Who We Are - Planning a Unit of Inquiry in Cambodia

The beauty of being a small school, funded by an NGO and not under the guise of the government is that you can completely tailor what you teach to the needs of the students and wider community.

With the seven teachers at Soksan International School we brainstormed what we wanted the students to learn under the umbrella idea of 'Who We Are'.  All ideas were written on separate pieces of paper so they could be moved around later.

Having brainstormed, we grouped similar ideas and found we had four large concepts or learning areas.

Who Am I?

Society and Culture (This was huge - and we decided should be a unit on its own)

How do I Learn?

Health and Hygiene (Digestive system, Oral Hygiene and Diet)

 

We also wanted to include Vegetable Gardening and Business Skills to meet the needs of the students and resources of the community. 

We then created a mind-map to show the five different learning areas.  

 

Each main branch is a large learning area, and the twigs coming off them is what we want the students to learn.  We used this mind-map to write a 12 week long Unit Plan together.  It proved to be very helpful as it showed the BIG IDEAS and WHAT we wanted to teach.  Basically all that was left was HOW we were going to teach and what exactly the students would be doing while learning.

Achieve more with Collaboration

CREATING COLLABORATION

 A very affective way to get students learning is to teach them how to work in small groups. This allows lots of discussion, active involvement of all students and a gives them the opportunity to offer ideas in a less scary environment than having the whole class see and hear you.and learn from their peers.  It also allows 'Piggy-Backing'.  This is not copying, but simply students being helped up the ladder by those more confident or knowledgeable.

 The teachers led the way by working together to get their heads around how to use De Bono's Thinking Hats in the classroom.  Each small cooperative group brainstormed and discussed several different scenarios or problems using the Thinking Hats to help them look from different perspectives.  We found the Hats helped us to go more deeply into the problem and find more creative and usable solutions.

 

In class, teachers have been breaking down what it means to be cooperative and reflecting on why it is good to collaborate together.  Here Teacher Ieng is getting the students to share their group's findings to the class about what it means to collaborate.

 

 Here the students worked in small groups to design their 

own game for others to play in sport.  

 They had to discuss, design, create rules and then set the game up at the stadium using a tape measure.  What a huge amount of fun and pride the students had when playing THEIR game they had created together.  Well done Teacher Omnat.

Students working in small groups, brainstorming and discussing what COLLABORATION is.  Believe it or not, many of them can spell it too.

Stranger Danger Day

 Stranger Day at Soksan School began with a parade around the village, welcoming people in the community come and celebrate of the student's learning about what the dangers of people praying on vulnerable children.

  Unfortunately it is a real issue in the village and for that reason the students took the subject particularly seriously and learn a lot about being more aware of strangers and what to do if they get into danger.

 Om-nat, the music and sport teacher, created a song for the students to learn which would remind them of what to do if a stranger approached them.  During the Unit of Learning, the students also made 'stranger masks', created puppet shows to tell 'typical' stranger stories and wrote books with illustrations to remind themselves later of how to deal with a stranger.

 

It was a very successful day which celebrated some very important and real learning.