Team 7 Project Sketch

Below is a working draft of our project sketch as written by Robin Ulster http://checkitoutonetime.blogspot.com/2009/02/project-sketch-itself-connected-world.html . Her writing, which came from a day long meeting of 7th grade humanities teachers, is in black, with some additional comments from me in yellow.

This was honestly the best day I have ever spent working collaboratively with my team. Each of our strengths were showcased, and I am truly excited about where the curriculum is going over the next semester and hopefully into next year. As a student I have always found that once I make a personal connection to a subject, whether it involves Shakespeare (by studying the roles of women in each play) or studying Psychology (by trying to understand the dynamics of my own family), I am committed. One of my main goals as a teacher is to provide the same opportunity for my students. This project allows 7th grade students to begin to look outside their world and make connections about issues in regions of the world I used to dream about. I want to be a student in my class. I believe the next few months have amazing potential, and my team did a fantastic job bringing it all together. I have been at a loss as far as what else to add because Robin said everything so eloquently. Here is what we have so far:

At the end of each part of the project, Robin has identified the NETS Standards that component meets. At this point it feels like every step of the project will demonstrate most of the standards, but minimally, they will include Standard #6. Technology Operations and Concepts.

1) Blog/journalling - Each of the 160+ students in 7th grade will keep a blog, using ideas inspired by Clarence Fisher. We will assign our students one of 19 regions of the world and one of 8 global social issues or problems. We will do this together because we want to make sure that among our 8 classes, we have the students divided into good working groups for the next phases of the project. Each student will work on a different issue for each region. Their blog work will consist of a series of personal reflections/journaling about what they are learning through globalvoicesonline.org, other good websites for MS students to learn about current events and by reading blogs from other countries. This addresses Standard # 3: Research and Information Fluency. This week we had Chad Bates come into our classrooms and set up blog accounts for each of my students through my.isb.ac.th. He will also be coming to all of the 7th grade classrooms to help us introduce igoogle and writing blogs with our students. One way we will be connected is through http://my.isb.ac.th/pg/groups/1805/connected-world-gr7/.

2) The second phase of the project is also inspired by Clarence Fisher. Our 160 students will create a link/resource filled 7th Grade online 'hyperText' book about the regions of the world. This will be a resource for next year's students in their regional studies. Students will work online and collaboratively with their regional-counterparts in the various classes. They will work on their section of the wiki - each writing enough about their issues to put together a solid chapter on the region backed up with evidence, examples and sources. One of their required sources will be communicating directly with someone from the region they are studying. This addresses Standard #5 Digital Citizenship. This also addresses Standard #4 Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making. I recently created a rubric for grading the blogs for our students. I looked at different versions on-line and began to establish a working document for our team to use. This process may have taught me more about what I should be doing, than what my students should be doing. I need to remember how valuable writing a rubric can be for my students.

3) The third phase of the project is based on one of the Flat Classroom projects. We would now group the students by issue, rather than by region. There could be as many as 8 students per issue, so we may divide them into smaller groups for this phase. Each group is responsible for making a 2 - 3 minute (we haven't decided on the length yet) video about their issue/problem. The videos will serve the function of educating their peers about the problem they have identified. Because they will now be working with students studying different regions, they will work together to understand the similarities and differences of how their issues play out in different regions. This will get back to the idea of making connections. They will present their videos to the 7th grade. Standard #1: Creativity and Innovation & Standard #2: Communication and Collaboration & Standard #4 Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making.

4) The final phase of the project will have students working together once again to create a project or action plan that has the kids themselves becoming part of the solution. They will create project ideas/plans to help or address the problem (other than through education) and they will present those ideas at a project symposium to a panel of teachers (maybe experts as well), their fellow students and globally (we're not sure what format to use). This is when students will have made connections between the Essential Questions and the Enduring Understandings. They will have evaluated and synthesized research and information about complex global issues. They will have educated others and finally, they will have come up with a plan that aims to help solve the problem. This addresses Standard #1: Creativity and Innovation & Standard #2: Communication and Collaboration & Standard #4 Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making.