Hello everyone!
I am a Computer Science teacher at Oakham School and I’ve been lucky enough to be working in a department which has taken full advantage of inquiry-based learning through FOSIL since the very beginning. Although my teaching journey started in the Maths department, I’ve quickly become excited with the innovation that is happening in Computer Science.
Here is a link to our Year 7 unit regarding an inquiry into the question of whether a brain is a computer : Is My Brain A Computer?
This is just the tip of the iceberg of our FOSIL journey. We have already started the process with our Year 8 and 9 groups (What is a digital time-capsule; Can we use technology to look after plants?) and the success our pupils have had is astounding. The most exciting part of FOSIL for me is how smoothly it scales up through the years at school. We have had pupils in Year 7 deliver the results of their inquiry to the same standard as those delivered by Year 12. This is most definitely not a reflection of sub-standard inquiry skill by our upper-school, but instead a testament to how versatile the FOSIL inquiry process actually is.
I can’t wait to see how our junior pupils apply what they’ve learned as they progress through their academic journey and I look forward to sharing it all with you here on this forum.
