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Bonus: Summit: Experiential Learning and the SDGs w/ Dr. Jennifer Williams
15 Plays5 years ago
Interested in using this opportunity for professional development credit? See our template for administrators. Consider running this event past your administrative team prior to completing.
Dr. Jennifer Williams, is the co-founder and executive director of Take Action Global, co-founder of TeachSDGs, professor at Saint Leo University in the College of Education and Graduate Education, and author of Teach Boldly.
In this interactive discussion, we will discuss connecting the UN Sustainable Development Goals to authentic projects in the classroom.
Participants will be posed with these questions, but the conversation will take us on a journey of its own:
- How does one become inspired to start a SDG-related project? How can we incorporate student inspiration and voice to the planning process?
- What components work well in SDG-related projects? What tools, websites, or objectives are there?
- How can we take projects into the community to make meaningful, authentic change for the world?
Please see the attached Google Document for all the notes from this conversation, as well as a variety of external links.
Recommended
Transcript
Welcome and Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome everybody to our summit with Dr. Jennifer Williams.
00:00:04
Speaker
So this is a free PD event brought to you by our Patreon supporters.
00:00:09
Speaker
Quick plug about that, you can learn more about Human Restoration Project on our website, which is humanrestorationproject.org.
00:00:16
Speaker
And that's where you'll find a bunch of free resources for educators.
00:00:18
Speaker
You'll find podcasts.
00:00:19
Speaker
You'll find all of our previous PDs and more pertaining to progressive ed.
00:00:24
Speaker
So thanks for people that bring that to us.
00:00:27
Speaker
One thing to note, this PD works best when everyone participates and shares ideas or questions or, you know, reflections, things of that nature.
00:00:37
Speaker
In the bottom left-hand corner of Jitsi, you'll find three buttons.
00:00:41
Speaker
The big ones that pertain to you are the second button, which is the raise hand button.
00:00:44
Speaker
So if you want to jump in, but you still want to turn your webcam on randomly, that's a good way to indicate to us that you want to speak.
00:00:51
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Or the third button, which is the chat button.
00:00:53
Speaker
So that just allows you to bring up the chat window.
00:00:55
Speaker
You can ask questions there as well.
00:00:58
Speaker
So I'll...
00:00:59
Speaker
quickly introduce myself and then Jennifer I'll turn it over to you.
Meet the Founders
00:01:03
Speaker
My name is Chris McNutt.
00:01:04
Speaker
I'm the founder of Human Restoration Project.
00:01:06
Speaker
I teach digital media and design full-time at a public high school.
00:01:09
Speaker
I teach ninth grade and experiential learning for me is huge especially social justice work through art.
00:01:16
Speaker
I've been doing a lot of cool stuff this year with basically empowering learners by giving them the tools that they need to communicate power through design.
00:01:23
Speaker
And that's been really interesting because I've never taught it before.
00:01:26
Speaker
So it's working.
00:01:27
Speaker
It's going.
00:01:29
Speaker
And then Jennifer, over to you.
00:01:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:31
Speaker
Thanks for having me.
00:01:32
Speaker
I appreciate it.
00:01:33
Speaker
Good to talk again.
00:01:34
Speaker
I know we talked with Julia.
00:01:36
Speaker
What was it, about a month ago, six weeks ago?
00:01:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:39
Speaker
Love that conversation.
00:01:40
Speaker
So thrilled to be back.
00:01:42
Speaker
And thank you for hosting this hour all around SDGs and taking action.
00:01:47
Speaker
For the world.
00:01:49
Speaker
I'm Jennifer Williams.
00:01:50
Speaker
I'm here from Florida, my home, and I am the executive director of Take Action Global with my partner, Coon Temmers.
00:01:58
Speaker
He's currently in Nairobi, heading back to his home tomorrow in Belgium.
00:02:02
Speaker
And we
00:02:04
Speaker
work to connect educators and students to their passions through social action and student activism.
00:02:11
Speaker
I'm also the co-founder of Teach SDGs, a global movement of educators working to bring the SDGs to classrooms and empower student voice.
00:02:23
Speaker
through taking action around all of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
00:02:29
Speaker
I'm a professor here in Florida, and my background, I was in K-12 education for 20 years, started as a speech pathologist, really on the science side of communication, then moved to a Montessori World School where my eyes were open to
00:02:44
Speaker
Peace curriculum, global collaboration, building global competencies with students and really finding kind of shifting from the science of communication to to the art.
00:02:55
Speaker
So excited to talk with this group you have assembled here today and ready to take action with you all.
00:03:04
Speaker
Awesome.
00:03:04
Speaker
So thanks again, Jennifer.
00:03:05
Speaker
I'm like stoked right now.
00:03:07
Speaker
I'm super excited to share out some stuff and build some cool things.
00:03:11
Speaker
I think we can all walk away with some really valuable insights to how we can basically radicalize our classroom to have kids change the world.
00:03:18
Speaker
I mean, you can't get much better than that.
00:03:21
Speaker
So we have three questions here that will kind of go around.
00:03:25
Speaker
We don't necessarily have to hit these in order or even hit all of them, but they're just starter questions.
00:03:30
Speaker
And I'll stop sharing my screen here in a second so we can actually talk to each other.
00:03:34
Speaker
But all the questions are framed around starting SDG related projects.
00:03:39
Speaker
So talking about how do we get students interacting with them?
00:03:42
Speaker
How do we get started?
00:03:43
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How do we coach students through the process?
00:03:46
Speaker
And basically, how do we get inspired to do these things?
00:03:48
Speaker
So.
00:03:50
Speaker
Jennifer, I'll let you start off with this first question here and then we can just take it from there.
00:03:54
Speaker
We can just discuss things.
00:03:55
Speaker
People can come in and ask questions, give feedback, etc.
00:03:58
Speaker
as we go.
00:03:59
Speaker
But let's just start with how does one become inspired to start an SDG related project and how can we incorporate student inspiration and voice to the planning process?
00:04:10
Speaker
These questions are kind of everything, aren't they?
00:04:13
Speaker
And maybe just to back up one step in case people aren't aware of what the SDGs are.
Understanding SDGs
00:04:20
Speaker
And I know we're joined today by a lot of our SDG change makers.
00:04:25
Speaker
So they're well informed on what the SDGs are.
00:04:29
Speaker
But anyone listening in that doesn't know and.
00:04:34
Speaker
I think at one point I saw, and this was several years ago, so this may have changed, that 90% of the world aren't even aware of what the SDGs are.
00:04:44
Speaker
So SDGs, also known as the global goals, some may call them the global goals, the sustainable development goals.
00:04:52
Speaker
These are 17 goals that we as a world, all of us, have agreed upon.
00:04:57
Speaker
to work towards.
00:04:59
Speaker
They came out through the UN in 2015, and then we are working together to reach them by the year 2030.
00:05:09
Speaker
So they cover things like poverty and hunger and life on land and life below water and climate action and peace and partnership, SDG 17, one of my favorite goals.
00:05:20
Speaker
We actually have our very own goal and goal number four, which is quality education for all.
00:05:27
Speaker
And those two words have kind of taken over my profession at this point.
00:05:31
Speaker
So seeking out quality education for everyone, anywhere.
00:05:36
Speaker
And so we as teachers, we do all of these goals, though, right?
00:05:41
Speaker
It's not just SDG 4 where we fall in.
00:05:44
Speaker
It's all of them.
00:05:46
Speaker
So when we talk about SDGs in the classroom, which is kind of new with the goals only being out since 2015, I think
00:05:55
Speaker
We had some people jumping in in 2015, 2016, even 2017, but something big happened in 2018, and all of a sudden we just saw this explosion of teachers really connecting to the goals.
00:06:09
Speaker
So the last few years we've seen a lot of great things happening around the goals.
00:06:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:16
Speaker
It also, we see teachers that have been, I mean, they've been doing this work forever, if it had the name SDG on it or not.
00:06:23
Speaker
Project-based learning, place-based learning, social justice, student activism, all different words for the same thing.
00:06:31
Speaker
And really, how are we empowering our students in the classrooms to take action on the work that they want to and the change they want to see in the world?
00:06:42
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:06:43
Speaker
Let me I'll pull up your questions here.
00:06:45
Speaker
So your first one, it's kind of two parter.
00:06:48
Speaker
So how does one become inspired to start an SDG related project?
00:06:55
Speaker
It's it's interesting right now.
00:06:56
Speaker
And I just came back from IdeaCon in Chicago talking a lot of educators.
00:07:00
Speaker
They're talking around EdTech.
00:07:02
Speaker
Ed Tech educators in the Ed Tech space are at the forefront, I think, of this work because they're already starting to find ways to empower student voice through different forms of technology.
00:07:13
Speaker
It doesn't have to be Ed Tech.
00:07:14
Speaker
I mean, we have a lot of great things happening in an analog way.
00:07:17
Speaker
But I think really for me, it's about innovation, innovating with ideas and actions, right?
00:07:24
Speaker
But a big, a big theme there and I've been seeing is how are we moving our students from this place of consumption.
00:07:32
Speaker
So like for me, and I've talked about this before, where when I started teaching, which was a long time ago, I was basically handed my boxed curricula and
00:07:42
Speaker
kind of told to push go.
00:07:45
Speaker
And I had this guidebook and I knew what I needed to do.
00:07:49
Speaker
And that never really felt right.
00:07:51
Speaker
So now what we're starting to see is this move towards from consumption to creation, getting students to create and think and inquire.
00:07:59
Speaker
But for me, this is this work.
00:08:01
Speaker
What we're talking about here is one step further.
00:08:05
Speaker
And so we're moving it from consumption to creation,
00:08:08
Speaker
to then taking action.
00:08:10
Speaker
And it's definitely a process.
00:08:13
Speaker
I think with that, though, with consumption, creation, taking action, it's not this linear path where take action is the end goal and we forget about the others.
00:08:24
Speaker
I think we still have this role that we need to play as teachers.
00:08:28
Speaker
in sharing high quality and relevant, reliable information with our students.
00:08:34
Speaker
So it's not like consumption, in my opinion, should just go away.
00:08:37
Speaker
We need to just have this healthy balance.
00:08:42
Speaker
But when we look at the SDGs and I look to social work, which really has been the profession to lead this organization,
00:08:51
Speaker
for so long and educators have been doing it, but really didn't understand if that was their role.
00:08:55
Speaker
But we're talking about environmental justice and sustainability and social inclusion and peace and harmony and collaboration.
00:09:03
Speaker
So when we're wanting to get them started, for me, a lot of teachers that I see are ready to jump right into the project.
00:09:12
Speaker
And move right to that point where, okay, let's pick something today that we're going to work on and then we'll go from there.
00:09:18
Speaker
And that's the fun part.
00:09:20
Speaker
I mean, that's definitely where the energy is.
00:09:23
Speaker
But I think there's so much work to be done before even getting to that point.
00:09:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:30
Speaker
For me, I think a good starting point for teachers that are ready to move into work around SDGs is to look at space and time.
Designing Classroom for SDG Projects
00:09:40
Speaker
I think that's a great place to begin.
00:09:43
Speaker
And looking at spaces, first off, is your space set up for social good work, student activism?
00:09:50
Speaker
And so I got very interested in learning space design through my role as
00:09:56
Speaker
in Montessori and environment is key in Montessori.
00:09:59
Speaker
And so as I left K-12 in 2014, I started, global was my thing.
00:10:06
Speaker
You know, it's always been my thing.
00:10:07
Speaker
And so I was trying to go out and get
00:10:10
Speaker
get schools to kind of jump into this work because it changed so much for me.
00:10:16
Speaker
And they were kind of, and then 2014, they were at that point where a lot of schools had taken on technology.
00:10:21
Speaker
They had gone one-to-one.
00:10:23
Speaker
They were bringing in carts.
00:10:25
Speaker
And all of a sudden they were saying, okay, now we brought in all this tech, and
00:10:29
Speaker
and hardware, but now we're finding that our spaces aren't prepared for this.
00:10:35
Speaker
So these rows of desks aren't going to work with our one-to-one initiatives.
00:10:39
Speaker
So we started to see some interest in space design.
00:10:43
Speaker
I kind of see the same thing happening with student activism and social good work, because even if we've moved to tables and collaborative spaces, have we yet looked at even our own spaces in terms of
00:10:59
Speaker
Social good and optimizing those spaces for the conversations that we want want to inspire.
00:11:05
Speaker
So are our students represented in our own classrooms first, like starting there and then and then looking at time, too.
00:11:11
Speaker
So we've seen some really cool things coming about in terms of scheduling and time like genius hour and 20 percent time.
00:11:18
Speaker
It's a good start.
00:11:19
Speaker
It's a good start.
00:11:20
Speaker
But for me, I think, and I think we've talked about this as a group in the past, this, I believe, needs to be part of everything, you know, part of the DNA of the classroom.
00:11:31
Speaker
So for me, that's the first point is just looking at space and time before we even get to the conversation of how do we begin with the projects.
00:11:39
Speaker
Yeah, I really like that idea of space and time.
00:11:42
Speaker
And I would imagine that people here today or maybe that are listening in maybe feel like they're up against a wall.
00:11:50
Speaker
Like if you teach in a more traditional or like legacy style environment and someone wants to shift the schedule around, sometimes that might come across as hard to do or difficult.
00:12:03
Speaker
What suggestions would you have for those that are highly constrained as in they teach in a very traditional environment?
00:12:09
Speaker
It's like a 45 minute period.
00:12:10
Speaker
You have your you have the desk that you got.
00:12:14
Speaker
You're not necessarily one to one, although you might have like a laptop cart.
00:12:17
Speaker
As I can think of so many people on that boat that every day, I mean, it's a struggle, but I know you can still do at least something with this.
00:12:24
Speaker
Yeah, that's such a great question.
00:12:26
Speaker
And so I get that a lot because the variables when we talk about space design, the first thing that often comes to educators minds, the physical space.
00:12:36
Speaker
So when we I'll go in and it's almost like this.
00:12:40
Speaker
I know what's gonna happen because when I go in to do a room or a school transformation, first question that's often asked like most of the time is what color should we paint the walls?
00:12:49
Speaker
So walls take precedence and it's important to think through, but it needs to be an intentional process.
00:12:56
Speaker
So walls and the next is chairs.
00:12:58
Speaker
So they want movable chairs, casters is a big conversation.
00:13:02
Speaker
But the variables that teachers can't control are the things that come into our mind first.
00:13:08
Speaker
So there's things that we won't be able to control.
00:13:11
Speaker
Budget might be one thing.
00:13:13
Speaker
Number of windows in a room, number of chairs and desks.
00:13:17
Speaker
So for me, it's let's shift it to the things that we can control.
00:13:23
Speaker
So...
00:13:24
Speaker
A couple of things.
00:13:25
Speaker
So one would be looking at the space that you do have, the furniture in your room, looking at it in terms of accessibility.
00:13:34
Speaker
So access to the information that you're providing or the information that the students are going and exploring.
00:13:40
Speaker
And that can be as simple as you sitting in every chair in the room.
00:13:45
Speaker
So making sure if you sit in the very back of the room, what is the relationship that the students have with the information you're providing from that spot?
00:13:53
Speaker
What about the front spot?
00:13:55
Speaker
So that's number one.
00:13:56
Speaker
And then the questions that we're asking our students.
00:13:58
Speaker
So this is huge.
00:13:59
Speaker
So if we're showing them that we see them, that they matter, are we asking them, how does the temperature feel for you?
00:14:07
Speaker
Are you able to hear me in the back of the room?
00:14:10
Speaker
Where do you see yourself represented in our space?
00:14:13
Speaker
So if we start with those things and we commit to those types of questions over time, then we see a change in behavior and engagement.
00:14:23
Speaker
Awesome.
00:14:24
Speaker
I really like that concept of like sitting in a single chair.
00:14:27
Speaker
I've never thought about that before.
00:14:30
Speaker
I like the idea of universal accessibility and ensuring that everyone is capable of understanding what's going on.
00:14:37
Speaker
Do you see then a pairing between when you think about getting student inspiration voice into the planning process of an SDG project
00:14:46
Speaker
Do you think the best place to get started is waiting for students to kind of come into the room and say, hey, this is an issue, I want to solve it?
00:14:54
Speaker
Or what is the role of the educator in inspiring students to get started?
00:14:59
Speaker
I know it's kind of like a chicken and the egg argument, but how do we typically go about doing these things?
00:15:04
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:15:07
Speaker
So my best advice for teachers is to show up as you.
00:15:10
Speaker
And I mean, like Julia is here today.
00:15:12
Speaker
If you show up as you and you're unapologetic about that and say, these are my passions and this is what I'm doing and you're fired up about it.
00:15:21
Speaker
I mean, Julia, before we jumped on just the beginning of this, saying that yesterday her students...
00:15:27
Speaker
Together we're crying, seeing what's happening out in the world because they're so moved, this emotion.
00:15:34
Speaker
So showing up as you, I think bringing your passions in.
00:15:40
Speaker
And the best advice I got is start before you're ready.
00:15:44
Speaker
Like just, you've got to just jump in.
00:15:46
Speaker
And I think if you do that instead of waiting for them to come, because I think a lot of times our students don't yet know what their passions are.
00:15:56
Speaker
I think they're passionate, but I'm not sure if they know where to place that energy.
00:16:01
Speaker
So just kind of helping them go through that process.
00:16:04
Speaker
And it doesn't have to be like I was passionate about Africa when I was eight years old.
00:16:09
Speaker
It was just something that was in me.
00:16:12
Speaker
But I was also passionate about baking cupcakes for the students in the hospital down the street.
00:16:19
Speaker
So, I mean, there's there's a lot of things when we're especially going through adolescence.
00:16:23
Speaker
that are going to pop up that we want to take action on.
00:16:26
Speaker
So I see our role maybe not guiding that part of it, like where are they, what are they going to end up putting their energy into, but showing them what that process can look like.
00:16:37
Speaker
I think that's a really good point.
00:16:38
Speaker
Julia, I know you wanted to jump in.
00:16:43
Speaker
Awesome.
00:16:43
Speaker
I just want to...
00:16:45
Speaker
Really, I love the idea of time and space.
00:16:47
Speaker
And I think for me, it also is about mindset.
00:16:51
Speaker
It's about meeting our kids at the door and that first day saying, I see you, let's create this classroom space together.
00:17:00
Speaker
This is the time we get to be present with each other and share these moments with each other.
00:17:06
Speaker
Like in my classroom, we create our common vision together.
00:17:10
Speaker
We create the space.
00:17:12
Speaker
We create just the synergy of a group collaboration revolves
Collaborative Classroom Environment
00:17:19
Speaker
around PBL.
00:17:19
Speaker
So there's a central question that we start with at the beginning of every year.
00:17:23
Speaker
But we take the first step.
00:17:26
Speaker
I don't even know how long to build those relationships, not just between people, but in the classroom and in our school, we, we travel around, we do a gallery walk.
00:17:35
Speaker
We really, cause I, I have the gift of getting to teach sixth graders.
00:17:39
Speaker
So they're, this is their first experience in a middle school and they don't, they, they don't quite know where they stand yet.
00:17:45
Speaker
And at the same time, they,
00:17:48
Speaker
are so eager to just jump in and learn and become their future selves that when you offer them that launch point to, hey, here's a question that's really about you.
00:17:59
Speaker
Where do you fit in?
00:17:59
Speaker
How do you want to...
00:18:02
Speaker
make your mark on the world.
00:18:04
Speaker
Our question is, how do you want to make a dent in the universe?
00:18:06
Speaker
But when you offer them the opportunity to share their voice and grow their voice in a way that allows them to open their eyes in a different way than they've opened them and they've seen the world before, you just get to step back and they share everything they're looking for with you.
00:18:27
Speaker
That's what's so powerful for me about the SDGs and Take Action Global.
00:18:32
Speaker
It's just, it's a launch point for kids to choose to learn and see the world in a way that...
00:18:40
Speaker
allows them to connect authentically, not just with themselves, but with what's happening in the world around them.
00:18:46
Speaker
So I would just add love time, love space.
00:18:50
Speaker
But for me too, it's so much about mindset and a shared vision for global citizenship that includes every voice in the room and elevates and amplifies the voices of kids everywhere.
00:19:03
Speaker
Hmm.
00:19:09
Speaker
That's amazing.
00:19:10
Speaker
I'm completely with you.
00:19:11
Speaker
And I really like the idea of providing a voice for students first before you didn't say anything about content, which I think is telling.
00:19:20
Speaker
I think that's, you know, it's intentional, but it's about the student first and then we can, you know, they'll get the content from doing things.
00:19:27
Speaker
But I think often when we do PD, that's not really brought up.
00:19:31
Speaker
So it's great that we have this intentional focus on student voice authentication and recognizing the learner for who they are and giving them that voice or providing them the space for that voice.
00:19:41
Speaker
That would be a better way to say it.
00:19:43
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:19:44
Speaker
Nick, go ahead and jump in.
00:19:47
Speaker
Yeah, for sure.
00:19:49
Speaker
So Chris had asked a question about, you know, kind of overcoming barriers, traditional barriers in terms of seating and scheduling.
00:19:57
Speaker
And one thing that I kind of think about in terms of trying to break down some of the barriers to teachers in, you know, everyday public school classrooms is trying to find a standards connection to it.
00:20:11
Speaker
And I wish my copy of Teach Boldly is at school right now.
00:20:14
Speaker
And I know you have that crosswalk that's in there.
00:20:17
Speaker
that connects it to, oh, dang, I don't remember the framework for it.
00:20:21
Speaker
But how do you... Policy standards.
00:20:24
Speaker
Yes, yes.
00:20:26
Speaker
So I imagine that you had that in there.
00:20:27
Speaker
It's like right in the beginning of the book for a reason to help teachers see that there's connections to your standards right away.
00:20:34
Speaker
But do you have experience or have you had positive experiences helping teachers make those connections to curriculum and those kinds of things?
00:20:44
Speaker
Yeah, that's what I'm really curious about.
00:20:48
Speaker
With the goals, absolutely.
00:20:50
Speaker
And the goals of what I've seen, it's really interesting because it doesn't matter if you're a humanities teacher or a science teacher or if you're ELA or we were even talking about art at the beginning, these cross-curricular goals,
00:21:06
Speaker
content area type of learning, these goals are in it already.
00:21:12
Speaker
And so I haven't found teachers struggling to find connections with standards because I think they're like, oh yeah, like when we talk about any of these projects, they're like, yep, I can start pulling here and here and here and this.
00:21:24
Speaker
Then it's almost like those light bulbs, like, oh, I've been trying to figure out a way to get this standard in.
00:21:31
Speaker
So kind of going back to the point of not having it be something distinct or separate,
00:21:35
Speaker
but bringing it right into the work that you're doing.
00:21:39
Speaker
So it brings our students out of the textbook, out of the stories that they're reading and brings them right into the story that they're that they're creating.
00:21:47
Speaker
So I mean, I think we I think even it's we've got to find those standards that.
00:21:54
Speaker
We believe in for a lot.
00:21:56
Speaker
And I'm at the university level.
00:21:58
Speaker
And so my we have we're kind of handed our standards that we're going to work with.
00:22:03
Speaker
And if you've been in education for a while, they're going to switch.
00:22:06
Speaker
You know, you're going to see some movement with those from for me.
00:22:10
Speaker
There's ones that I really align to.
00:22:13
Speaker
There's.
00:22:13
Speaker
There's frameworks that are put out by the Asia Society that I think are really great.
00:22:19
Speaker
ISTE standards for students, educators, education leaders, and coaches really resonate with me.
00:22:28
Speaker
I think, so there's ones beyond the ones that we're using within our districts that we can look to as well.
00:22:36
Speaker
And so you mentioned the ISTE standards with Teach Boldly.
00:22:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:39
Speaker
So yeah, I think that it hasn't been too much of a problem with the teachers I've talked to.
00:22:47
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:22:48
Speaker
That's great.
00:22:49
Speaker
Because that's one thing that I think, like I teach economics and that's where I try to, I tried this semester to bring in that SDG approach.
Aligning SDGs with Curriculum
00:22:59
Speaker
And unfortunately, I'm in a context where I'm kind of able to, like I think Chris and Julia were saying, kind of start with students and then we can always make a standard connection to things.
00:23:09
Speaker
So, for example, I had a group of students that I worked with pick the life underwater SDG and they wanted to look at advances in marine life exploration and bring those things to the classroom too.
00:23:24
Speaker
And so I thought that was really cool.
00:23:25
Speaker
But if I tried to justify that and tried to connect it to the economics curriculum, like I don't I would make us I would have a hard time justifying that.
00:23:33
Speaker
But as far as, you know, connecting students to the world outside of class, connecting them to those interdisciplinary things like I think it's super vital.
00:23:41
Speaker
But so I don't know if there's some tension in there, you know, between those content standards and putting content kind of first before students and the SDGs.
00:23:50
Speaker
That's kind of one thing that I'm just interested in kind of exploring going forward anyway.
00:23:55
Speaker
And I think, too, like in that case, I've had teachers that have to design for it.
00:24:00
Speaker
So there's teachers that will join projects and they'll go, yeah, like what we were saying, this is good because this aligns to something that I've already been working on or working toward.
00:24:10
Speaker
But if you're if you're on Twitter and been following, there's two educators.
00:24:15
Speaker
They they've never met.
00:24:17
Speaker
They're in different parts of the United States.
00:24:19
Speaker
And so Ron and Spencer, and they have created this project and they were just inspired around the work of the SDGs wanting to bring it into their, their classrooms in a meaningful way.
00:24:30
Speaker
So it's shoes for a cause with SDGs.
00:24:33
Speaker
So they had this, they already had the space.
00:24:36
Speaker
And so they were trying to find a meaningful way to use it.
00:24:38
Speaker
Beautiful classroom spaces.
00:24:40
Speaker
They have the students that are eager and ready.
00:24:42
Speaker
And then they had them go through this maker experience and
00:24:46
Speaker
to prototype these shoes and each pair of shoes was aligned to one of the SDGs.
00:24:52
Speaker
So they were in, they're problem solving, they're collaborating, they're using all of these engineering concepts and then they took it to that next level.
00:25:03
Speaker
So
00:25:04
Speaker
thinking of creation to taking action.
00:25:06
Speaker
They then took it to the next level.
00:25:07
Speaker
They created a website.
00:25:09
Speaker
They had bidding up for each of the pair of shoes.
00:25:13
Speaker
So then they're starting to see the economic connections to their work.
00:25:19
Speaker
And then they selected...
00:25:21
Speaker
three causes that then the money would go towards funding.
00:25:25
Speaker
So, and they were, they were in it, like all of that process, not a teacher standing saying, okay, I created this project for you.
00:25:33
Speaker
So student voice was infused through it all and standards and what we know we need to hit with, with our standards of practice.
00:25:42
Speaker
That's incredible.
00:25:43
Speaker
Yeah, it was so cool to see.
00:25:44
Speaker
Can I jump in really quickly?
00:25:46
Speaker
Yeah, for sure.
00:25:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:49
Speaker
Sorry.
00:25:49
Speaker
So that project is phenomenal.
00:25:51
Speaker
And I reached actually out to Ron and he shared his whole slideshow.
00:25:55
Speaker
And he is someone who just he's so open to sharing everything.
00:25:59
Speaker
I feel like anyone, though, who's working with the SDGs right now is anyone who participated in the goals project last year.
00:26:06
Speaker
The library that you created, Jennifer, that that showcases each of those projects.
00:26:12
Speaker
My kids are infatuated with they're each choosing a project to connect to for their current project.
00:26:18
Speaker
And so when you share the work of teachers and students and kids get to see what's going on in the world, they get to bring that into the standards.
00:26:29
Speaker
That's my favorite thing to do is it's more than just, you know, look at my standards.
00:26:35
Speaker
I have the gift of being a language arts teacher.
00:26:37
Speaker
So we get to read and we get to write and I can choose books that connect to every single SDG.
00:26:43
Speaker
Right now we're doing an SDG book club and my kids are reading everything from Parkland, the book about the experiences of the Parkland kids because they've chosen SDG 16 and they're doing their entire project on school violence to the boy who harnessed the wind.
00:27:00
Speaker
And they're super into seven and clean energy.
00:27:04
Speaker
But
00:27:05
Speaker
Again, more than just choosing a book or choosing the content that connects with the SDGs, my favorite thing to do is put the standards in the hands of the kids.
00:27:16
Speaker
Like I literally put the Colorado standards in their hands and say, where's global citizenship fit in?
00:27:21
Speaker
Which goal is it?
00:27:22
Speaker
Where do the goals fit?
00:27:24
Speaker
And then I put in our school's mission statement.
00:27:26
Speaker
And I'm lucky because my school's mission statement is phenomenal.
00:27:28
Speaker
And I was on, like, I helped to create it.
00:27:31
Speaker
And our kids helped to create our mission statement in our school because we're so invested in Kid Voice.
00:27:35
Speaker
But put your mission statement in front of them.
00:27:38
Speaker
Put your district's mission statement in front of them.
00:27:41
Speaker
And let the kids...
00:27:43
Speaker
get their hands messy into what is a standard and what does this mean and how can I connect with this?
00:27:50
Speaker
And if you look at it like this, then maybe it, oh, wow, look at that responsible consumption and production right there.
00:27:56
Speaker
Like I'm a learner in a classroom.
00:27:58
Speaker
I get to choose how I experience my world.
00:28:01
Speaker
This is not about
00:28:03
Speaker
Anything other than me owning the space that for me to be me and become my best self, my school district wants me to be a responsible global citizen in this space.
00:28:14
Speaker
And when kids know that and they feel that everyone's mindset changes everything time space everything shifts because everybody's invested and everyone believes in the learning process.
00:28:27
Speaker
So I just offer that up to any teacher who's struggling with how does it fit or, hey, I'm supposed to put content first.
00:28:35
Speaker
Use that as a tool to create access for your kids because it's there and just sit down with them and help them see it.
00:28:45
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's a really good point.
00:28:47
Speaker
And I think it reflects too, I mean, the research.
00:28:49
Speaker
I mean, there's plenty of research that demonstrates that students who maybe cover quote unquote less content, meaning that they have less worksheets or they're not going through the standards as traditionally as a quote unquote normal student would actually do a lot better on traditional means of assessment.
00:29:07
Speaker
So they do better on standardized tests.
00:29:09
Speaker
In other words, it works.
Student-Driven Learning
00:29:11
Speaker
because students are interested, they're motivated, they're not bored at school, it's interesting, it connects to things.
00:29:17
Speaker
So if we were viewing this from a purely academic standpoint, it's good in that way too.
00:29:22
Speaker
And obviously the major thing is of course the fact that the students are doing something that matters, it's authentic and they get to really change the world.
00:29:31
Speaker
It's awesome.
00:29:33
Speaker
And I wanted to move into the second question.
00:29:37
Speaker
Jennifer, which deals with where do you go to find materials?
00:29:42
Speaker
So you have all these students that are ready to start this project.
00:29:45
Speaker
They have an idea about what they want to do.
00:29:48
Speaker
But how do you then coach them through this process?
00:29:51
Speaker
What websites are there?
00:29:53
Speaker
What things are like, for example, you have like teach SDGs with the project page.
00:29:58
Speaker
What things are out there that students could reference?
00:30:00
Speaker
Mm hmm.
00:30:02
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot.
00:30:04
Speaker
And it's hard right now, I think, because teachers are trying to navigate through it.
00:30:08
Speaker
But for me, and I think even to Julia's point, as you describe standards and you what I picture when you you were talking was you as a co-learner with your students.
00:30:22
Speaker
even around standards.
00:30:24
Speaker
Um, and that's what I feel like the beauty of these newer movements like teach SDGs and even things like maker, even a tech to a degree is that these are new spaces for us as teachers.
00:30:39
Speaker
I mean, the SDGs are new for everyone.
00:30:41
Speaker
Um,
00:30:42
Speaker
So we are forced to be co-learners with our students.
00:30:47
Speaker
So instead of like, I'm ELA as well, Julia.
00:30:50
Speaker
So like if we talk about phonemic awareness and phonics, I got it.
00:30:54
Speaker
Like I've been doing that my whole career.
00:30:56
Speaker
I feel like an expert in that.
00:30:58
Speaker
But when we talk about things like partnership for the goals,
00:31:02
Speaker
This is something I'm working through right now, and I'm trying to find the best resources, the best path to get there.
00:31:10
Speaker
So I'm going through my own design thinking process.
00:31:14
Speaker
But I think that's that's kind of where I would direct teachers first is to look at.
00:31:19
Speaker
at whatever design thinking process you adhere to.
00:31:23
Speaker
So I adhere to human-centered design.
00:31:25
Speaker
So design thinking being a five-phase approach to problem-solving.
00:31:29
Speaker
Human-centered design, I feel, works really well in education or just in innovation in general, but moving through a three-phase approach, which is inspiration, ideation, implementation, and then it kind of starts over.
Implementing SDGs Using Local Resources
00:31:43
Speaker
And starting there.
00:31:45
Speaker
So going through that process with your students and the process will guide you to the resources just by by the way it works.
00:31:54
Speaker
I think being intentional about incorporating research into the work and.
00:32:03
Speaker
Also thinking about the community resources you have as well.
00:32:08
Speaker
I think that I could probably get some pushback on this, but I know we've for so long we were at these local levels and then there was this big trend to go global, which I'm all global, like global is my thing.
00:32:21
Speaker
But I really think we're going to start to see this, this, um, reverse back to local levels and seeing what, what do we have here just because of everything that we're going to be seeing in the next 15 to 20 years.
00:32:34
Speaker
So what do we have right in front of us?
00:32:36
Speaker
Um, before we start to move out to, to different resources, I think, um, IDO, if you're talking about website resources, IDO is a great one to look at with human centered design.
00:32:46
Speaker
So there's, um,
00:32:48
Speaker
And they break it down by mindsets.
00:32:50
Speaker
They break it down by phase of where you're at in the process.
00:32:54
Speaker
So maybe not looking at one specific tool like, OK, today we're going to use fill in the blank.
00:33:00
Speaker
It's let's figure out what that tool is together.
00:33:04
Speaker
strategies.
00:33:05
Speaker
I'm big on strategies over tool.
00:33:07
Speaker
And so things like dot voting and story, storyboarding and gut checking and bundling ideas to find affinity.
00:33:15
Speaker
So it's definitely going to be more of an exercise than a platform.
00:33:20
Speaker
And then, so if we look at things like dot voting, which I really, really, I love doing with any groups.
00:33:28
Speaker
We could do that in an analog way, or we could look to tools like Nearpod has a great feature called Collaborate that's awesome for jot voting, Sticky's IO, Padlet.
00:33:39
Speaker
So it's kind of the tools at the end and thinking about what's the best direction to guide our students.
00:33:47
Speaker
But there's a lot of, if we're looking at using ed tech resources, creativity, creation tools,
00:33:54
Speaker
collaboration, anything that's going to enable our students to request and receive feedback,
Tools and Strategies for SDG Projects
00:33:59
Speaker
really important in this work around SDGs and then also storytelling.
00:34:04
Speaker
But there's, there are, there's, we're seeing more and more groups that are aligning to the SDGs, but it's not like there's going to be this one curated library that you go to and that's where you're going to end, which I think is the beauty of it.
00:34:19
Speaker
Like, I don't know if we want that.
00:34:21
Speaker
And we've, we've been, uh,
00:34:23
Speaker
really hesitant to do that with Teach SDGs because we get a lot of people going, just kind of show me the path.
00:34:29
Speaker
Give me that step-by-step playbook that takes me exactly where I need.
00:34:33
Speaker
I need A, B, and C. And we're, though we could do that really easily, we say, you know what, just put it back to your kids.
00:34:41
Speaker
Put it back to your kids and see what they come up with because that's kind of what it's all about.
00:34:46
Speaker
Yeah, I like that idea of moving away from, it's exactly the same thing we want with our students, which is we don't want them to be like technicians.
00:34:54
Speaker
We don't want them to follow a step-by-step guide and just learn how to do things by rote memorization.
00:35:00
Speaker
So, of course, teachers are learning the exact same thing, which, in my opinion, requires a lot of unlearning.
00:35:05
Speaker
I think it's difficult, especially if you've been in the field for a while or you just went through a traditional teacher education program.
00:35:12
Speaker
to get to the point where you feel comfortable kind of ditching the script because the majority of people, at least in my opinion, still follow that script.
00:35:21
Speaker
So you feel kind of rebellious.
00:35:24
Speaker
So, you know, you have all these different frameworks, you have all these different ideas.
00:35:28
Speaker
Is the concept then just to jump in?
00:35:31
Speaker
Do you just do it?
00:35:32
Speaker
Or are there steps that you would take where it's like, hey, for one week, I'm just going to try doing this?
00:35:39
Speaker
I think it's going to just depend on the teacher and his or her style and approach.
00:35:46
Speaker
For me, it's kind of a mix.
00:35:50
Speaker
Like it's a jump into the work, but it's a very intentional process because I think of it like if, you know, like if we were going to build a house, like, yeah, I could go out right now and just start building.
00:36:03
Speaker
But if I don't have that blueprint and I don't have that project management plan, project management is huge for our kids.
00:36:11
Speaker
Like the world they're going out into, do they have these skills and knowing how to move to that place of creating something?
00:36:22
Speaker
So I think, no, I think that having an idea of where you're heading and then work backwards from there would be the way I would do it.
00:36:30
Speaker
It's going to look very different.
00:36:32
Speaker
I like how Julia's point of having it be very messy.
00:36:35
Speaker
I think messy is good and not knowing the answers, but I feel like kind of going back, we need to have our spaces prepared and ready.
00:36:43
Speaker
We need to have availability within our schedules.
00:36:45
Speaker
Time has to be there.
00:36:48
Speaker
And then we just immerse ourself in the
Guiding Students' Passions
00:36:50
Speaker
process.
00:36:50
Speaker
And stay there for a long time, as long as you can.
00:36:55
Speaker
For me, that's that's where I see that magic start to happen and being OK if you need to pivot, you know, like, OK, we were heading in this direction, but now we're seeing that something else came up.
00:37:08
Speaker
being ready for change, inviting change.
00:37:11
Speaker
And then at that very last point, when the kids are like, okay, I want to get that, you know, video created.
00:37:17
Speaker
And that's a great point of celebration.
00:37:19
Speaker
But everything that happens up until that point is really going to be where the learning is going to occur.
00:37:24
Speaker
I love that idea of pivoting, because I know it's something that's happened in my class multiple times.
00:37:29
Speaker
Go ahead.
00:37:33
Speaker
Thanks.
00:37:34
Speaker
I like I just I love the way that I envision it is literally like I've been saying, it's a launch point.
00:37:41
Speaker
So I like picture almost like a rocket in my classroom.
00:37:45
Speaker
And I picture these dotted lines that show like, where do we want to go and how do we want to make it happen?
00:37:50
Speaker
And each kiddo's trajectory.
00:37:52
Speaker
gets to be different and we get to cross over each other and we get to create different flight paths and we get to adjust for weather or adjust for change.
00:38:02
Speaker
And it's so it's a building up and out and reaching a kind of a global or and individual goal together.
00:38:15
Speaker
So instead of jumping in to something that can feel like, wow, it's it's kind of
00:38:23
Speaker
closing in around you in a way.
00:38:25
Speaker
It's an opening up and outward with momentum that does create that messiness and does collect all kinds of cosmic dust along the way.
00:38:37
Speaker
It allows for invention and opportunity and innovation and inspiration and
00:38:44
Speaker
every day to be absolutely different from the one before it based on a kid's choice and voice and what's going on in their life and in the world.
00:38:54
Speaker
So it's kids becoming their own teachers in the classroom and us stepping aside to just provide a framework and hold space for that launch pad so kids can move themselves into the world.
00:39:10
Speaker
Like you said, Jennifer, kind of like a project manager.
00:39:14
Speaker
We're just, hey, what else, where else would you like to go?
00:39:18
Speaker
Let me help you find the connections.
00:39:21
Speaker
Because that's, to me, the strategy and the tool that kids need most right now.
00:39:26
Speaker
Like I'm feeling this.
00:39:28
Speaker
What do I do with it?
00:39:29
Speaker
Where do I go with it?
00:39:30
Speaker
How can I get connected here?
00:39:32
Speaker
How do I talk to an expert?
00:39:34
Speaker
What do you mean I need to...
00:39:36
Speaker
be able to send this email or talk to somebody on the phone to ask this question.
00:39:40
Speaker
It's about teaching them the life skills that they need to be able to make sense of the world and then go follow through in what they are passionate about and what they do want to take action on.
00:39:55
Speaker
So that's how I see it.
00:39:57
Speaker
That's so good.
00:39:58
Speaker
I love that statement.
00:39:59
Speaker
Teaching life skills, they need to make sense of the world.
00:40:01
Speaker
I think you I mean, that's how can you get more relevant than that?
00:40:06
Speaker
Just doing it and just working through every single step of the process.
00:40:11
Speaker
I think at this point, it actually would make some sense since we have so many people here who are engaged in teach SDGs or at least familiar with it.
00:40:19
Speaker
to potentially talk about the project that they've done.
00:40:22
Speaker
I know, Julia, you've been kind of going with that.
00:40:25
Speaker
And I know, Jennifer, I'm sure that you have a plethora of examples that you could share.
00:40:30
Speaker
But I think it would just be cool to just bounce ideas, because I know for me that as we were talking about in that first step and developing passion and purpose amongst our students, having some ideas to say, hey, what do you think about this?
Inspiring SDG Ideas
00:40:44
Speaker
can bring students down that pathway to potentially really running with it.
00:40:47
Speaker
They might need the first step of figuring out what it is that they wanna do and learning from others projects is a good process of getting there.
00:40:55
Speaker
So Jennifer, I don't know if we wanna start with you and then we can just kinda like go around and just share some ideas of things that we've done or things that were cool to potentially inspire those to engage in the SDGs.
00:41:06
Speaker
Mm hmm.
00:41:09
Speaker
Well, something that I've involved in right now, and this is not necessary.
00:41:13
Speaker
We haven't made the direct connections to SCGs, but we didn't.
00:41:17
Speaker
I mean, student voices all over our conversation today, but we didn't go deep with that yet.
00:41:23
Speaker
But something I'm preparing.
00:41:24
Speaker
for my session on student activism for South by Southwest.
00:41:29
Speaker
And I'm with this great panel who have done all of them incredible work within the United States.
00:41:37
Speaker
And so as we were saying, we started planning and saying, okay, we're talking about student voice, student activism.
00:41:43
Speaker
where are the students in this?
00:41:44
Speaker
I mean, so I think us taking a step back and saying, let's kind of rethink this here.
00:41:52
Speaker
And which is something like that, that check-in, you know, check in with your students, check in with yourself because anything around innovation, around SDGs, when we're talking global becomes big, really fast.
00:42:04
Speaker
And it becomes fast, really fast because it's like, okay, as Julia said, it just starts to build and build and build.
00:42:11
Speaker
And I think how,
00:42:12
Speaker
How can we slow it down?
00:42:14
Speaker
Also simplify it.
00:42:15
Speaker
So we, we, these are coming in where I think up to nearly a hundred now responses.
00:42:22
Speaker
We said, let's just get the kids in this.
00:42:25
Speaker
And so we put out a simple Google form survey and asking them some questions like to my parents, I wish you knew to my teachers.
00:42:34
Speaker
I wish you knew to strangers, to haters, to friends, um,
00:42:39
Speaker
All right.
00:42:39
Speaker
Hey, sorry for the interruption.
00:42:40
Speaker
It seems like we lost the last eight or nine minutes or so of the PD.
00:42:45
Speaker
So I'm just going to fill in with our notes here.
00:42:48
Speaker
Sorry about that.
00:42:48
Speaker
We're still trying to figure out the best way to do video conferencing without any weird recording errors, but we're working on it.
00:42:54
Speaker
We'll make it work.
00:42:55
Speaker
So anyways, Jennifer wrapped up her points with this amazing form that she had where she collected student responses about how they're perceived by the world.
Reflecting on Self and Community Impact
00:43:03
Speaker
And then I interjected with a point about The Mask You Live In, which is a documentary where in the documentary, it's about young men, but it could be used for any context, talking about what the world sees versus how you truly feel.
00:43:18
Speaker
And what you do is you take a group of students that you know very well.
00:43:22
Speaker
And I would preface this by saying that
00:43:24
Speaker
In certain contexts, it might not work.
00:43:26
Speaker
You might want to make sure that there's some support because it can get pretty heavy.
00:43:30
Speaker
You don't just want to throw this out there.
00:43:32
Speaker
But you have students sit in a circle and you tell them, hey, this is going to be a quiet, serious activity.
00:43:38
Speaker
So just, you know, you shouldn't be talking to each other.
00:43:40
Speaker
Put some things away, that kind of stuff.
00:43:42
Speaker
You pass out a sheet of paper to everybody and you have them draw a mask on one side.
00:43:48
Speaker
And this mask is like a masquerade or like a superhero mask, something of that nature.
00:43:52
Speaker
And either on the mask or outside the mask, they'll write words about how they want their friends, family, peers, how they want to be seen.
00:44:01
Speaker
And usually, you know, it's things like they want to look cool.
00:44:04
Speaker
They want to seem nice.
00:44:06
Speaker
They want to seem generous, et cetera, pretty, that kind of stuff.
00:44:10
Speaker
Then you tell them, hey,
00:44:12
Speaker
Just again, we got to be quiet.
00:44:13
Speaker
Don't discuss this, but I want you to flip over that sheet of paper and I want you to write about how you actually feel about yourself or what you worry that people might think of you.
00:44:24
Speaker
The kind of the deep, dark reality of who you truly are.
00:44:28
Speaker
And that's a really serious discussion, but I think it's something that we need to open up to students to have those spaces because sadly, there's not a lot of spaces for those things to be shared.
00:44:37
Speaker
And it helps build this connection later on.
00:44:40
Speaker
So you have them write down
00:44:42
Speaker
um those those words the descriptors and a lot of times they all write down very similar things like uh they don't want to feel like they're ugly or that people if people actually like them or not they're worried that i'd be sick that that kind of stuff um so this is not the happiest activity typically um so after they go and write down these different words they crumple it up and i just have them throw it into the center of the room
00:45:07
Speaker
So you then collect those crumpled up sheets of paper and then you redistribute them to people in the room.
00:45:14
Speaker
I should note, I should have mentioned this earlier, but you don't have them write the names on the sheet of paper.
00:45:19
Speaker
So you redistribute them and then silently to themselves, the students will then read that sheet of paper and write.
00:45:27
Speaker
You don't discuss it really, you just all hand it back in.
00:45:30
Speaker
And the point of that activity is to showcase that everyone has this innate human connection and many of our concerns are the same no matter who we are.
00:45:38
Speaker
And it builds that classroom culture that Jennifer is getting at, which is a lot of times, especially in PBL or a traditional classroom, there's a strong teacher-student relationship, which is good, but you definitely want to have that.
00:45:51
Speaker
But a lot of times what's lacking is the student-to-student relationship.
00:45:55
Speaker
They might have their own friend group, but outside of that friend group, I mean, I've had classes before in the past where students didn't know someone else's name almost a year into the school year.
00:46:05
Speaker
So there's just not a lot of student to student interaction.
00:46:08
Speaker
And the goal of that activity is to develop those bonds.
00:46:11
Speaker
So anyways, that was one thing that was shared.
00:46:16
Speaker
There were only two other things, luckily, that we missed.
00:46:19
Speaker
So Julia Fliss shared out this project that she's been working on in Kakuma, which is a city in Kenya that houses a refugee camp.
Global Contribution Success
00:46:29
Speaker
And according to the website, 55% of people in Kakuma children do not have a school to go to.
00:46:36
Speaker
So Julia's students had just been reading a book.
00:46:39
Speaker
They had been reading A Long Walk to Water, which is by Linda Sue Park.
00:46:44
Speaker
And the main character, Salva Dute, he starts the nonprofit in real life called Water for South Sudan.
00:46:51
Speaker
And her students were inspired by the story and were looking for ways to help.
00:46:55
Speaker
And it just eventually developed into the idea of helping to build a school in Kenya, in Kakuma.
00:47:03
Speaker
And it just came to life.
00:47:04
Speaker
Like the school is actually being built based in part on the actions of Julia's class, both raising money, giving donations, raising awareness.
00:47:12
Speaker
which is awesome.
00:47:13
Speaker
I mean, you can't get more authentic than that, actually building a real tangible thing that helps real people.
00:47:18
Speaker
So I can't recommend enough checking more of that out.
00:47:21
Speaker
You can find Julia on Twitter for Julia Fliss, F-L-I-S-S, as well as there's some links in the show notes to the project.
00:47:30
Speaker
Finally,
00:47:32
Speaker
Jennifer showcased the work happening at tag.community.
TAG.community Collaboration
00:47:36
Speaker
I would definitely look at that.
00:47:38
Speaker
There's a pre-registration window.
00:47:40
Speaker
From this recording, there's a week to register, and then it lasts for a couple of months.
00:47:44
Speaker
So tag.community is a way to tackle global goals in the classroom, developing the SDGs.
00:47:51
Speaker
And what makes it unique is, first off, it's all free.
00:47:53
Speaker
So you get to connect with all these other educators for absolutely free.
00:47:57
Speaker
And it's a good way that your students, as well as you, can connect with other educators around the world and work on these things together.
00:48:03
Speaker
A lot of times, the biggest part of project-based learning is developing those connections and networking.
00:48:08
Speaker
Well, this gives you the tools to get that, and it's entirely free.
00:48:11
Speaker
You just register, and then you do some stuff.
00:48:13
Speaker
And Jennifer wanted to call attention to the fact that you don't need to dedicate every single day for two months to make this project work.
00:48:20
Speaker
Everyone has different contexts, different levels of flexibility on what they can do.
00:48:24
Speaker
Even if it's just like a week, that's still more meaningful than doing nothing at all.
00:48:29
Speaker
So definitely check that out.
00:48:32
Speaker
Attached in our show notes is everything else.
00:48:34
Speaker
We have all the notes.
00:48:35
Speaker
We have a ton of resources in there.
00:48:37
Speaker
you can look at.
00:48:39
Speaker
I want to call special attention to first off the aforementioned tag.community, but there's also teachsdgs.org.
00:48:47
Speaker
It has a ton of project ideas and templates from the past on what people have done, not necessarily to follow as a step-by-step guide, but maybe to look at as a teacher and also for your students to look at when they're trying to come up with ideas.
00:48:59
Speaker
They can play off of other people's ideas and remix them and come up with new ideas of their own.
00:49:04
Speaker
Further, there's also the IDEO framework, the ISTE standards, and teaching tolerance as social justice standards.
00:49:14
Speaker
All of those are really cool ways to look at framing SDGs in your class and framing experiential learning in general.
00:49:21
Speaker
And then obviously you can tie in your standard content standards.
00:49:26
Speaker
as you go along.
00:49:27
Speaker
It's all about just trying to find different ways to look at things, to look at it from new perspectives and develop the best possible project you can and just bring in those
Closing and Acknowledgements
00:49:36
Speaker
different ideas.
00:49:36
Speaker
So thank you again to our attendees for appearing on the summit and sharing their amazing knowledge and ideas.
00:49:43
Speaker
It's always just so energizing to hear what people have to say and see the amazing work they're doing inside their classrooms.
00:49:49
Speaker
And a special thank you to Dr. Jennifer Williams,
00:49:52
Speaker
I mean, her knowledge on the SDGs is unparalleled.
00:49:54
Speaker
She has fantastic things pertaining to experiential learning.
00:49:59
Speaker
So thank you to Dr. Jennifer Williams, as well as if you like this summit and you want to attend a future one or maybe see a past one, you can visit us at humanrestorationproject.org.
00:50:11
Speaker
On there, you'll find a variety of free resources, our podcast, our writings, as well as all of our events.
00:50:18
Speaker
as well as ways to support us.
00:50:20
Speaker
If you want to see more future summits and appreciate what we do, I encourage you to check out our Patreon.
00:50:25
Speaker
So thanks again for joining us and have a fantastic day.