Cultivating Connections that Matter

Helsinki, Finland + 4 more

A unit planning framework to inspire students to take risks and connect their learning to the real world via service and engagement

This framework helps lessons strategically blend student experience and opinion with academic study and authentic experiences. To culminate, students synthesize their learning in performances of connection that links them to the community. Our model for interdisciplinary, real world based learning pushes students to challenge their assumptions and expand their empathy.

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Overview

Information on this page is provided by the innovator and has not been evaluated by HundrED.

Web presence

2017

Established

200

Children

5

Countries

Target group

Teachers

Updated

March 2019

We were there because the teachers told us to be, because our parents said it would be a good idea, because we hoped to grow from it, or because we would have more hours for the service action. There were so many different reasons for going. As we were there we all felt very awkward because we knew nothing about these people and they knew nothing about us and yet we were being asked to play games and talk as if we had known each other for ages. It was an experience that definitely changed my way of thinking but not for ways that I would have thought. Going there we all obviously knew what their labels were (refugees) and a bit of what they had gone through. When we were there, looking at them, talking to them, listening to them, there was a part of my mind that kept going back to everything I knew about what they had gone through, but there was suddenly this other voice in my head that was making me realise that even though we were always told stories about these people, always implying that there should be pity in how we treat them, these people in front of me were anything but. They were funny, shy, sweet, chatty and overall like anyone else. We are always so quick to judge people based on their history when instead we should be looking at their present and future. How they have grown and changed from their experiences and how they are living their lives now. The cafe nights changed my views entirely, making me, in my point of view, more considerate and caring and understanding which is something that I have always aspired to be.

About the innovation

You Can't Build Empathy Sitting Down

We know there is value in pushing students outside a protective academic bubble to participate in real world learning and service, but teachers struggle to find time, resources, and assessable outcomes. While teaching at the International School of Helsinki we designed an interdisciplinary unit template that challenges students to develop their own meaningful answers to real world questions. Lessons strategically blend student experience and opinion with academic study and authentic experiences. To culminate, students synthesize their learning in performances of understanding that connects them to the community. Our model for interdisciplinary, real world based learning pushes students to challenge their assumptions and expand their empathy.

Our template can be broken down into six key sections:

1. Engaging Question Connecting Student Experience to a Universal Theme: What are the big picture concepts in the unit of study that students can apply to their own lives?

2. Materials toDeepen Understanding:What learning experiences, people, places and resources can you use to spark interest and drive the unit forward?

3. CommunityConnected Experiences:Where can you take students to witness the real world application of this theme? Who could you invite to speak with them? Are there possibilities for service?

4. Mid Unit Assessment for Learning:How can students engage with the learning materials to demonstrate new understandings about the learning materials? How will this assessment help them develop tools/knowledge necessary for the Performance of Understanding?

5. Synthesized Performance of Understanding:How can students showcase their learning in a creative and meaningful way? Is there any way to connect this performance to the community?

6. Purposeful Reflection:What questions can you ask students to uncover how their thinking will have changed after taking part in this unit?