Jose Viñas is a Natural Sciences and Biology teacher at the David Buján Secondary and High School, in Cambre Spain. With a strong will to pass on his passion for science to students, Jose offers us a fresh perspective on tried and tested inGenious practices.
Practices tried and tested
Jose and his colleagues field-tested a number of inGenious practices with his students. Here’s what they did, what they discovered and what they recommend.
| Using the practice
Technology teachers, Francisco Barba and Sabela Rivera, conducted a class with the electronic dice. First of all, they taught pupils the technical skills necessary to build the dice. Once the dice were assembled, the kids were free to choose how to use them, before presenting their work to classmates. Their uses of the dice were all quite different – for example, one group tried to investigate and analyse the random results of the dice, while another used the dice to play a giant “Snake and Ladders” game at a science festival. Pedagogical value
It is the dice’s versatility which is its most valuable characteristic in this practice. At the end of the technical demonstration of building the device, we can start a creative process trying to find different uses for it. This, for us, was one of the most important results. View the demonstration in  this video |
| Using the practice
This practice was overseen by a bilingual mathematics teacher, César Docanto, at our school (we teach Maths, Natural Sciences, Biology, Physics and Chemistry in both Galician and English). Our teacher collaborated on the practice with another inGenious school in Italy, called ITAS Galileo Galilei, which is located in Jesi-Ancona. Pedagogical value
The pupil is the principal actor of the practice; they take their own decisions and, at the end of it, ask for new solutions based on some aspects of the practice. If we want to introduce kids to the real world, it is necessary to develop their critical thinking – and this practice helps with that. |
| Using the practice
I tested this practice myself, with 17-year-old students. They had to play the role of an executive group in a major company. At the end of the practice, they demonstrated their conclusions to their classmates in Prezi presentations, which you can see for yourself here:  Green power
Taller-Superbenz Pedagogical value
The practice addresses different parts of the mathematics curriculum. In our case, working with people from another country had the added value of practicing a foreign language, since the groups were mixed and the solutions were discussed in English. View the demonstration in this video |
| Using the practice
I used this practice with a class of 13-year-old students. The students could conduct interesting experiments and analyse measurements taken in the lab – such as temperature, light intensity and so on. Pedagogical value
Making our younger students do activities using a notebook in class gives the teaching experience an added value and helps teachers use good quality resources. View the demonstration in this video |
Practices - from a teacher's perspective 
