Step 9 | gowickedglobal

-For 2 years now, my students have been given the opportunity (and ample time) to investigate, analyze, communicate, and take action upon several projects of their choosing. Beginning at the end of March, students have 10 weeks to complete 5 projects. They work on the projects every day in my class. (Yes, 10 straight weeks. Part of the challenge is to see how students can balance their workload over the time frame.)

-For the first 2 weeks, I ask them to respond, in writing, to 4 items at the end of each class:

What I did today:

I found this interesting:

I need help with:

My plan for my next work day is:

(I collect these each day and respond accordingly.)

-We phase out the daily check-in and go to individual interviews about every 5-7 school days. This is time consuming for the teacher, but pays huge dividends in terms of staying on top of what real progress kids are making. It's also interesting to hear what they're excited about and what they're frustrated with.

-When I'm not interviewing kids, I don't hover. I let them do their work. For the most part, kids are hammering away on their laptops for entire class periods with very little prompting from me. If they need help, they'll ask.

Below is the individual checklist that students are given to keep track of their projects:

Name:

Chosen topic Date completed

Country/City _________________________________ ____________

Commodity _________________________________ ____________

Conflict/Controversy _________________________ ____________

Shark Tank _________________________________ ____________

Choice _________________________________ ____________

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Taking action

(minimum of 3 projects) Action taken Which topic?

_________________________________ ____________________

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U. N. Sustainable Development Goals

I incorporated Goal (number and name of goal) ________________________________________ into my project about

_________________________________.

This goal is important because:

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Reminders:

All topics must be INVESTIGATED through the 4 lenses:

Geography
Economics
History
Civics

All presentations must take into consideration the PERSPECTIVE of people in another country or region.

All projects must be COMMUNICATED in some way - slideshow, essay, Powtoon, Padlet, iMovie, etc. Be creative. (Don’t do 3 of any one format.)

(YOU MUST DO AT LEAST ONE ESSAY.)

You must TAKE ACTION outside of my classroom on 3 of your projects. Again, be creative and don’t be afraid to take risks even if they push the levels of your “comfort zone.”

**Don’t forget to keep an ongoing document of all the sources you are using to find information. Each project will need a SOURCES PAGE.