Creating the prototype of an educational project!

Knowing how to analyze an educational project is very important. In my last post, I've been explaining how to do it thoroughly. Now that we already analyzed an educational project, I think it's time for us to create one ourselves.

I know it might sound a bit difficult, but we are going to do it together. Here I will present to you a template that can be of help in the development of a CLIL educational project; your own original project!

First, I am here to tell you, that what I am going to show you is just a prototype I created and it needs review. For that, I want you to take a look at it and give me your feedback and ideas for its improvement. We are all here to learn from it and make the most out of every resource we find on the internet.

                          

In the frame bellow, you can see the template that I used to create the prototype of my own educational project. This project is called: Living and Non-living Things, and it is created for first grade of primary education.

In the template above, you can see that the information is very brief and structured. This can be of help in the organization of the actual or final educational project. I did not explain the activities, missions or challenges that I would use with my class, nor the methodology. However, when I was filling in the template I already knew what my activities and what the most effective methodology for the project will be. 

Besides having to write the title and the level of the class that will benefit from the project, these are the following sections that you can find within the template:

1. The number of sessions of your project
2. The areas in which your project can be included
3.  Aims or specific objectives of the whole project and specific information within the 4 Cs of CLIL: content, communication, cognition and culture
4. Key competencies
5. Assessment criteria including evaluation tools and the standards of learning
6. Skills developed through the project
7. The setting of the sessions
8. The final outcome or challenge of the project

As this project will be carried out in a class of first graders, the methodology used is very important. This is why I think that the best way to introduce the topic to them is by using realia; showing them things that are from the real world, like for instance a real plant so they can learn the parts of it. Also, showing them how to plant and flower and how to raise one, it will make the learning experience more meaningful. 

Games are always fun and engaging, so there are some games that will require the participation of the entire class, while some will be played in groups. I have thought about using the interactive whiteboard for some of the activities with the entire class while making use of the manipulative resources such as images of living and non-living things for the activities in groups. For the activities in groups, children can practice mainly their listening and writing skills. Of course, there will be many individual activities too, as they need to learn how to accomplish the task without the support of their classmates, this way learning to become more independent. To sum up, there are missions and challenges that will require children to work individually, in pairs, groups of 3-4 children, and some that require the participation of the whole class. 

Moreover, throughout the 9 sessions that I structured, children will be able to play, investigate, analyze, observe, manipulate and much more in an interactive way. They will also be able to be in touch with the natural environment and use their linguistic abilities to communicate things they learned in class. 

First graders and children in general love surprises and spontaneous games, but we cannot forget about the routines and that they do learn through repetitive actions and behaviors. This being said, throughout the sessions, the teacher has to make sure that he or she uses the same linguistic structure all over again so that the children can catch it up and use it as well when the situations require it. All the sessions are connected to each other, so children will start hearing, repeating and learning all the time basic language structures that will start being a little bit more complex by the end of the project, as the content and linguistic vocabulary will vary depending on the session. Throughout the missions and by means of this interactive methodology, children will be able to learn the content and to acquire the English language in a meaningful way.

As this is a CLIL educational project, connecting the 4 Cs is essential. This is why in the template above I explained in detail the contents, linguistic and content vocabulary along with the key structures that can give you an idea of what I want my pupils to learn and understand. In the communication part, I just mentioned some of the activities that will trigger them to use the vocabulary and key structures I mentioned above. Then we have cognition, which I split up between HOTS and LOTS giving you some examples of when they use both. Following, I mentioned some of the things that children will learn throughout the project in relation to the culture, in other words in relation to the values and how to behave within the world that surrounds them.

Now, it is very important to share the work and accomplishments of our students with their family, friends and the world! To achieve this, I believe it is important for the teacher to create a blog and a twitter account for the class, in which she will post all their work. This way, they will feel that their work and the missions they overcome are meaningful, as their parents and friends can check it out on the class blog. This is how they can spread their achievements and awesome projects! 

To summarize or to explain the prototype of my educational project, I will share with you a video, in which you will see the parts that need to be included when structuring or creating the prototype of your own educational project. 

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The process of analysis

• Firstly, in order to post the content on my blog, I had to fill in the template that I shared with you through Issuu. The template was filled in with information that I had about an educational project I would love to work on with my future primary students. 
• After filling in the template, I realized there are so many things that need to be explained. The template as I already mentioned is just an aid for the creation of the educational project. In other words, it helps us to organize our ideas. Therefore, I decided to create a short video explaining better what I have already posted in the template. 
• While deciding which application or method to use in order to record the video, I found one application that I consider to be a useful resource in teaching, called Tellegami. Unfortunately, I couldn't record more than 30 seconds with it. In spite of this, I decided to use it as a different way of introducing what I was going to share with you in this post. 
• Now the tools I decided to use for my video are some you might be familiar with at this point, as I have already told you about them: Powtoon and Youtube editor. I believe these two are amazing tools we can take advantage of when making presentations. 

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Self-reflection

What can be more exciting for a teacher than to actually develop activities and missions with the mindset on engaging students in an interactive way to different learning contents, using diverse strategies and resources? This post was a little bit hard to put together, but on the other hand I managed to learn even more things than the last time I published on this blog. 

As I already mentioned, I discovered this great tool for teachers called Tellegami! I was so excited using it as I realized how much fun would be for my students to see a teacher character with my own voice explaining things to them. Despite the fact that I couldn't take the most advantage out of it, I tried to use it so you can see that it is a fun resource and maybe you can do great things using this application. Now, I want you to keep in mind this application was created only for Apple devices, so if you do not own an Ipad or Iphone you will not be able to download it. 

Another tool I have never used before is Issuu! This is an application that helps you share your work, in Word or PDFs with the world! You should really try it out!

Besides this new tools, I became a professional using Powtoon and Youtube editor... well, almost. Anyways, it was fun to make use of these applications again!

Furthermore, while creating this post I learned many more things; things related to the elaboration and creation of my educational project. This is only a prototype, and although I am excited about it, I really need your feedback so I can improve it and amend it so it can become more effective and more meaningful when taking it and using it with the class. 

I hope you enjoyed this post! I can't wait for your comments and opinions!

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