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The overnight residential planned by the students of REAL School aged 8–12 was a great example of kids taking ownership of something substantial, and, well… owning it.

From a Dream…

In the run up to the start of this school year, the REAL School team spent some time searching for a project that would meet key needs of a new group of students. We had decided appropriately that all learning would revolve around the overarching question of ‘how do we build relationships?’. This discussion lead to an observation: the residential experience provides so many powerful moments to build connections between students new and old.

Years ago, I recall a camp with Green School Bali where I took the Grade 8 students to a remote beach. There, around the campfire, a girl who had joined the school a few months before expressed how lonely she felt. Even though it was late at night, the words acted as an awakening for the other kids. From the next day forward her peers were inclusive and open to forming friendships. Her last 6 weeks of school were joyous and friend filled, and in speaking with her she said her only regret was that she did not get to go on camp sooner. It was that immersive moment that paved the way for her to build new relationships.

With many such instances in mind, the REAL School educators decided a camp would be the perfect way to highlight relationships at the start of the school year.

However, REAL School is not a normal school.

Beyond just attending a camp, we took the opportunity to hand over the planning of the camp to the students, as this indeed was an authentic project with tangible results.

It was a perfect way to kickstart the principles around Dream to Reality (D2R), REAL School’s action oriented project based learning methodology. With the luxury of nearly half the school day committed to this form of learning, we felt confident that such a project could be taken on.

We knew we would have to cover some essentials, like location and transport, early on. Beyond that, we felt confident our students could deliver on a great meal plan, a solid and meaningful itinerary, and ensure they had completed risk assessments for the whole camp.

There was a lot of scaffolding we put in place to ensure kids would get a chance to practice a diverse range of skills, while working in a variety of team settings. My goal was to create a setting that did not limit creativity, while providing enough focus and support to allow the students to work independently on the camp plan.

As part of preparation for this project, we brought in a couple key Project Based Learning tools such as Project Tuning Protocol, and used the REAL School project design cycle as a backbone for the whole process.

To a Reality…

The Meal Plan was the first order to tackle. I recognize that there is a near universal love of cooking among the students I have taught, and that hook is enough to get anybody excited about doing a project.

In the Dreaming and Planning, we imagined what could be possible in terms of food and put parameters around what we could actually do. Can we eat desert before the meal? Of course! Can we buy caviar? Well, not if we want to eat anything else due to budget constraints. The kids also learned what dietary restrictions there may be in the group and took those into account too.

After the kiddos had dialed in some good concepts and scaled their recipes to meet our group size we got to cook trial versions of the meals. Some had committed to making pancakes for the entire group, while others had chosen some really fancy spaghetti.

Making the prototype meal provided some crucial real life feedback. The fancy spaghetti involved WAY too many capers, and all but the hardiest of the adults (that would be me) felt it was excessive. The halloumi burger group realized that product selection could make or break their meal. They tried gluten free buns for their first run, and those turned out dry and barely edible.

After these prototype meals, recipes were adjusted and our vegan chef friend came in to make a plea to use plant based products. Again, the recipes were tuned to meet these new needs.

The same process was followed a couple weeks later as we went through creating activities. This time I threw kids in pairs, and provided them with ample room to brainstorm. We came together and shared our ideas. So many were chase games. A discussion made us consider just how many chase games we could have in two days. We finally agreed on a good balance of outdoor exploration, chase games, and indoor activities (who knows how the weather would end up?).

After working on the activity plans, we shared them and got feedback from the whole group through a gallery walk. Each plan was laid out on the table to be read, and comments added around them.

Creating something is worthwhile, but being able to adapt your creation to feedback is a whole new level of awesomeness.

The final step in our camp planning was the risk assessment. We discussed which would be three of the riskiest events and then worked through the school’s procedure for assessing risk. The students did an amazing job in predicting what dangers may lurk, and it was a great practice in building awareness.

The Camp

The day finally came. Kids had expressed how excited they were about the camp… a feeling I believe was accentuated by being directly involved in creating the camp for the past 6 weeks. We went through the packing list compiled by our students, filled with groceries purchased by the students and activities planned by the students. Getting on the bus felt great… it was our first proof that the plan was now officially in action.

When we got to the site, normal excitement and anxiety was felt, but the kids were unpacking with a mission. They had meals to cook, knew what lay in store for the coming days, and felt a collective responsibility to ensure that we could enjoy as much of what we had planned together as possible.

It did help that the weather was amazing, and we were able to frolick among the hills in the beautiful Hungarian countryside.

Equally positive was the response as we had brought people together to discuss how we would need to adapt the camp as times went awry, and the realities of an outdoor campfire seemed a little colder than we had anticipated. My feeling throughout the camp was that the kids were part of the decisions, and had a deeper sense of understanding as to what goes into making them as the camp progressed.

We left camp better fed than expected, full of stories and with a collective feeling of joy and success in pulling off our residential. We had become a tribe, a group of people who recognize their interdependence.

Back on school premises, we debriefed. The first question: When can we do that again?

My Reflection:

I have had a great deal of experience planning and running excursions of all types, from single day hikes to multiple week trips to remote off grid locations. What I saw these kids put together was pretty spot on, from the balance of activities to meals that would be generally accepted but also healthy.

I think that the magic in the whole experience was that we were part of it the whole way through. This was not some nebulous event planned by a third party, this was one which we had taken into account the needs and peculiarities of our group and come about with a plan that had achieved consensus.

As a project based learning experience, it definitely had the impact element on our community. It was not without its challenges though… one was how we could corroborate the camp plan with the design process. We effectively went through a full design cycle (which includes planning) on a plan… a very metaphysical spot for a young kid to stand on. The meals provided a far more grounded ‘doing’ element than the activity plans. It would have also been amazing to have site visits earlier on in the process to help the kids dream of what tools they may have access to in their activities.

The fact that we were designing for our own pleasure and the purpose to bring us all closer together was a very powerful device. I could see connections being made between students, deeper understanding of one another, and the wonder in watching kids build friendships.

My only question is… when are we going to do this again?

PS: I named this article in reference to something that came up multiple times when I told people kids were planning a residential. ‘ Uh Oh, sounds like you are going to experience Lord of the Flies’ or ‘Kids planning a camp, oh geez’. I read this really interesting article which I think shed a lot of insight into the mentality of kids when isolated from the adult world. I wonder if it is in fact being subjected to cynical and pessimistic adults that is the greater threat…

This year is making up for the three and a half decades that I lived through when nothing really happened.

The post Of Witchcraft and Wizardry appeared first on Blank Slate Chronicles.

There are lots of special days in the school year. Days that teachers and students celebrate with various traditions and ceremonies. Halloween, Valentine’s Day, the 100th day of school, picture day, prom, Earth Day…we love special days! March 14th is one of those special days. It’s Pi Day. No, not pie day….Pi Day! You know, …

Continue reading "What’s Your Favourite Flavour of Pi?"

This summer we aim to hone in on the endless imagination and creativity of youth as we teach them animated storytelling in this online summer camp. Together we will enter the exciting world of interactive digital storytelling by creating animated books and stop motion videos.

The post Animated Storytelling Online Summer Camp! appeared first on Ahimsa Media.

Part 3 of a series that includes Alternative Credentials, micro-credentials, stackable credentials, and digital badges, and Alternative Credential Stacking Depending on how alternative credentials are positioned, the strategies for developing these credentials depend on the level of stakeholders that need to get involved.  For example, a sector level strategy may involve engagement with provincial government, government agencies (e.g. ecampusOntario), industry, organisations and higher education institutions (HEI).     1. Establish guiding principles Central to the strategy is the need to adopt a set of guidelines or principles, and these tend to come in different flavours.  The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO)  outline design, assessment, and implementation principles. The ecampusOntario microcertification principles and framework was co-developed by a “working group of employers and post-secondary representatives in Ontario to provide high-level guidance for micro certification pilots across the province”. The ICDE (2019) outlines 10 guidelines for the issuance of alternative digital credentials noting they may need adjustment if institutional and government governance structures are to be accounted for.  Therefore, there are varying approaches to the level at which guidelines are targeted as well as their focus and degree of collaboration.   2. Build on competency frameworks Central to the goal of better meeting skills gaps via alternative credentials in a HEI/industry/employer partnership is the importance of competency frameworks.  Competency frameworks provide a means to identify skills gaps and training needs and this practice, while not new, is an often-cited component of designing alternative credentials, in particular badged micro-credentials.    Qualifications authorities The New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) is often cited for its introduction of micro-credentials to its regulated training and education system. When NZQA approves a micro-credential, it is published on a micro-credential register. The process invites industry, community and employers to work with the HEI to develop micro-credentials. Europe has a European Qualifications Framework that “helps improve transparency, comparability and portability of people’s qualifications and makes it possible to compare qualifications from different countries and institutions”. A European project is underway to develop “mechanisms for the assessment and certification of learning outcomes achieved through OER” based on UNESCO and European Commission recommendations.  It outlines several challenges that are being addressed via a  recognition framework for micro-credentials,and a meta-data standard and credentials clearinghouse to help facilitate the operations of the framework.   3. Establish a high-level roadmap A recent Commonwealth of Learning report  (Rossiter and Tynan, 2019) outlines a roadmap for a micro-credential “ecosystem” that considers both organisational and technical infrastructure: Ensure you have a clear sense of the purpose and benefit to your key stakeholders.  Develop an engagement and communication plan to nurture a culture for innovation.  Assess institutional readiness to achieve your project goals against the components of the micro- credentialing ecosystem.  Create an overarching system architecture and framework, including: a credentials taxonomy (articulating the granularity of and relationship between the credentials); a “Skills and Capabilities Framework”; and quality principles and processes to design, develop and deliver micro-credential products.  Create and map the micro-credentialing journey, remembering that each stakeholder will have expectations about the user, customer and learner experiences.  Develop or modify the administrative systems, policies, business rules and processes to enable new credentialing models.  Design an issuance model and digital badge. Ensure effective governance and administration are in place for analytic and reporting purposes.  Assess the capability and capacity of the existing IT infrastructure and educational technology environment to support micro-credentialing and select the issuance platform.  Review and evaluate against all success factors.   At an institutional level, Ganzglass (2014) outlines at a high level three approaches that have been taken to develop alternative credentials in the US: Modularize existing applied associate degree and technical diploma programs.  Embed existing industry and professional certifications in career and technical programs.  Streamline and scale processes for awarding credit for learning represented by non-collegiate credentials.  In Canada, the recent ecampusOntario micro-credential pilots provide some indication of the process and strategy being adopted “on the ground” by various HEI. Source:  https://www.slideshare.net/LenaPatterson/microcertification-pilot-presentations-feb-2020-consolidated #69 Surprisingly, there is almost no discussion of the role of learning design or instructional design in the alternative credential space, but it is undoubtedly an area for learning designers to explore and develop competencies. This also may have institutional capacity implications and need to be part of a strategy, especially in the area of prior learning and assessment.   4. Communication and marketing Given the nomenclature confusion around alternative credentials and their recent emergence in HEI, communication and marketing around what they are and the pathways available to students are an important component of the strategy.  Leaser et al (2020) also underline that both the articulation and career pathway options need to be communicated in to past, current, and future recipients of alternative credentials.

Tajik Persian: Readings in History, Culture and Society seeks to help students develop reading proficiency in Tajik at advanced level through authentic texts written for native speakers and provides them glimpses into the history, culture and society of Tajikistan without losing its focus on cultural aspects of the country—an aspect that constitutes a core component […]

Teaching dance steps can be an effective and engaging way to demonstrate and explain the concept of pattern recognition. Pattern recognition is one aspect of computational thinking and is integral to the Applied Design Skills and Technologies Curriculum (ADST BC Curriculum). It is useful in fields such as: mathematics; computer science (programming and machine learning); scientific discovery and […]