Stage 5 students have been preparing their integrated History, Geography, English and Creative Arts project over the last few weeks. It has required them to demonstrate key skills that are imperative to project based learning.
The project focuses on minority groups within Australia, specifically the Indigenous, migrants, asylum seekers and refugees. The students’ research journey has taken them on a path affirming where Australia lies within a global context, investigating its boundaries and population and suggesting reasons for how globalisation has reduced Australia’s isolation. In order to prepare their answers, students have been working on developing their ability to guide their learning and research through asking ‘need to know’ questions. They have become quite adept and confident in doing this. Students have progressed from having a large amount of teacher input and support to working in their small teams and individually to create their questions. This has pleased me immensely because they are showing a keenness to drive their own learning and seek support when they feel they need it.
The second element of the project was to annotate two poems with the theme of inequality. The students received direct information on annotation and then applied their knowledge to depict the meaning behind the poems. This allowed them to gain a deeper understanding of inequality and relate this to the driving question, ‘Are all men created equal?’
To develop their understanding further and to narrow their focus, students researched a minority group and developed an essay highlighting that group’s issues and policies that have been implemented to help them to overcome some of the inequalities they have faced.
Finally, students have been guiding their own learning and research in order to produce a short documentary on their chosen minority group and the challenges and struggles they have encountered. This will require pulling together all their understanding and knowledge to work collaboratively with their teams members. I am excited that they have risen to the challenges set on a daily basis, producing work of a consistently good standard. Most importantly they have developed their skills in critical thinking, collaboration and communication to seek the best from themselves and their peers. It is exciting to see. I am looking forward to watching the documentaries to see the full extent of their deeper understanding and the effects of PBL in the classroom.
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