Cycle 4 pre-pilots focus on “real world” challenges, that is, challenges related to the sociocultural context of the students and are personally meaningful to them. The activities also focus on extending the role of the teacher, by offering suggestions suggestions for developing their expertise, including digital and pedagogical competence.
Teachers are challenged to adopt different roles and to support students on various levels, including cultivating critical thinking skills and the ability to reflect, supporting the gathering of evidence that could strengthen or weaken claims, and preparing students for situations that require them to defend a cause. Here is an overview of teacher roles:
Develop – To expand the expertise and competence of the teacher.
Inspire – To evoke shared experiences and the feeling of being part of a meaningful endeavour.
Coach – To offer advice and guidance to the students. To connect students to people outside of school.
Listen – To carefully consider students’ interests and needs in shaping classroom activities.
Question – To challenge students’ assumptions by asking open ended questions.
Support – To step in and offer practical, hands-on support.
Assess – To evaluate students’ achievements based on collaboratively designed criteria.
CYCLE 4 LEARNING ACTIVITY PACKAGES
Package 1: Observe and Create
Dream
Introducing, understanding and questioning a design brief
Explore: Observation
Collecting information in relation to the design brief
Map
Creating a mindmap to understand relations between the collected information
Reflect
Recording audio-visual reflections and feedback
Make
Creating a design
Ask
Performing workshops with people who may represent future users of the design
Show
Publishing and presenting designs to an audience
Collaborate
Forming ad-hoc collaborations with learners of other schools
Illustrated by the Learning Story “Creating an Object“, in which students develop a tangible design.
Package 2: Benchmark and CreateDream
Introducing, understanding and questioning a design brief
Explore: Benchmarking
Collecting information in relation to the design brief
Map
Creating a mindmap to understand relations between the collected information
Reflect
Recording audio-visual reflections and feedback
Make
Creating a design
Ask
Performing workshops with people who may represent future users of the design
Show
Publishing and presenting designs to an audience
Collaborate
Forming ad-hoc collaborations with learners of other schools
Illustrated by the Learning Stories “Telling a Story” in which students narrate a scientific concept through auio-visual media, and
“Creating a Game” in which students construct a playful learning activity.
Package 3: Benchmark and Plan
Dream
Introducing, understanding and questioning a design brief
Explore: Observation
Collecting information in relation to the design brief
Map
Creating a mindmap to understand relations between the collected information
Reflect
Recording audio-visual reflections and feedback
Illustrated by the “Abridged Learning Story”, or performing half of any of the Learning Stories listed under package 1 and 2.
The Learning Activities are inspirational material that suggest ways of performing parts of a Learning Story. They are not prescriptions. Teachers can change the Learning Activities to contextualize the performance of a Learning Story.
REPORTING
We can only better accommodate European school settings through your feedback and suggestions. Please comment on the blog, send videos to the iTEC Facebook group, engage actively with other iTEC teachers and partners through various online channels. We are looking forward to hearing about your experience. We would appreciate iTEC pre-piloting teachers to send their input by the 12th of December, 2012. Any feedback is always welcome, even after that date.
I have studied packages and traslated them into Turkish for Turkish pre pilot teachers.I am amazed by the way the activities are thought and ordanized.Cycle 4 will be the most challenging and enjoyable one for us ,the teachers,and of course for our students .Many thanks to everyone who are involved in creating and developing them.
Thank you for the feedback and your work on the translations. We should have a translator account set up for you by tomorrow.