A Cross-curricular Authentic Learning Experience
Over the last two weeks 9E2, 9E8 and 9B1 have worked hard in teams to identify relevant problems in the Howick Ward community and propose solutions that will benefit the community. They presented their solutions to their teachers. Two topmost innovative solutions from each of the three classes were then presented to a group of independent judges.
According to ETA team. ETA encourages a deeper understanding of the content which develops critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity. The focus was also on developing the āheitanga skills. The idea is more important than the practicalities. These skills are required for college, work, and life beyond school. This is Social Responsibility.
The feedback from the students involved in this pilot study were excellent example:
- Getting to know others I don’t interact much with more deeply.
- Increase in assertive communication with the people around me.
- Learnt new important skills both socially and mentally, I enjoyed talking and connecting more with my peers.
- Doing the presentation.
- Expressing myself and taking myself out my comfort zone. I enjoyed working with my team, finding out what happened with the community, and enjoyed talking with other people about the problems they are doing.
- I enjoyed working in a group and I loved the team bonding games so we would be able to get closer.
- I liked how we had to make presentations for our problem and solutions as showed our learning off and everyone in the group could participate.
- I also liked the interviews with other people, and we were to receive data from different perspectives. I liked that we had something to do after exams, we got to build a stronger connection with people in our group and that we got to fix a problem in our community.
Overall, it was an amazing experience for the students and teachers involved.
~ Mr Sharma
