Lee Booth
Churchie - Anglican Church Grammar School
Year 10 English - Gifted and Talented students

Lee saw MiLK as an opportunity to teach poetry in a fun and interesting way and to challenge her gifted and talented students to work at a high level, to think analytically and to synthesise. She used it as a pre-test activity, testing her students’ knowledge of poetry before going into a more in depth subject.

“They gained a lot of knowledge that they would not have necessarily got if we just studied two poems. They saw a bigger picture…most of all it was fun and the kids were engaged.”

Lee Booth set her year 10, Gifted and Talented English students the task of making MiLK events. In groups of four the students were to build games that displayed their knowledge of a chosen era of poetry. To help the students design their games, Lee asked them to use the Builder discussion to share their research and ideas for their games. Lee also set up two class wide discussions focusing on why people enjoy reading and writing poetry and why MiLK is a good tool for learning poetry and how it could be good for other subjects as well. The students had two lessons and homework time to build their games. During the third lesson the students played each other’s games. They were automatically critical of each other’s games and naturally reflected on their own game design. For homework, Lee asked the students to write 300 words reflecting on the game they had played, the game they built and more broadly on their experience of learning with MiLK.

Lee’s Reflections:

“The kids have found it really fun and they have been really engaged and I think that they have got a lot out of because it enabled them to do a whole lot of research and to work fairly fast.”

“It sped up the pace of their learning. They researched quickly. We were dangling the carrot of the mobile phone to engage students”

“It had opportunities for learning but it also had opportunities for reflection and I think that is significant and perhaps addresses some of our literacy concerns as well.”

“This could be presented as best practice for teaching gifted and talented students”

“It is good for students who don’t like teacher lectures.”

“It was very exciting and lots of fun and a chance to experiment. And I love new challenges and creative things.”

Student Responses:

“I believe milk is a new and very exciting way to learn about poetry using the technology that we all know and love. We have been privileged enough to experience this extremely productive and technologically advanced course, which promotes learning, as it enters our everyday life.”

“I think this is important because the students get to really have control over what they do. This way they get to learn not only the answers but also how to develop the game; this makes the students care more about the subject.”

“It was fun to create and at the same time I believe that I learnt a lot from the proccess of gathering information and creating the game.”

“Being the ‘creator’ involves a lot more thinking, planning and research than being the participant.”

“It is much easier to answer a question as you may only know the part answer, but as the question writer you must fully understand the topic.”

“MiLK could accommodate other subjects like Geography, History, Science and no doubt plenty of others, as all these subjects can work well within the format that the MiLK Project presents.”

“It was a fun and interesting experience and I believe advancements in programs such as MILK, are the portals into a better future.”