get to learn about other people and learn from them. We get to hear things from different peoples perspectives. I know that in collaboration you have to be able to work with people to get things done. If youre working lousy with someone youre not going to get something done because youre going to be arguing with them all of the time. Collaboration is important because were all working in a group and we have to agree with what our partners are doing. We have to try and get along. If we dont we have to settle things really fast. - George If we didnt work together we wouldnt be able to finish this project. We have to work with our partner otherwise wed be the missing part of the jigsaw puzzle. - Augustus
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ways to share a laptop (placing it in the center of the table, taking turns typing, etc.), Corbin often grabbed the computer away from Augustus, clutching it close to his body and refusing to allow his partner access. When asked about his actions, Corbin rolled his eyes or grimaced. Augustus was often on the verge of crying. The two students struggled to communicate clearly to one another. After several days of coaching the pair was finally given two laptops. The two students accessed a shared Google doc. At first, Augustus wrote and Corbin edited for grammar and spelling problems. At one point Augustus accused Corbin of deleting significant portions of the writing. The next day, I noticed Corbin typing in a new document. I asked him if he was sharing it with Augustus. He explained that he had now begun writing his own article. The tone of his voice was indignant. Corbin, the stronger writer, was adding further dimension to the ideas (descriptions, voice, etc.). Upon closer inspection, I could see that Corbin was actually revising Augustuss article. Meanwhile, Augustus sat beside him and continued writing his own. He shrugged his shoulders and explained in a defeated tone, Hes gonna do his own, I guess. The foundations of collaboration, trust and empathy, were in ruins. What could I do to open things up between these students? My impulse was to counsel them, rather than give them orders. I sat down to discuss the power of collaboration with the boys how two perspectives and voices could really strengthen the writing. We discussed collaboration's connection with many of our class' affirmations like respect, support and patience. I gave examples of other groups in the class and pointed out the fun they were having. The two finally made the decision to merge their ideas (copying and pasting Corbins writing into Augustuss article). Something became painfully obvious after I collected the boys first draft article. Although the two had dumped their ideas into one document, they had not merged ideas. Corbins introductory paragraph appeared tandem to Augustuss. The piece was completely schizophrenic and revealed a total breakdown in teamwork. After repeated efforts to open up communication with the boys and modify their work, we split up Augustus and Corbin. Because of the timing, we decided not to match them up with new partners (because the other groups were too far along in their work). Augustus and Corbin finalized their projects individually. On exhibition night, the two students presented their separate projects at the same table. Unfortunately, we removed Corbin half way through the exhibition for arguing, disrespectfully, with Augustus and one of our guests. Since this first project, Augustus and Corbin have continued struggling to collaborate with classmates in other projects and activities. The question still lingers for us: In special cases like this, how do you scaffold collaboration? For many students, the experience of collaboration was a series of successes and failures. However, through this experience, many gained a deeper sense of empathy or grew in their ability to negotiate learning with partners. Are there emotional needs that must be met before some students can successfully collaborate? In these cases, what steps can teachers take to help these students grow?
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Human Diseases by Destiny, Gwyn & Javen Our Essential Questions: 1. What are the main diseases? 2. How do people gain the diseases? 3. How does malaria effect people? 4. Where do most diseases come from? 5. How does AIDS effect people? 6. How many people die from diseases? 7. Is there cures for the diseases? 8. What does cancer effect? Key Terms Pandemic AIDS HIV Tumor Insulin Immune System Definitions A epidemic of infectious disease Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome Human Immunodeficiency Virus Extra cells made by cancer all together A hormone in your pancreas that controls the amount of sugar you receive A system that protects you from diseases
Summary of Our Learning We have learned that the main diseases are AIDS, Cancer, Influenza, The Plague, Smallpox and Malaria. You get HIV from one persons infected body fluids and spreads into someone elses body. You get smallpox from the air traveling and spreading. You get cancer when your immune system is not working properly. People gain malaria when there is a parasite in the mosquitoes and you are bitten. You get effected with many bad symptoms. When you receive malaria, you get fever, chill, muscle ache, headaches, nausea, cough, vomiting, diarrhea, sweating and jaundice. Small pox started over 3,000 years ago in Africa spreading to india and china. Malaria came from Africa Haiti and Dimitrian Republic, Eastern Europe and South Pacific. When you get AIDS youre body gets very weak because your white blood cells run low. So when you get sick people without aids can fight people without aids cant fight it and they would get very sic. 20 out of 30 people with smallpox have died. 300-500 million people die of malaria per year. People die from cancer, but if you catch it early Docters can help. Cancer affects DNA. How would the quality of this groups learning compare to that of students studying infectious, human diseases within a prescribed or teacher-driven curriculum? A skeptic might find this groups research rife with errors and lacking crucial
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information. However, if we examine Destiny, Javen and Gwyns process, we see students using skills that dont emerge under an autocratic approach to learning. These three students had to analyze and assess information in order to refine and establish their inquiry. They connected concepts, identified key terms and created an original infrastructure for their ideas. This helped them develop deeper familiarity with and ownership over the content. Throughout the following weeks, this process continued. In week two, Destiny discovered that there were so many types of cancer that she couldnt possibly cover them all in her article. After teaching herself about the major cancer types, she narrowed her topic down to skin cancer. She felt that skin cancer had a closer connection to the end of the world because of its alarming growth and connection to environmental damage (depletion of the ozone). Gwyn ran into a hurdle with her HIV/AIDS research. She discovered that she needed to first learn about how the immune system worked in order to fully understand her topic. In a moment of agency and self-direction, she created a homework assignment for herself to master this content: a cartoon strip. Javen discovered that a teacher at High Tech Middle had contracted malaria on a trip in Tanzania. He and his group arranged an interview with Mr. Greg to learn all about the frightening symptoms. The group was able to apply Javens foundational research when constructing informed questions for Mr. Greg. The first draft of Destiny, Gwyn and Javens article, Malaria, HIV & Cancer: The Next Plague? outlined these three diseases, their causes, symptoms, effects and ways to prevent them. They concluded: Diseases put peoples lives at risk every single day. This is a threat to people all around the world. Diseases cannot end the world, but could impose severe limitations on human life. For example, it can cause a major drop in the population. That is why it is very important to get vaccines, have regular doctors appointments, and take preventative measures against disease. On exhibition night, Destiny, Javen and Gwyn stood by a blow-up of their article (see Appendix F), mounted on an easel, and their Flash animation, displayed on a laptop. The three of them eagerly greeted visitors and educated them on the diseases that they had researched. They had no script or note cards with facts to recite. They spoke comfortably and fluidly about their topics and answered questions spontaneously. The experience showed that they gone beyond understanding the content. They mastered it. Gwyn wrote in her journal: I thought it was super cool getting to teach people new things and know that they know new things because of me. The thing I enjoyed the most was when I explained to her what HIV does to white blood cells when it enters your body. And she got all of these new ideas and got really happy. Then she gave me a big
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high five and said I should be a doctor. That really made me happy because I taught her these new things and got her to really think and try to get an answer.
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By the end of the first week, the group produced this poster sharing their research: Meteor Crashing by Isaac, Cameron and Sutton Our Essential Questions 1. Will the meteor Apophis hit earth? 2. Will we survive a meteor crashing? 3. How big is the biggest meteor? 4. How fast do meteors fly? 5. Was earth made out of meteors? 6. How many meteors have crashed on earth? 7. Was the moon created by a meteor? 8. Are meteors made of something harder than diamonds? 9. When will the next meteor crash on earth? 10. What is a comets tail made of? Key Terms Asteroid Orbit Coma Nucleus Astronomic Meteor Comet NEO Definitions Any one of thousands of small planets To move around an object The haze around the main part of the nucleus The solid part of the comet Of or relating to astronomy A piece of metal that burns or glows brightly in the sky as it falls from outer space into Earths atmosphere An object in outer space that develops a long, bright tail when it passes near the sun. Near Earth Object
Summary of our Learning This week my group and I learned a lot about meteors. Meteors are giant rocks that orbit around the sun and are mostly made of dust, rocks, and gases. There are different meteor types like asteroids and comets that also orbit around the sun. A comet is made of ice, dust and gases. Asteroids are made of rock, dust and gases and they orbit around the sun in a form called The Main Asteroid Belt. The next meteor that may crash into Earth is a meteor named Apophis that is headed straight for L.A. This meteor may crash into L.A. in the year 2036. It may also hit the Pacific Ocean or miss Earth. This meteor is the side of a football stadium and if it hits earth it will have the force of 100 atomic bombs!
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Apophis is a big part of their summary. This raised some questions for us. Is the quality and accuracy of the content at risk in this self-directed approach to research? Why should these students be permitted to struggle like this? This hurdle in research (which other groups also experienced) was certainly not our intention. However, we saw this struggle as an opportunity, rather than a failure. We knew it was more valuable for students to discover how to compare sources and evaluate their reliability, than for us to feed them the truth. And so we continued to trust in this process. Students continually revisited and revised their lists of questions. Ms. Wong and I met with each group to discuss their essential questions. We read over their research, asked them to explain what they had written and facilitated further question formulation. By the second week of research, this groups questions had evolved. Isaac 1. Are meteors becoming a threat to our planet? 2. If a meteor hits the Earth, will we survive? 3. How have humans throughout history perceived comets? Sutton 1. What are meteors? asteroids? comets? meteorites? 2. What are they made of? 3. How can meteors, asteroids and comets harm us? Cameron 1. When may the next meteor hit Earth? 2. What are some of the most unique comets discovered? Why? 3. How are comets, asteroids and meteors discovered, tracked and named? One aspect of our project was authentic research. Students arranged field trips and interviews with experts to find answers to their questions and construct knowledge. Cameron, Sutton and Isaac made contact with Jason Hammond, an educator from the Ruben H. Fleet Science Center. Hammond came to our school for an hour-long interview with the boys. Isaac reviewed his research before Hammonds visit and developed these questions to fill in the gaps of his groups knowledge. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Do you believe that meteors caused the extinction of dinosaurs? When comets hit the atmosphere how does it strengthen the atmosphere? How many meteors crashed on Earth? Are there thing(s) besides meteors, comets, and asteroids that are near Earth objects (NEOs)? What is the biggest meteor that has hit Earth? 121
6. What is the fastest speed recorded from a meteor? Most of his questions dug deeper than the groups original questions. However, at this point, I also saw students like Isaac retreading the same territory with questions. For instance, Isaac already knew the biggest meteor to hit Earth happened 65 million years ago. In this project, there was no textbook with an answer key in the back. I started wondering, How will students know when theyve sufficiently answered their questions? Did the boys ever find out the truth about Apophis? An excerpt from their final draft article (see Appendix G) demonstrates how they put together the information from the literature and their interview to construct their own understanding: There is one meteor called Apophis that may hit Earth in the year 2036. It used to be that the chances that Apophis would hit was 1 in 48,000, but now it has dropped to 4 in a million. Astronomers determined the angle is enough that Apophis is not going to hit us, says Jason Hammond, an expert on meteors, comets, and asteroids. Apophis is the size of two and a half football fields. It will hurtle past Earth at a speed of 28,000 miles per hour! Right now Apophis is approximately between 930,000 and 9,300,000 miles away from Earth. Apophis will only hit Earth if something unusual happens like another meteor hits it. It should fly 20,000 miles away from Earth. As far as we know right now we are safe from the meteor Apophis, says Jason Hammond. Apophis is an exciting thing to research and will most likely not hit Earth. When co-design is carried throughout the project, students engage the content in a new way. Cameron, Sutton and Isaacs self-directed inquiry allowed them to define, analyze, evaluate and apply information for themselves. This group, like many in our project, showed that a students capacity to master content is elevated when they truly own the path of their learning.
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