Case+Study+-+The+Flag+Rich+Task

The Flag Rich Task In Christchurch, New Zeeland, we developed a Rich Task about identity for a Geography Class; but due to the Earthquake we never got the chance to try to the class out. The class was mainly about flags and questions like: “How important is the meaning of flags?” and “What does the flag say about the country that it represents?” was considered. Coming to Canberra, Australia, we sat down and looked on what parts we should and needed to focus on in this school, based on what parts of our Research that we had covered the least and also on what makes this school // unique //. We also discussed about carrying on some of the Rich Tasks developed in Christchurch and this is one of them. The main idea with this rich task was for them to create their own flag based on their knowledge of the country. ** Developing the Rich Task ** we had several things in mind based on our previous Research. We looked into stuff like “Students thoughts on the problems with the way they are taught”, “How do you like to learn?” and “Skills and the future”. In “Students thought on the problems with the way they are taught” we can see that the students complained about things like: poor teaching methods, lack of interaction, too much talking, no feedback, lack of discipline, too much discipline, too much homework given, teachers who don’t care, pace, spoon-feeding etcetera. What you can see from that is that the opinions given are very different and in some cases even contrary to each other, so while creating this class we strived after a balance between all the things mentioned above to maximize the students learning experience. In “How do you like to learn?” we saw that “group work and discussion” and “independent work with access to resources” appeared to be the most popular methods of learning and therefore we focused on them as the used methods, whilst still having a mix to please everyone’s different opinions. In “Skills of the future” we saw the importance of what the subjects and the skills was focused on to be relevant for the future; but that the students still wanted // say // in how they would learn it. The students also think that the school overall have an unbalanced view on the importance of skills. That it feels like the school values academic skills over e.g. social, life and work-related skills; skills that the students think are much more important for the future. We created the class respecting and forming the class around what skills the students valued as the most important, whilst at the same time pleasing what is viewed upon, almost as compulsory, school skills. We also had a several other things in consideration, for example a good balance between the practical and academically work, to try to maximize the students learning experience. ** The first lesson **we started off by having a presentation of who we are, Learning School, what these lessons about, China, and what we hoped to achieve with them. We then had a presentation about the history of China followed by a group discussion. Based around the following questions: // How important is the meaning of flags? What does the flag say about individual identity in China at that time? What do you think that the man who designed their present flag had in mind creating it? Do you think that the flag is relevant to today’s China? Do you think that they should change their flag? Why/why not? //   After that we had an open discussion and we then gave them homework, to Research about the modern China, because the next lesson they got to create their own flag for China, based on their knowledge about the country and the big changes it’s undergoing. ** The second lesson ** we started off by discussing what they’d found out about China with their homework. We then let them go into their main assignment, to design a new flag for China, and told them that they could still keep on discussing their ideas with each other. They had to make the flag according to the standards given but they could make everything else however they thought was suitable for today’s China. They also had to write an explanation of why they decided to use what in the flag. ** Our goals with these lessons ** were to while the students learn about their usual school stuff, which in that class was about China, in a fun way they also developed skills that they, according to our Research, valued as the most important for the future; for example: discussion-, social-, creativity-skills. To please what the school values as the most important skills in learning and at the same time please what the students valued as the most important skills. ** The evaluation-form ** which contained a couple of questions showed that we had succeeded with the goals we had set, but that some students wanted more structure in the lessons. We got an average rating of 8.06 in our first lesson and in our second lesson we got an average of 8.60, on a scale of 1-10 when 1’s the worst and 10’s the best possible rating. We got comments like: “Interesting- made me realize more about China in a fun way, old & new”, “Creative, In-depth, Interactive”, “Interesting, involvement, good activities”