![]() A beautiful hot day out at Karitane only moments away from an Epic water fight, my mind stumbles back to the school. It is the Zucchini you see served up on the BBQ. Proudly I say our students grew that at school! It is only a Zucchini but in a way, I saw it as the fruits of our labour; we certainly would gather more nutrition from it than a raft of Credits or an end of year exam. I have spent a massive amount of time reflecting on the end of year project based learning programme for year 9’s. There were some real highlights and lowlights. The student feedback was positive the teacher feedback not as positive (and that's me putting my usual positive spin on things). In my deep reflection, I clearly underestimated the actual size of this “Change initiative”. I hummed, harred and admittedly slurred a little as I caught up with my whānua in Scotland over Christmas talking about the undertaking. The judging day was a real highlight of the term, the effort that some of the girls had put in was fantastic. The joy some of these girls brought to the sick elderly and possibly bewildered, just made the heart sing. What of the others though? What about those who didn’t rise to the challenge in the most appropriate way? Some of my research on Project Based Learning pointed me towards the idea of these projects bringing Social equity. Students could thrive in these settings. For me that is an idea so intoxicating I couldn’t just put the idea away. So what were the next steps? The Future Focused Learning Committee was granted a book to read on the conditions we write about it in the Siren. Look out for that article when I finally finish the book! A lot of the Project Based Learning literature repeats this mantra around “embracing the chaos”, words like “messy” and “fail” are ping ponged across the pages or through the pages or radio waves. As part of my own PLG I have been trying to look at how I can increase student agency, how can we light a fire under the learning to bring purpose? Reading the first few pages of the book I had it. Project Global Inform was an initiative set up by the authors of ‘Launch’. The wicked problem we have in Social Studies is we look at Human rights and weep but don’t make any real impact. Project Global Inform was a global project, mostly around North America, with students tackling the problems of human rights, informing people through social media and then raising money, resources or political awareness to make a difference. This reminded me of the amazing middle school educator Craig MacDonald-Brown who spoke at Ulearn (link below). My ever-patient Head of the department had to put up with me on a soapbox for the first month of the term saying I was no longer going to teach about Genocide I was going to end it. She told me to plan it out and go for it. I did a kind of lazy remix of some of the sources that are included with the book I am not reviewing at the moment and hacked at the core assessment and turned them into my slightly Frankenstein core assessment. After teaching the kids about the United Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) we used this as a framework for looking at various humanitarian issues. I then showed them about what was happening in Myanmar and the ongoing genocide there. We empathised, we wept, we got angry, then I said to them it is our duty to act and fix human rights issues. So my year 10 were sent forth, I wanted them to end genocide. They, though, needed to find a project that sang to them. One group looked at gender equity, specifically looking at the price of shampoo and beauty products. They planned to create a podcast informing people about it but despite support, the group never really got the project off the ground. Another group ended up in discussions with a South African NGO who were working to educate about the huge levels of sexual violence in SA. The process was organic and frustrating, at the time we felt that the world seemed so intangible, the student doesn’t always understand why the Minister of Health won’t reply hourly to their emails. Hashtags and Social media accounts were created to raise awareness and quickly were connected to social networks of people interested in what the girls were doing. Was it a success?Not always... it felt difficult at times. Were the girls engaged and stakeholders in their own learning? Yes. The biggest shock to me was that after all the hard work, to-ing and fro-ing, surveys, social media accounts, head scratching and confusion, one of the girls’ favourite things was producing the human rights boards to see and share everyone's learning. I was surprised, as these had been the very things I had been raging against to start with. From this start, I have continued my learning journey failing fast on a number of projects with the students. My Year 9 plan to create a tool to inform and educate students about digital citizenship fell flat. Some students did produce work that covered our curriculum but others fell well short of the mark. The Economics girls did a fantastic job of pitching several charity ideas to a team of judges, and they are currently enjoying using the design thinking process to create the perfect holiday for their client while developing a budget. I am starting to count a few more successes than fails. It is all hard work and we often underestimate how much heavy lifting there is in the thinking. Being creative and thinking deeply about solving a problem is really hard. When you are invested in the problem it becomes even more difficult.
So really in the end what have I learned? Well firstly, I am a proper failure. Let us never doubt this; I have been talking about Genocide for the past 16 years and it persists in this world. In a technology driven world, it will be up to the humans to solve these issues and we as teachers have an important role to play in ensuring the correct framework exists to help the students navigate through these projects. Just because something is difficult, doesn’t mean you should give up on it. Also, my biggest reflection on these projects is that they need to be student-led. Though I may have an idea of what I want to be fixed or the students to work on, student agency only really comes through the girls being truly invested in the work. To do this well you need to understand a design process, possibly the ‘Launch’ process or other design thinking templates. Also, the students, just like ourselves, will want to take shortcuts in these processes. Don’t! The more you work with the frameworks, the more you see the pain points in the process. Have I got it right yet, hell no, but I am getting closer and I long for the day that my students code an algorithm that make cars run on smiles and students enjoy equity in educational outcomes. ~Duncan Trickey
2 Comments
Jane Smallfield
31/5/2018 02:56:08 pm
Thanks for sharing Duncan - enjoyed reading of your approach
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Keith Trickey
2/6/2018 12:37:07 am
Ok, so you haven't sorted genocide yet, it is a massive global problem - so still a work in progress. Great work, well described - reflection is such a crucial element in developing learning! Great work Duncan!
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