Learning Challenge Series: Help Shape a Healthier Society

‘How can I improve the health and wellness of myself and others?’ This is an essential question that communities are facing, as we strive to make positive choices regarding our health and wellbeing. Throughout the back to school workshop in early 2023, a number of resources were shared to assist communities to explore this important question.   

Firstly, we located the ‘Challenge for Change Learning Series’ in the Apple Education Community. These resources are designed to inspire students of all ages to explore important social issues. The ‘Help Shape a Healthier Society’ challenge has a discussion guide and workbook that steps through the challenge using the three interconnected phases of the Challenge Based Learning Framework: Engage, Investigate, Act. There is also an accompanying ‘Health Challenges Guide’ with a variety of mini challenges addressing health disparities in our communities.

Resources

• Explore the ‘Challenge for Change Learning Series’
• Download the ‘Help Shape a Healthier Society’ discussion guide  and ‘Health Challenges’ guide 

Scaffolding an Inquiry with Numbers

Next, we looked at how to utilise the functionality of the app Numbers to scaffold an Inquiry using the Challenge Based Learning Framework. As teachers, we understand an inquiry can sometimes be a beautiful mess as students question, brainstorm, filter ideas, research, synthesis, reflect and all the other wonderful ways of thinking and learning. 

How are we supporting students through this involved project work?

How do we as educators have visibility on progress and the need for support during more open ended investigations?

The app Numbers can provide a way of scaffolding inquiry processes so that students can make thinking and learning visible and organised in multimodal ways.

Features of the Numbers app that support inquiry include:

• The option to ‘Collaborate’ within a document allowing multiple students to brainstorm questions and ideas together
• Sheets and formatting that scaffold the inquiry process, reducing cognitive load for students so they can focus on aspect of a task in manageable chunks
• Tools and functionality that enable students to creatively express what they know and can do through drawing, symbols/shapes, photos, video, text, audio and more 
• Accessibility features that differentiate for the diverse needs of all our students

Check out the ‘Attachments’ section to download an example of a Numbers Scaffold created to support a Health Inquiry using the Challenge Based Learning framework.

How do you utilise the tools and functionality of Apple technology to engage students in an inquiry process? I’d love to hear your ideas so please add a comment and feel free to share any resources you may have created.