A super learning mission!

Hi inno-teachers!

Today I will present to you a super learning mission for my OEP (Open Educational Project). The vast majority of Open Educational Projects are characterizied by the development of missions that encourage students' motivation for learning.
The main differences that exist between a mission in a project and a traditional session in a classroom are the following ones:

• Most traditional sessions in traditional classrooms do not foster innovation and creativity.
• Missions promote problem solving and critical thinking.
• Traditional sessions aim to achieve closed objectives in the curriculum.
• Missions in OEPs are, in some cases, cross-curricular.
• Missions foster cooperation between students while traditional sessions usually don't.

Retrieved from: sbtexas.com

This post aims to transform a flat activity into a collaborative mission (the second mission will be published in another post in my blog). Hereafter, I am going to present to you the changes that I have made (in collaboration with two classmates) so as to enhance the activity and to ensure quality.

The first flat activity that I transformed was the following one:

"Read the article about the weather and the climate in India and write down the main features of these aspects: the Indian culture, its climate characteristics and its flora".

The first step was to analyse the activity and to decide how it could be transformed into a meaningful and motivating activity. I realized that the fact of reading an article and writing the main points of it was not the best way to motivate learners to acquire the knowledge. For that reason, I decided to change the view of the activity and to create a task where students feel the motivation of learning and achieving the main goals.

Then, I started to think in a collaborative movement to join. With the aid of my two classmates Lucía and Carmen, we decided to create two super learning missions following two collaborative projects: InfoEDUgrafías and The 30 goals challenge.

This first mission (which is the one that I am presenting today) consists on creating a story board so as to create a template of a comic that will be useful for the second mission development. It is alligned with the two collaboration movements that I have already mentioned due to the fact that the storyboard is an infographic that can be shared on InfoEDUgrafías blog and students will accomplish one of the 30 goals that are proposed by the authors of "The 30 goals challenge". Thanks to the comic ellaboration and the video recording, pupils will acquire these objectives:

• To identify different climate zones in India.
• To know the main characteristics of Indian culture.
• To recognize the main plants of India.
• To create a comic based on the future video about India.
• To find, select and sumarize information.

This mission allows children to achieve more goals that were planned for the flat activity (because of the inclusion of ICT). Moreover, even there are more objectives to be accomplished than in a simple and boring activity, learners will be motivated to carry it out!

Before explaining the methodology followed and other characteristics regarding the mission, I would like to include an image that summarizes the steps you need to follow to change a flat activity into a super learning mission.

Turning a flat activity into a super learning mission by ana94marquez

For explaining the main features of this super learning mission (goals, key competences, timing, grouping, instructions and so forth) I have created a digital artifact that summarizes it. Here it is:

SUPER LEARNING MISSION 1: by ana94marquez

And here is an example of the work that is expected from the students:

Author's own

Made with Storyboard That

We will present the activity to the students aided by a slideshow presentation created with Google Drive. This activity is connected to the collaborative movement that I decided to join (InfoEDUgrafías) because the storyboard that students will create is an infographic that can be uploaded to the webpage so as to help other students to create their own work. Moreover, the activity is also linked with the 30 goals challenge. Each students will receive a badge when finishing their "task" in the group. These are the badges that students will win:

By Lucía Carrasco

Here is the presentation that will be shown to the students so as to explain them the mission that they have to accomplish:

Learningmission1 de Ana Márquez

And, before finishing the post, I would like to reflect on the learning that I have acquired thanks to this challenge. Firstly, I have learnt that it is very important to motivate students through super missions that encourage them to continue learning. This challenge has offered me the opportunity to think on how to modify traditional activities; and, although it seems an easy task, it is not.

Moreover, I have learnt to use StoryBoard program. I have never used it before but I think that it is an useful tool for teachers and for students. It is very easy and very intuitive to use and, for that reason, it does not take more than 30 minutes to create an amazing storyboard. 

Finally, I would like to add that this challenge has offered me the opportunity to investigate on another collaborative movement, The 30 goals challenge. As I have explained above, I have collaborated with two classmates in this challenge, Carmen and Lucía and they have presented me that collaboration movement. After investigating about it, I have to say that it is awesome! I really like the possibility of accomplishing the different goals with your classroom.

I hope you have learnt a lot with this entry and, don't forget to leave comments and feedback!

See you soon (with the second super learning mission), inno-teachers!