Authentic Learning

FToday at Sherwood in room one we began an amazing adventure as a class into the world of authentic learning.  Now I'm sure you might be asking what is authentic learning? Well authentic learning is learning that engages all the senses allowing students to create a meaningful, useful, shared outcome. They are real life tasks, or simulated tasks that provide the learner with opportunities to connect directly with the real world.

We have been study Air & Areodynamics in Science and I thought it would be an amazing opportunity for students learn about how automobiles are made. We started by looking at a book called "If I Built a Car" and then I had students design their dream car, just like the boy in the book. 

Next we looked into what type of career you might have if you were to design a car, which led us to look at the career of an engineer. We soon discovered many various types of engineers and what they all do and how they would be involved in creating and manufacturing automobiles. 

Once we had had an opportunity to see how current automobiles are manufactured we took a little look through history to see how it all began, with Henry Ford and the assembly line. Students worked in groups to perform the task of assembling foam cars.  The first time I gave no instructions on what to do and the second time I told them about how an assembly line works. Soon students discovered how much faster you can get a job done if you spend a little time planning, prepping, and working as a team using positive encouragement. 

On Wednesday we will graph our results and discuss what worked and what they might have done differently to improve their manufacturing times. 

Overall, this was an amazing way to incorporate so many different subjects into one amazing activity. I sure hope that the students had as much fun doing the activities as I did teaching it to them.