First of all, one should clearly understand the definition of synthesis before going about creating a synthesis project for students. According to Howard Gardner (2006), the creator of the theory of Multiple Intelligences (noted in an earlier blog post), synthesizing is "the ability to knit together information from disparate sources into a coherent whole" (p. 46). Disparate is means something that is different, but not comparable. In other words, the act of synthesizing would be more appropriate when trying to find similarities between a cat and a dog, not a dog and another dog.
Anyways, before you get lost in the vocabulary of this project, here is my idea to help students learn to synthesize, which I had my students do this last year in history class. While studying World War I & II, we watched videos, looked through books, and studied about it online. Then for a synthesis project, I had my students use the notes they had taken from each source to construct a digital timeline at www.tiki-toki.com, as well as US Government images. I required them to pick the same amount of events about each war in relation to their grade level. I also encouraged them to choose events that took place throughout the war and not just in one year or one location. Here is one of my student's timelines.
References
Gardner, H. (2006). Five Minds for the Future. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
No comments:
Post a Comment