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Co-constructing the vision and finding mentors

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Co-constructing the vision and finding mentors

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It became apparent that we had to think very carefully think about how we would launch the project (so that students could successfully launch their own projects), how we recruit and support mentors, and how we could inspire EVERYONE to keep working on their ideas after the enthusiasm of the first few weeks had died down.

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This is still a dream of mine, but it guides me through the smaller projects that will eventually lead to the existence of a publishing platform. All the accumulated knowledge in school is worth nothing if it is not shared (with others... in the community, around the world, in other teaching environments...)

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Because of our work in the L.E.A.R.N. group, one student started thinking about an idea he wanted to explore. To build a platform where the community would read books out loud.
He reached out to two teachers (Jona and I).
The project is already in its first iteration. So far this is how it looks like:
- We want the platform to be built by families, students and teachers.
- We want it to be useful to readers that struggle with the written word.
- We want the project to be an outlet for people who want to volunteer their time for a worthy cause.
- We want the platform to outgrow the school and become known as a school-based platform on which people from all over the world read books to other students. We imagine asking for SouthAfricans to read a postcolonial SouthAfrican author, for example. And Argentines reading Borges to students of other LatinAmerican countries.

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I am quite obsessed with the notion that it is urgent that students and teachers alike move away from being passive consumers and start taking an active role in creating content.
Automation and AI are driving technological advances and we are still teaching students to be passive consumers of knowledge.
So... I teamed up with James Thomas and Martina Brea and we designed a project with Y8 students. The rationale behind it is that teachers are also required to go through the same process as students. Since the portfolio is designed around challenges and the final shape of the challenge is set by each individual, the project fits both teachers and students. It calls for a lifelong learning disposition in teachers and it fosters awareness in students.
Ideally, the project will grow until everyone in the community has their own publication. Whether they feel like sharing it or not, is up to them.

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Inspired by the huge amount of literature there is on student empowerment, lifelong learning, and design learning, conversations with Paula, and an urge to do something authentic we decided to explore the Design Thinking cliche with some friends. It begain with a blog post

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We could work alongside each other (staff, students, parents...) in order to design solutions to authentic global problems.

Some detail:

1. We form a team of learners where everyone has equal status.

2. We search for challenges, perhaps using http://www.openideo.com, to find ones that peak the passions and interests of the learners in our team.

3. We learn about design thinking and apply these principles to generate ideas, develop prototypes, and reach proposed solutions to our challenges.

4. We challenge communities in other schools (I have some schools from the UK, Thailand, and China in mind) to also work on the challenges we are working on, some healthy competition, and an opportunity to grow our network of learners.

5. We blog everything, and share our solutions with the world via the digital community.

6. Together we learn about global issues, new technologies, design thinking, and each other... and maybe create some really innovative cool solutions to real, authentic challenges.

Step 1 - build a team...

I look forward to evolving this idea with you!

Ben.

Categories: Professional Development Contest 2017

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We could work alongside each other (staff, students, parents...) in order to design solutions to authentic global problems. Some detail: We form a team of learners where everyone has equal status. We search for challenges, perhaps using www.openideo.com, to find ones that peak the passions and interests of the learners in our team.

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I have trouble identifying with meaningless questions that define us. Such us: what subject do you teach?
I am a teacher, a designer of learning experiences. I create environments where students and adults alike can re-imagine themselves with freedom.
I was already working towards a complete transformation of my own mindset and had started a project called Tisel (a school mascot that embodies the values of the school and deals with creation and academic honesty).
With this in mind, I said yes to Ben's proposal of beginning a co-learning group with students.
And then, because of it, we started a co-learning community of teachers together with Dan Warner. Dan? Where are you?

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We wondered what we could do if we changed the approach to PSE in year 12 by offering students the chance to form groups and begin working on their passions and interests, preparing for a showcase event half way through the year (like an exhibition in a gallery).

Why? We really got into the skin of a Y12 student. We thought they are about to leave their childhood behind and make a huge leap into the real world where they will have to act from autonomy and free choice. We wanted them to have some concrete awesome experience that could recreate this.

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I feel life can end at any time.  Loss is REAL. There is no time to lose being dead whilst being alive. AWE has the capacity to awaken spirit. I want to see more people who are awake. I found it thrilling to co create with Ben a space in which students and teachers could experience joy ans the  sacredness of life whilst learning.

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It really impacted me how the students are really at the center of these projects, and that teachers are travelling alongside them, exploring new possibilities. I had been on a decade long journey myself learning the power of relinquishing control and how to support students in more authentic ways whilst staying true to the demands of the curriculum in hand. I didn't want to be confined by a curriculum, I didn't want to control the knowledge anymore, I wanted to experiment with what would happen if we scaled up the L.E.A.R.N group.

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Things started to get REALLY interesting

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Things started to get REALLY interesting

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People involved in the project started to become involved in other, similar, but different projects. School improvement and "hacking" the system (whatever that means) seems to be at the root of all of them.

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We met a few times (in the holiday's) to start researching and building!!

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For example...

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Lets build an App that helps learners to connect to each other. What ever you do, don't call it Tinderising education!

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Courtesy of Paula Studio Schools. Also, refer to High Tech High, The Dwight School, Finland, and of course parts of San Andres.

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Studio Schools are a new type of government-funded state school for 14-19 year olds of all abilities, but with an innovative and important difference!

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"This is my idea for a possible solution. Normally, students dont have a strong voice when proposing new ideas, generating a change or complaining about school, so with this “school council” students would be at the same level as staff (50% representation each) and any idea will have lots of different opinions in order to improve it, and when the idea wins a voting (needs 18/28 votes) it can be easily turn into a thing." Matias

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Some more people joined the group (Mariano and Martin), and some drifted away , it was very important to us that we only attended sessions if we felt they were relevant to our passions

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How might we create more opportunities for developing choice, freedom, ad trust in school for all members of the school community (student, teachers, parents, board, neighbours etc...)

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We felt we needed to find something more politically correct, something more positive, more inspirational so we spent some time trying to define our problem...

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After MUCH discussion it became apparent that we were drawn to solving a problem related to our school, probably not surprising given it was the one thing such a diverse group had in common. The initial questions that connected the group was posed by Matias, it went something like this

"How can we make school less boring and more interesting?"

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Santos, Juan, Santiago, Wenchi, and Matias (all students from year 10), and the teachers Ben (Maths), Paula (Art), Eloise (French), Chris (Physics), and Sofia (Pure Creativity) committed to spending some time hanging out together (lunch times or after school) in order to explore our passions. We came up with a bunch of problems to consider... here was Wenchi's

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A mind map we made when imagining an ideal school.

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We spent a week interviewing people and asking them questions about school, to see there was a problem with school, and if there was, what it was!