Module 2 Investigators
Browse the Learn More: Student Voice and Choice resources.
- Identify at least one new idea you plan to implement in your school or classroom community.
- Describe your idea and your plan for implementation.
Please read and respond to at least 1 of your colleagues’ ideas.
Next, you can level up to Module 2 Discoverer, or jump ahead to Module 3.
6 Replies
As a middle school teacher, I am in the perfect place to teach about social innovation. These kids care about the world around them, have empathy, and want to make a difference. As the NJHS advisor, I plan on using the group of 60 young leaders to create, plan, and implement a community service project. The project will be created entirely by the students based on a need they see in the community. I will simply be a facilitator to help them plan the logistics and make sure their ideas stay on track.
I plan to implement more ideas about the social injustices in America specifically. The education system falls short of shedding light onto the horrors of past experiences of African Americans and even the horrific events that still go on today. With this said, my plan of implementation, at first, is to educate, educate, educate. I will bring in texts from person's of color; I will share videos; I will spark discussions in my classroom. Hopefully, these discussions will spark conversations outside of the classroom, which will then have a positive impact on the community. I can also plan on creating a social justice club or organization within the school that focuses on community involvement and school improvement.
Cortney, I love your idea about teaching students social injustices in the U.S. As I was taught in High school mistakes are shared and taught about so they don't happen in the future.
Great idea, Cortney! This is a problem that we often do not think of. It takes commitment and care to implement plans like this. Great job!
This is a great Idea.
I think that you have a really good point because those are things that needed to be discussed further.
My plan is to implement in-school volunteer work, class debates, and pen-pals. This will get students involved in real-world things and helping them form their hobbies. The earlier students learn about the world and themselves the better they prepared and matured for their adult lives.
Emily,
I love the ideal of pen-pals, I remember we use to have them when I was in school. I do agree it does better prepare them for the real world starting young in learning.
Hi Emily,
I agree with the earlier students learn about their community and world around them the better prepared they will be to find a solution. My Kinders are currently pen-pals and this has been very successful. They love learning and sharing with other students.
I like the idea of volunteer work as it helps students find their interests and can create followers out of them. They will then be able to collaborate and become more involved.
Volunteer work is a great idea to help the students get involved and working together.
I love the idea of having the students do community service of some type, I think it will make them appreciate how much hard work goes into their community.
One thing that I plan to incorporate is cultural diversity. I would love to have a monthly focus and incorporate another surrounding culture into lessons throughout a month.
Landon Orrand (Initial Post)
- Identify at least one new idea you plan to implement in your school or classroom community.
I'd implement a "take that you need closet." The community could donate clothing, toothpaste, bedding, etc. The closet could be near an exit, so privacy could be kept. It will be open to all students and parents who are in need.
- Describe your idea and your plan for implementation.
I would first discuss the idea with other faculty members, the principal, and parents. I would gather a team to help set up a donation location, set up the closet, and send him flyers so parents know about the closet.
As an educator in a school , I would form a organization of a group of students to do volunteer work among several different places from helping elders, children and more. This can include tutoring , mentoring , shadowing and more ,as all this can be added to a college resume and more . This organization will also allow students to gain leadership skills and everyday life skills, as the volunteer to learn new things and practice different work ethics and challenges among an actual communtiy and legit work environment.
implementing and community service project would be very impactful but making it more accessible to the students who don’t get experiences like those. Taking your students with behaviors and allowing them the freedom to serve their community does sound stressful but including them in the conversation as they are commonly left out. Students need to understand that they are more than the people before them and just because they think they won’t succeed doesn’t mean they won’t.
This may take on the title of a service board where we rotate students and allow everyone to have the experience.
Initial Post:
- Identify at least one new idea you plan to implement in your school or classroom community.
I hope to implement daily news topics into my class time and have a discussion on them and see how we could advocate or stand up for whatever cause it may be.
- Describe your idea and your plan for implementation.
Students would be paired up into groups which allows for collaboration and different thoughts and ideas. This allows for different ideas from a diverse group of students. I would then like to watch a short clip of whatever it is we are looking at to see why there is so much disagreement and how maybe we could find a common ground. Lastly, I would have a bulletin board up with everything we learned during that week or month and show how the students would lead and stand up for that certain topic.
Katelyn, I love your idea about a service project because it is allowing students to give back and at the same time make a impact on the surrounding community and fellow peers.
I love the idea of implementing a community service project. It allows the kids to see what an impact that community service can do for those around them.
Katelyn, I love the idea of doing a community project with your class. It seems like a very easy way to promote social innovation.
- Identify at least one new idea you plan to implement in your school or classroom community.
- Describe your idea and your plan for implementation.
Implementing a community project could be helping gather school supplies for students who need them or a service project to help the students learn about helping the community.
The idea is to talk to some of the other teacher about the gathering of school supplies and start telling others about it. For the service project students would pick somewhere (even the school) to help out then switch every couple weeks.
Initial post
- Identify at least one new idea you plan to implement in your school or classroom community.
- Describe your idea and your plan for implementation
As a health and physical education teacher, I think that implementing a plethora of projects during the semester would be a great way for students to show their knowledge of health and P.E. in many different ways while also collaborating with others.
My idea would be to allow students to gather with a group of students and use their own creative ideas to showcase what they learned in health by using exercise and physical education that way it allows students voices to be heard while also implementing exercise.
Lawson, your idea of doing a community project is intelligent because it gives to the education community while also involving collaborative work with families and students.
I would let the students come together and pick a project they want to do to help the community that way they are doing a project they are actually interested in and will enjoy. While they get to pick the topic of the project it is also teaching them how to help the community.
I would give the students some different options of projects to help the community and let them decide as a group which one they would rather do. Then as the teacher, I would figure out the details. Say they pick feeding the homeless then we would go on a field trip and they would help field the homeless. Then I would have them write a paper about how it went and how it made them feel.
Reply
Lawson, I think allowing students to gather with a group of students and use their own creative ideas to showcase what they learned in health is a great idea.
I would implement diversity I want all my students to feel welcome so I would take the time to learn my student's backgrounds and buy books they can relate to and books where they see children that look like them this will be helpful in the long run.
I would have a flag day where children can bring in a flag that represents them rather than is culture or where they are from and this will help the students as well learn about other cultures.
I plan to teach kids about the world around them and how they can make a difference by doing things within their power of reach. Maybe we could plant a community garden to give back one year. Maybe Volunteering one afternoon to clean up trash around the school yard. Just different ways to help the world but also show how good it feels to be a good person and help in general as well as implement small world problems into my curriculum and ask students how they think the situation should be handled.
- Identify at least one new idea you plan to implement in your school or classroom community.
- I plan to implement culture in my class by having a culture day once a month where we learn about the customs of cultures and other facts.
- Describe your idea and your plan for implementation.
- We will have days that explore different cultures like Hungarian, South African, Brazilian, etc. We will start off by learning about how they live and what their culture is all about. Then during recess they will play games that are normal to that culture. At lunch we will eat the cultures foods. Then we will watch a movie that can help show more about the culture.
- Identify at least one new idea you plan to implement in your school or classroom community.
I would implement a "take that you need when you need." I would ask for the community to donate clothing, hyenine, and non-perishable foods. The boxes of items will be kept in the back of the room so students can have privacy.
- Describe your idea and your plan for implementation.
I would first discuss the idea with other faculty members and administration to make sure the idea is approve and to get donations. I would get other teachers to set things up and send him flyers so parents know about the boxes.
- Identify at least one new idea you plan to implement in your school or classroom community.
I really like the idea of the creation of classroom rules with student feedback.
- Describe your idea and your plan for implementation.
Students get to choose rules they follow in the classroom based on safety, responsibility, and respect. This is a good way to promote student choice/voice.
I plan to implement a current event day, where students bring in real world topic that are happening and able to explain the main points then ask the class 2 questions where we then have n open discussion about our thoughts and concerns. This will allow students to see real world problems and how they may want to fix them or how to help in the matters of things.
I love this idea, as middle school is such a necessary time to tell kids about these opportunities so they can find an area they are passionate about. I like how you mention the community aspect, not just their school.
I would love for my class to have interaction with other cultures. My plan is for my students if possible to interview someone of a different culture to share in the classroom.
(Initial Response)
One plan that I could implement in my own classroom in the future would be volunteer work, starting with lessons in the classroom and school environment. They could volunteer for different "jobs" in class or around the school like picking up trash in the hallway, etc.. By doing this, the students will be prepared and understand the importance of helping others in their own lives.
(Reply)
Hi Sandra! I like the idea of implementing other cultures into your lessons!!
Hi,
I do believe that its very important!
( Initial Reply )
I can have different ways available for my students to volunteer and help their community in the school. I could also take my class on a field trip to a animal shelter and they can help feed the animals or something like that.
(Reply)
Hello Sandra, I agree with you that incorporating other cultures in you classroom is very important.
Allowing students to volunteer at a younger age may open their eyes and allow them to have different outlooks!
initial post
- Identify at least one new idea you plan to implement in your school or classroom community.
I want to start a group that helps with the food bank at my school as I want to work in the lower grades. This will teach them how they can make an impact at a young age.
- Describe your idea and your plan for implementation.
I plan to have this before school as this way, it does not take away from instructional time but still gives them knowledge about the community and its services that it needs.
Students having a voice in the classroom and being allowed to use that voice to be apart of decisions is so important as it empowers them and makes them an active part of their learning. I started small with my students since they are 5 years old. I give the choice in class of where to sit and what type of flexible seating they want for that day, they also have a choice board of activities they can work on when they complete their work early.
A new community idea that we are working on includes penpals. As I mentioned in an earlier post, my Kinders have created FlipGrids and reached out to others students globally in the form of penpals. This has been such a wonderful experience. They share drawings, books and ask questions related to everyday things. This has been a positive on many levels and I will continue this .
One idea that I would like to implement would be to have students interact with others around them. I would to do two things to make this happen, the 1st would be to set up a pen pal program where students write letters to others their age and ask/answer questions about their lives where they are. The second way I would like to do this would be by engaging them with older people. We could visit a local nursing home and I would give kids a list of questions to ask about what it was like living in the past. This would educate students on the way things have changed and what other cultures are like.
I really love the ides of pen/pals kids would love that expecially knowing their pen/pal could be anywhere in the world would be amazing way to also integrate geography into their leanring so they can see where their pen.pal is on a map compared to where they are.
I love the idea of getting students to interact with society! Really like the idea of a pen pal!
If i were to be a high school teacher i would like to help them set up their future educational career. Whether that be to help them set up a educational resume or walk them through the FASA information that would be needed for financial aid. I think other things that should be discussed is setting up a 401k when they get a job, and how to file their taxes. These are all things that I was never taught and had to figure them out on my own.
(initial post)
~In the future I would like to implement the idea that no matter if big or small any idea could create positive change in the world.
~I would help implement this in the class by inspiring students to always be proud of their ideas and do not let anyone's negative comments impact how they view their work.
Kate Strein
Sep 26, 2019 at 8:45 AM