The 4 phases of the Learning Circle
How to use your school page
Feedback and comments
Resources
Future Skills
Formative Assessment
Meaningful conversations & reflective questions
Tips for uploading photos and files in a wiki
Communication: Skype & Email to other teachers
In all phases of this Circle you'll find various ways to connect and learn more about Children's Rights.
The timeline shows the dates of all phases.
Please try to finish your work on time: connection and cooperation work best if participants contribute within the given time in each phase.
All groups or classes can make their own choices, appropriate to their level or interest, to maximize engagement.
In Phase 2 we are presenting many challenges and assignments on Children's Rights topics.
Don't be surprised by the number of assignments and questions in the 5 challenges!
You can choose one or more challenges to work on with the whole group or divide your class into smaller groups to work on multiple assignments.
Each challenge starts with an introduction of the topic, followed by assignments, questions and suggestions about how to handle them with your class or smaller group.
This is the page to introduce yourselves to the other groups/classes in your Learning Circle (Phase 1)
and post all your contributions for the challenges (Phase 2).
Explain which challenge and which assignment you have chosen.
We ask you to share not only the results but also a report of the learning process: how you discussed, planned, divided tasks, enjoyed working on the challenges etc.
Find your school page by clicking on the name of your school at the bottom of the instruction pages.
All groups are asked to closely cooperate, by looking at the pages of the other participants.
Give comments and feedback to all groups, directly on the school pages of the other participants.
Websites and resources on Children's Rights on this page. Please feel free to add and share yours.
Working on the challenges you are not only connecting and learning globally with your peers, you are also expanding knowledge and meanwhile intensively learning and practicing various skills.
To keep track of what skills are addressed and what it has brought to your class see the page 'Learning & practicing skills' (with a pdf to use).
Your own goals and criteria for good learning outcomes:
Self-assessment and peer-assessment are effective methods of formative assessment. Students can learn to be responsible for their own learning process and learn to regulate themselves.
We believe in 'Assessment for and as learning' as an important 'engine' to grow and to feel ownership.
Knowledge and awareness of children's rights will increase by giving and receiving feedback and by::
setting and identifying clear learning goals for each assignment you choose.
Which assignment do we choose, how do we deal with it? What do we expect to learn? How can we divide tasks and who has what responsibility?
co-create success criteria for what that learning looks like for each assignment.
What is a good learning outcome for this assignment? What criteria do we use to determine whether our learning process and our work are good, according to our standards?
Students make learning progress by giving feedback, asking questions, setting their own learning goals, make choices in how to proceed and by specifying criteria for good learning outcomes. Therefore, phase 3 (Questions & Answers) starts with ‘questions for the other participants’, designed by students for students.
peerScholar:
Usually, students get a lot of feedback from their teachers, but in the Circles mostly from their ‘global classmates’. They will share their work in the wiki and give & receive direct feedback.
In the last month of the Circle process, students can write an individual letter in ‘peerScholar’. This exciting process of ‘peer learning’ enables them to reflect on their own and their peers’ work by giving and receiving constructional feedback. The result is that students learn to reflect on their own learning outcomes. Learning progress is visible for teachers and students.
Children's Rights is an issue that raises many questions and the discussions/debates can get emotional. When children hear stories and see pictures of the harsh situation of other children, they may feeldistress, outrage or even fear. At the same time, involvement in the subject also can encourage our students' critical thinking and their creativity about how to make positive changes for Children's Rights in the future.
We have observed that learning with other students in a 'global classroom' will give your students reassurance that even as children and later as adults, they can help improve the rights of children in their own society and perhaps others.
We discuss the rights of children because it's about their own future and position in the world. By caring and investing in these rights, students can learn to give rights attention in their own meaningful way, in relation to others. They can investigate which values that children's rights have in the world and their world, by seeing the reality and discussing the dilemmas.
In this Learning Circle children can discuss and examine how they perceive children’s rights in their own environment.
Together, students can discover that they are connected to others and how they can learn and live with each other.
Reflective Questions
In phase 1 (Introduction) and phase 2 (Challenges) you can find a set of reflective questions to introduce the topics and assignments. You can download and print these pdf's:
You can find additional questions on this page.
Upload a photo:
Scan and upload a picture/drawing:
Movies and Videos:
Powerpoint, PDF, Word and other files:
Word file in the wiki.
Do not link to a Google document, but copy the text from the Google.doc and paste it into your school page.
Making a Skype appointment: To really get in touch and discuss your work, we have created a schedule for all schools to meet via Skype.
In April each group or class will organize a video conference with at least 2 other classes. Of course, you can also start in February or March if you want to.
Exciting and fun!
Read how to make an appointment to Skype on this page
Emails to other teachers in your circle: there are two ways to find your colleagues:
Go to the school page of the group/class. Look at the title of the page. Just underneath, is the name of the last person who edited it --> the name is a link to their email address.
Go to the dark blue tabs on the top navigation bar and click on "Users." The names and addresses of all participants are listed there.