Category: provocations

DigitalLunch: How to Bring an End to Poverty (#TeachSDGs) using Google’s Blogger App

DigitalLunch: How to Bring an End to Poverty (#TeachSDGs) using Google’s Blogger App

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To imagine this goal- ending poverty in all its forms everywhere- seems like humankind would need to make a mighty effort to bring this into reality. However, I felt inspired by the research presented by Peter Diamandis in his book, Abundance, the Future is Better Than You Think. Extreme-Poverty-OurWorldIn his book, he presents really interesting data that shows that current efforts are making an impact, helping people get out of “absolute poverty” or extreme poverty which are defined as income levels that are below the minimum amount to sustain people’s basic needs. Although this is a dreadful situation, I believe as educators, we should convey a sense of optimism to our students–that WE can be the Change, while bringing them into awareness of the issue and compel them to eradicate it.

If we are to take on the challenge of teaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), then we can look to the work done by UNESCO to find learning objectives that we may embed into our current curriculum. They suggest to create a conceptual understanding of extreme and relative poverty and to critically reflect on the underlying cultural and behavioral practices that create these conditions. Furthermore, it should be our intention to connect the head to the heart, adding social-emotional learning objectives so that students begin to show sensitivity to the issues of poverty as well as empathy and solidarity with poor people and those in vulnerable situations. (Education for Sustainable Goals). I believe wholeheartedly we can do this, and I’d like to suggest using the Google App Blogger to cultivate knowledge of the local, national and global distribution of extreme poverty and extreme wealth.  In my opinion, student blogs can be a great way to chronicle their learning journey because they combine both traditional writing skills with the new literacy skill of visual messages as students create reflections and powerful posts that respond to their deepening understanding. 

Here are some of the basic reasons why I would use Blogger:

  • Free and easy to set up–all you need is a Gmail account.
  • Simple and easy to use its features.
  • Autosaves their work as a draft, and they can go back in “history” to review changes.
  • Can be used as an individual or collaborative blog
  • Great context for important problem-solving, critical thinking and cultural awareness.
  • Has the opportunity for an authentic audience experience.
  • Transforms students of “consumers” into “creators” of media.

My Personal Recommendations….

  • When you have the students sign up Blogger, make sure they DO NOT sign up for the G+ platform or it will not allow the blog to get set up if they are under 13 years old.
  • Make sure you have Admin privileges on the students’ accounts, so you can have editing privileges and can moderate comments.

Click on the video below if you are ready to learn  How to Create a Blog for Student Learning Using Blogger.  (If you are already familiar with Blogger, then you can continue to read how we could use to blogging to journey students through an inquiry into poverty…… )

 

Okay, so now that you have a general sense of the power of blogging in learning and how you can get started using Blogger, I’d like to provide some ideas of how you use the blog to show growth in their understanding of issues surrounding poverty, in their local and community and globally.

Suggested Provocations:

  1. Watching the film Living On One Dollar . Also, there are a ton of resources on that website and additional work done by the filmmakers. By the way, not an easy documentary to watch–will evoke strong emotions.  (I’m tearing up just thinking about it.)
  2. Field Trip to the Landfill. What does the trash tell us about the wealth in our community?  Depending on where you live in the world, you may actually bare witness to people who are living in extreme poverty.
  3. A ride on the local bus through impoverished neighborhoods. In some places, just the bus ride alone can be quite an eye-opener to the people who live in poverty. I would add the See, Think and Wonder thinking routine to this excursion.
  4. Student Challenge: What might it be like living on 1 USD a day?

Blogging about these experiences will be illuminating and can be done either in-class or for home learning. Here are some possible blog prompts:

blog prompts.png

I would also recommend that students read and respond to each other’s blogs using the comment feature. No matter the age-group, I think a review of what constitutes a helpful comment would be a smart idea. I would NEVER assume students understand the complexity of netiquette. In first grade, these were some of the “starters” we gave them to help guide appropriate responses: Helpful Comments. Perhaps those might provide a guide on how you might want students to engage with each other online.

These suggestions, as well as the blog prompts, are merely the beginning of what could be possible. If you go to the TeachSDGs website, you can find more resources and ideas. The great thing is that students could share their blog posts on social media platforms to further spread the message of the SDGs as well as be a resource to others grade levels within our school communities or across the globe.

If you have any feedback, I’d really appreciate how you felt about this information:

 

*This is the 1st of our Digital Lunch series, in which using Google Apps for Education training was used to support teaching the Sustainable Development Goals put forth by the United Nations. In this lunch hour training sessions, participates were exposed to SDG #1: No Poverty and the digital tool of Blogger. This blog post gives an overview of the training.

#Inquiry in the #PYP: From Paper to Practice: 5 Approaches for Provocations (that “Stick”)

#Inquiry in the #PYP: From Paper to Practice: 5 Approaches for Provocations (that “Stick”)

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Even though we all use ‘the framework’, we have all sorts of curriculums in our schools.  Some schools use the PYP Scope and Sequences, others use their national curriculums and yet others look at curriculum like a buffet- take a bit of AERO Standards, some of this from the Common Core and a portion of  NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards). (Nevermind that most schools don’t even acknowledge any Technology Standards) Whatever approach you take to the “Written Curriculum”, you have to bridge what you put on paper with what is the “Taught Curriculum” is going to look like and how on Earth are you going to let student agency influence it.

This sort of tension is what I am really thinking about and concerned with–how are we going to shift our thinking about the “Written Curriculum” being the driver into it being the “map” that we can use to go on divergent paths created by student’s interests. And I think solid provocations are the “starting line” from which are learning journey begins. Although I have written about provocations before, I wanted to come at from a different angle from the ideas presented from the book, Made to Stick. (I am a huge fan of the writing of Dan and Chip Heath). Because at the heart of a provocation, we want it to leave an indelible mark and make a real impact on students’ thinking in order to create action and authentic agency.  They would call this type of learning “sticky”. (Don’t you love that?)

But the challenge of creating a provocation is that you know too much. The Heath brothers term this, the Curse of Knowledge. Here’s what they mean:

It’s a hard problem to avoid—every year, you walk into class with another year’s worth of mental refinement under your belt. You’ve taught the same concepts every year, and every year your understanding gets sharper, your sophistication gets deeper. If you’re a biology teacher, you simply can’t imagine anymore what it’s like to hear the word “mitosis” for the first time, or to lack the knowledge that the body is composed of cells. You can’t unlearn what you already know. There are, in fact, only two ways to beat the Curse of Knowledge reliably. The first is not to learn anything. The second is to take your ideas and transform them.

Stickiness is a second language. When you open your mouth and communicate, without thinking about what’s coming out of your mouth, you’re speaking your native language: Expertese. But students don’t speak Expertese. They do speak Sticky, though. Everyone speaks Sticky. In some sense, it’s the universal language. The grammar of stickiness—simplicity, storytelling, learning through the senses—enables anyone to understand the ideas being communicated.

(From Teaching, Made to Stick, by Dan and Chip Heath)

I can really relate to this, especially when I taught older students because I thought they already “knew stuff”. With that in mind, provocations can really reveal what students are thinking and feeling.  So now that you have the context of why provocations can be so powerful and transformative for student learning, I’d like to share with you 5 approaches for provocations (that “stick”):

1.Unexpected: Create curiosity and pique interest with unexpected ideas and experiences that open a knowledge gap and call to mind something that needs to be discovered but doesn’t necessarily tell you how to get there.

Example-Central Idea: The use of resources affects society and other living things.

Take out all the classroom resources that are made from petroleum products after school one day. The next day,  have the students come in and be shocked?-where did all those resources go? Then have them consider what these resources have in common. And then have them consider the impact on society if these non-renewable resources went away.

2. Concrete: Ground an idea in a sensory reality to make the unknown obvious.

Central Idea: Economic activity relies on systems of production, exchange, and consumption of goods and services.

Create a classroom economy by “printing” money and having students create businesses. Turn all of your classroom resources into “commodities” or by providing services (like sharpening pencils) to illustrate the conceptual understandings. This provocation goes on for weeks, by the way, so that they can experience the related concepts of scarcity and marketing.

3. Credible: Demonstrate ideas and show relationships to “prove” a point.

Central Idea: Informed global citizens enhance their communities.

CRAAPgraphicGo through news articles either on a social media news feed or through an internet search on a topic that is relevant and interesting to your students or controversial (ex: climate change). Have the students examine at least 3 websites or sources of information and put them through the filter of the CRAAP test.

4. Emotional: Powerful images, moving music, role-play–anything that incites either strongly positive or negative feelings.

Central Idea: Homes reflect local conditions and family’s culture and values.

Using images from photos of children’s bedrooms from around the world have the children try to match the picture of a child with a picture of a bedroom. Why do they think those images go together? What evidence in the photo might suggest the values and culture of that child’s family?

5. Story: Use a story, whether from a book, a video or from your own life, to illustrate a challenge or provide a context worth exploring.

Central Idea: Our actions can make a difference to the environment we share.

Share the story of One Plastic Bag and have students reflect on the impact her small action had made in her community. What would you do with a plastic bag? (During our  1st-grade classes’ personal inquiry time, students were invited to take some plastic bags and play around with those materials. It is interesting to see who and how they took action.)

So there you go. These are just 5 approaches to 5 central ideas. Crafting provocations are probably one of the best things I love about the PYP and when we share insight into how we can approach these central ideas, I think it elevates everyone’s schools because of the insights gained.  I’d love if others could share and post ideas for provocations to further illustrate the importance that they play in deepening our students learning and inspiring authentic connections and action.

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