“My Country” Assignment—21st Century Fluency Project
The Year Five students spent eight weeks focusing on their ‘My Country’ assignment. This assignment was designed to encourage students to explore their own knowledge and answer a question that could not be answered by simply looking it up on Google. They needed to create an online resource as their final product.
Students worked through the Six Ds of Solution Fluency. These are; Define, Discover, Dream, Design, Deliver and Debrief. This is a model I was introduced to earlier in the year at a development day with Lee Crockett. The below link explores the Six D’s in more detail.
This essential 21st Century Fluency is actually the foundation upon which the other Fluencies are built. Recently, two longitudinal studies found that teaching a structured problem-solving process to a student will instantly increase their IQ by 10% and that this increase is sustained throughout their lives. Let’s make sure our students benefit from this. Everyone identifies problem solving as essential, but without a process like Solution Fluency, it’s just an ideal that never gets implemented.
—Lee Crockett
http://fluency21.com/blog/2013/01/08/solution-fluency-video/
I introduced the assignment with this statement:
Everyone loves to travel, especially when they get to travel overseas. They can explore different types of foods, visit famous landmarks and immerse themselves in the culture of the country.
http://mycountryassignment.weebly.com
I created a website (using weebly.com) that students could refer to throughout the assignment stages. This meant that they did not need a paper copy of their rubrics. It was fantastic to have this website for them but if I were to complete the assignment again, I would add more to the website. I will go into more detail regarding this later on.
The students needed to answer these questions:
- Where does my family come from?
- Why is this country a fantastic place?
We started with the Define Stage. In this stage, students need to state or define what is being asked of them and fully understand this. Students videoed themselves and uploaded these onto www.kidblog.org. They were then able to comment on each other’s videos regarding what they had defined as the problem. Students also had a teacher – student conference with me. In this conference we discussed what mark they were aiming for. I had set up the tasks so that there was multiple levels of success, rather than multiple levels of failure. Students told me whether they were aiming for a 1 (not completed), a 2 (minimal completed), a 3 (expected stage) or a 4 (extended).
Next, students worked through the Discover Stage. In this stage students research how the problem occurred, they gain context to the problem and they shift their thinking towards analysis. Students began to research their country, specifically focusing on the geographical and cultural information. They also needed to interview a family member about this country.
Majority of the students were able to complete their interview in person but some completed an international Skype call and filmed the conversation using Screenr.com. One student did this and then set up a new Screenr to film the conversation whilst pausing to translate it into english. It was fantastic and really blew me away!
We then moved on to my favourite stage, the Dream Stage (creative/crafty side of me!). Students needed to look into the future and see the problem solved. They had to think of ‘what is’ and imagine the possibilities of ‘what could be’. The Dream Stage is one which cultivates creativity, innovation and imagination, and these skills are extremely important for people to have in today’s world.
Students put together a poster to outline what they imagined their finished product to be. They used key words, sentences and pictures to show this. They then presented these in small groups, explaining what they had found out so far and what they still needed to do.
Then came the Design Stage. This is when students work backwards from the future, from their Dream. They identify the critical milestones that happened and decide how to implement the solution. This is the Action Plan, the Design of the Dream.
In this stage students needed to create a 10-day holiday to their country. They needed to include flight details and costs, other travel costs (cars, taxis, etc), accommodation, sight seeing and attractions, food expenses and spending money. The created a budget for their holiday as well as an itinerary. Students used Pages to complete this and majority of them set up a form of table within their document.
Students also used an online timeline to create a schedule for themselves. On this they included the dates (across the week), what they planned to complete each day and how they were going to do this. Students printed this and ticked off what they had completed each day. This was a great way for students to reflect on their learning over the week.
Students then came to the Deliver Stage. There are two sections in the Delivery Stage:
Produce and Implement.
In this stage students put their plan into action and complete the process of solving the problem which they originally defined.
Students were given the option of using EdCanvas or Weebly for their online resource. These were selected as they were both relatively new to students and therefore created an ‘even playing field’. Unfortunately, students had difficulty creating their websites at school (due to proxy settings) and therefore had to use EdCanvas.
EdCanvas was great to use as students could upload videos, photos and text. As a teacher I was able to set up a class group and give them the code. Also, students did not need to have an email account to access it. When students had completed their EdCanvas, they printed them off so that I had a hard copy to mark.
The final part of the Deliver Stage (Implement) was to persuade their audience (Year Four students, Year Six students and parents) to go on their holiday. They needed to create a range of resources to assist them with this. They also had to focus on the language they were using and how this could persuade someone to agree with them.
We set the classroom up as a travel agency with students positioned around the outside of the room. This was great as visitors moved around the room in a circular motion. Majority of the parents came to the travel agency as we had it over two days and from 2.30 – 4pm. This was perfect as student pick-up is at 3pm, so most parents where already here.
The final section was the Debrief Stage. This is the most important part of the Six Ds as student look over the process they have taken and reflect on it. They ask themselves about how this product or process could be made better this time or next time.
Students completed a written self reflection task based on their assignment. Once completing this I had another student – teacher conference with each student to explore how they had gone with each stage and if they had reached their original goal which they created in the Define Stage. It was very interesting to hear student insights on the different stages and majority of them said they would aim higher next time.
There are so many great students achievements that come out of setting an assignment like this. Not only are the subjects being integrated together (English, S&E and Mathematics), but they also have the opportunity to be responsible for their own learning. The rubric they are assessed on has multiple levels of success and students can therefore set a reachable goal. Students were taught about SMART Goals (Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely). They referred back to this throughout the assignment to make sure they were pushing themselves to do their best work and, also, not setting unachievable goals.
I found that majority of my students challenged themselves and achieved what they had set out to do. I was extremely proud of all the work they completed and the constant reflection they did throughout this task.
The Year Five classroom was open to visitors on Wednesday 3rd July and Thursday 4th July. Many parents, friends and students from other year levels came to observe the travel agency.
I am very much looking forward to running the next 21st Century Fluency task in our classroom. Stay tuned for more.
Gabrielle Trinca. @GabrielleTrinca