Day 70 (4/28): Science Articles Jigsaw Discussion

Part 1: Article Groups

For the first 20-25 minutes of class, you will come together with others who have read the same article as you.  During this time, you should work to deepen your understanding of the text, compare your impressions, and consider its implications for your understanding of Science as an Area of Knowledge.  

• Using the Knowledge Framework for Natural Sciences, consider how your articles address questions of Scope, Perspective, Methods & Tools, and Ethics. 
• Don't attempt to answer ALL the questions from any of these sections. Instead, consider WHICH of the questions seem to resonate most with the arguments and ideas in your article.
• As you talk, create a set of collaborative notes, with questions and tentative answers, using a template like the one below, that you can take with you to Part II of this activity.

Part II: Jigsaw Discussion

Next, you will be placed into a group with students who have become experts on a different one of the assigned texts. Here, you will act as the “resident expert” on your text.  

Begin by talking through your text with this group--give them the short version of your own understanding of the text, as well as the understandings you reached with your first group.  Take turns with this, but let it be a conversation (if you see connections, interrupt one another)

Once you think you have made some sense of the texts and how they interrelate, pick one question from the list of TOK Exhibition Prompts and construct a visual representation that captures the tensions that exist within and between your texts as it relates to the prompt.  

Your representation MUST include:

• The TOK Exhibition Prompt you have chosen to investigate
• Drawings that are literal in nature (that is, that represent some real world object or thing that is connected to the texts or your discussion of them.
• Drawings that are figurative in nature (that is, that represent objects whose connection is metaphorical or analogic or symbolic)
• Words and phrases (i.e., quotes) from the texts themselves that are key to understanding the question under investigation.
• Other Key Words or Phrases that feel especially relevant to your understanding of the question, the texts, or the Natural Sciences more broadly.

Your representation should also include the physical contributions of all members in more or less equal balance.  That means no fair designating one person to draw the poster--all hands on deck.