Digital Mysteries: Mark’s Representation of Miracles is a unique app for 14-16 year olds which allows pairs to work simultaneously on one iPad, on a task which splits the story up into digestible segments and encourages discussion. Students are encouraged to collaborate throughout the whole process.
The task is mapped to the Religious Education curriculum and can be used to support the study of Christianity. Users are provided with several slips of illustrated information which are based on the author’s knowledge of the following miracle stories from Mark’s Gospel: Feeding of the 5000, Healing of Legion, Calming of the Storm, Walking on Water, Raising of Jairus’ Daughter. This mystery challenges students to infer what each of the stories suggest about Jesus identity by reading and sorting through the slips together to come up with an answer to the question “Why are miracle stories an important feature of Mark’s Gospel?” As well as this, students will need to consider what different interpretations of miracle exist and how they apply to the stories.
Users move through an easy-to-follow, three stage process – they must first read through the slips, organise them into groups, then move to the final stage where they 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.
As well as the main question, the author of this mystery provides three suggested sub-questions. These do not appear anywhere in the app, except from the ‘description’ section, so if you would like to use them, we suggest writing them on the board or asking students during the session:
- Which miracles does Mark present?
- What challenges do miracles present for Christians?
- What different interpretations of miracle exist?
Suggested learning outcomes for this task are:
- Match up slips to the different miracle stories: Feeding of the 5000, Healing of Legion, Calming of the Storm, Walking on Water, Raising of Jairus’ Daughter
- Discuss, debate and think about what each of the stories suggest about Jesus identity
- Consider and discuss the different interpretations that exist
Differentiation
This mystery has 24 slips of information/statements/snippets on the topic. Easy has 18 slips, Medium adds a further 4, and Hard has all 24 slips). The level can be changed in the settings. There are also different hints provided at the Grouping and Sequencing stages, depending on level chosen.
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 RE, computing, history, geography, maths, science, citizenship and we also have bundles including: Shakespeare and primary computing.