Authentic Lessons for 21st Century Learning

Honeycomb Harvest

Nicole Watkins | Published: September 16th, 2020 by K20 Center

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Honeycomb Harvest

This activity "harvests" student understanding of the logical relationships between words and concepts.

Honeycomb Harvest

Summary

This activity requires a digital or printed set of hexagons with vocabulary and/or concepts on each hexagon. The goal of this activity is for students to analyze each concept and show its relationship to the other concepts by placing related hexagons together to create a honeycomb. Then they must justify why they believe the linked words/concepts are related. Honeycombs can then be "harvested" for pre/post assessments, self-assessments, or formative assessments that promote critical thinking, organizing, reasoning, and higher-order thinking. To generate a printable handout of honeycombs, use the attached template or go to pamhook.com/solo-apps/hexagon-generator/, or to create a digital version, use classtools.net/hexagon/.

Procedure

  1. Create hexagons with selected vocabulary, phrases, or concepts. Print them for a hands-on manipulative or create a digital version (resources are included in the summary above).

  2. Students work in groups to identify each of the words/concepts and start to organize and interpret their relationships.

  3. Students arrange the hexagons so the sides of related hexagons are touching. They must be able to justify their decisions on placement.

  4. Printed versions allow for color-coding with markers, gluing to a larger poster format, or annotating their justifications around the hexagons. This can be done with the digital version by taking a screenshot of the finished project and importing it to a program that allows for annotation.

Adapted from HookEd. (2015). SOLO hexagons. In HookEd Wiki. Retrieved from http://pamhook.com/wiki/SOLO_Hexagons