Digital Mysteries: Why did Tyke Turner steal? is a unique app for 7-11 year olds which allows pairs to work simultaneously on one iPad, solving a citizenship/English ‘mystery story’ which looks into peer pressure and stealing. Groups must discuss and collaborate along the way.
The task is mapped to the citizenship/thinking skills/English/PSHE curriculum and can be used to support the topics of Health, Safety, Lifestyle, Development, Character, Group Discussion and Interaction. It involves highlighting pressures that a young girl faces both at home and at school that lead her to steal a smartphone.
Children are introduced to a young girl called Tyke Turner via several slips of illustrated information which feature a variety of themes. These include snippets about her family, friends, the area she lives in and clues as to what might have happened. The students must read and sort through the slips together to come up with an answer to the question “Why did Tyke Turner steal?” There are 15 slips of information provided on Easy and Medium setting, with an additional 3 being added in Hard.
Users move through an easy-to-follow, three stage process – they first read through the slips, organise them into groups, then can lay out the slips in a chain and use sticky tapes and notes to help make sense of everything. Although the question is open-ended, students learn lots of useful information along the way, all while developing key skills of collaboration and problem-solving.
After the students have went through the problem-solving process, they can then go through the Reflection Stage. This allows them to play back what they have done, discuss their choices and share with others what they thought during the process and whether after reflection, they still think the same. This can be done alone, in their groups, with their teacher or as a whole class. A PDF report is also generated as a summary of the session, and is available to print or share.
Some suggested learning goals of this specific mystery are:
PSHE/Citizenship
1) Developing a healthy, safer lifestyle, and
2) Developing good relationships and respecting the differences between people.
*Understanding that pressure to behave in an unacceptable or risky way can come from a variety of sources, including people they know
*Knowing how to ask for help and use basic techniques for resisting pressure to do wrong
*Developing good relationships and respecting the differences between people
*Understanding that their actions affect themselves and others, to care about other peoples feelings and to try to see things from other peoples points of view
*Being aware of different types of relationships, including those between friends and families, and developing the skills to be effective in relationships
*Realising the nature and consequences of teasing, bullying and other aggressive behaviours, and how to respond to them and ask for help
English
*Making contributions relevant to the topic and taking turns in discussion
*Varying contributions to suit the activity and purpose, including exploratory and tentative comments where ideas are being collected together, and reasoned, evaluative comments as discussion moves to conclusions
*Qualifying or justifying what they think after listening to others questions or accounts
*Dealing politely with opposing points of view
*Using different ways to help the group move forward: including summarising the main points, reviewing what has been said, clarifying, drawing others in, reaching agreement and considering alternatives
How can I try other mysteries?
At the bottom of the app details tab, tap ‘Developer Apps’ to view our current range. There are apps for computing, history, geography, maths, science, citizenship and bundles.