Teaching Sequence

10 minutes	Part A: How Might We Take Action?
15 minutes	Part B: Ideation - 50 Ideas in 5 Minutes
35 minutes	Part C: Project Planning

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

Introduction:

This lesson is all about supporting students to apply what they have learnt throughout the unit. They will collaboratively plan and execute an action to support their school in promoting positive and meaningful action around reconciliation in both the classroom and around the school.

Before commencing this activity, find out if your school has a RAP. If it does, invite a member of the RAP Working Group to talk to your students about your school's RAP, and the actions that your school has committed to.

If your school doesn't have a RAP, you can still take action to increase awareness of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures and reconciliation. The following resource has a number of ideas for potential projects (List of Actions) that students can collaboratively plan and complete to progress reconciliation in the school.

Finally, before commencing the project planning phase of this lesson, emphasise to students that each group member should take responsibility for collecting evidence and artefacts about the work that they put into the project, including drafts of everything they create as part of the project and records of any opportunities they pursue (either successfully or unsuccessfully). The most important thing for students to remember is that the PROCESS of completing the project is really important - perhaps even more than the final product. Students should aim to demonstrate the growth and learning that they experienced both personally and as a group as a result of facing the challenges inherent in a project of this type.

In this lesson students will be asked to:

Think about what they care about
Develop a range of ideas for taking action
Select one idea for taking action
Plan a project around this idea
Execute the project
Reflect on the success of their project and celebrate their efforts

Part A: How Might We Take Action?

Step 1.

Talk about reconciliation. When discussing reconciliation with students, a good place to start is to talk about key terms such as friendship, harmony, difference, respect, acceptance and understanding. Consider asking students and children to reflect on their own relationships with friends and family by asking:

What are the ingredients of a good relationship?
What makes you feel pride (both in yourself and those around you) and what happens when you feel disrespected?
What do you do to build trust in your personal relationships?
What is it like when you fall out with someone and you’d like to make amends with them?

Explain to students that reconciliation means lots of different things to different people. In Australia and in our schools, reconciliation usually means working to ensure everyone understands and values that we can learn, eat, speak and be in many different ways. A large part of learning about and working towards reconciliation is learning about and respecting First Nations peoples.

Finally, explain to students that reconciliation in Australia means improving relationships between the wider Australian community and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and that reconciliation is necessary in Australia because of the harmful effects of colonisation.

Tips for group work:

move into your groups quickly
stay in your group
speak quietly and take turns
perform your role
be respectful.

Step 2.

Explain to students that they are going to contribute to their school community by taking action to support reconciliation in their school or community by sharing what they have learnt about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and cultures. The first step in this process is to think about what actions they want to take.

Distribute or display this List of Actions to the class. Read through the list together, talking about why each of these actions is interesting to you and why they would be beneficial to your school and community.

Step 3.

Once complete, invite students to nominate which action they are most interested in. If possible, assign students into groups of three based on individual interests. Alternatively, break the class into groups of three and invite each group to nominate an action they are interested in or assign groups with an action. When assigning students to groups, see if you can give students the opportunity to work with others who might have a different level of ability or who are of a different gender or cultural background.

Step 4.

Once groups have been established, it's time to assign group members roles. Each group member should be assigned a specific role (such as Manager, Director, Speaker) but explain to students that all members will share leadership responsibilities. This means that each group member will need to ensure the project stays on track and should be able to explain how the results were achieved. Each group member should be aware of how each member of their group is performing.

Assign group members with the following roles:

Manager - The manager is in charge of any equipment the group needs and is responsible for collecting and returning the equipment. In addition, the manager needs to tell the teacher if any equipment is broken or missing.

Director - The director is in charge of ensuring the project stays on track and that all group members understand what is expected from the project and from each step of the project. The director also needs to offer encouragement and guidance but is not the group leader (This responsibility falls to all students).

Speaker - The speaker is in charge of asking for help from the teacher or from other groups. They are the only group member who can leave the group to seek advice from outside the group and report back to their group. However, the teacher can visit the group and speak to all group members, and all group members can share the group's ideas and results when asked.

Part B: Ideation - 50 Ideas in 5 Minutes

Step 1.

Now that students have identified the action they are interested in, they need to start thinking about what they need to do to make it happen. This activity will guide them in brainstorming ideas by completing the '50 ideas in 5 minutes' challenge.

Students will work in their groups to come up with as many different and varied ideas as possible in 5 minutes. The ideas can be as abstract and off-the-wall as students like, but they should also add some practical and realistic ideas too. The aim is to have as many as possible, with a view to being able to choose one that can be developed, refined and put into action.

The group brainstorm could be run like this:

Give each group a piece of butcher's paper and each person a texta.

Before starting the countdown, ask students to write their action on the top of their piece of paper.
Students should stand around the tables rather than sit in their chairs as this encourages more creative thinking.
They should:
- Write everything down as fast as possible on the butcher's paper.
- Work fast: they only have 5 minutes and they need 50 ideas.
- Do not discuss the ideas at this stage ... just get them recorded.
Give time markers as they progress - "Three minutes left! Two minutes! One minute left!" You could project a countdown of 5 minutes using this online stopwatch.
Share a rough figure of how many ideas have been generated across the whole class - remind students how productive they can be in 5 minutes.
You could offer a prize for the group that creates the most ideas within the 5 minutes.

If you have time, you could run this brainstorming challenge in its traditional form: 100 ideas in 10 minutes!

Step 2.

Once groups have completed the '50 ideas in 5 minutes' challenge, ask each group to spend the rest of the brainstorming time viewing and discussing their list of ideas.

Invite each student to nominate their favourite ideas by:

Drawing a star next to the idea they think is the most creative
Drawing a smiley face next to the idea that they like best

Step 3.

Explain to students that each group will be selecting one idea to bring to life. It is important that each group selects an idea that is feasible and realistic to complete within the time frame. One way to do this is by using the S.M.A.R.T. project criteria.

Ask each group to use the S.M.A.R.T. project criteria to select one idea that they will complete. Explain to students that S.M.A.R.T. project criteria can help focus on what you what to achieve, how you will achieve it, how long it will take and how you will measure your group's success.

Step 4.

Explain to students that if any of the ideas don't stand up to the S.M.A.R.T. criteria they should be discarded. If they have more than one idea that stands up to the S.M.A.R.T. criteria then the group should decide fairly on which one to choose. If none of the ideas stand up to the S.M.A.R.T. criteria then groups will need to adjust or adapt existing ideas to meet the criteria.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead

Part C: Project Planning

Step 1.

Write the above quote on the board and explain to students that now they have developed an idea for action it’s time to start planning a project around this action. Students might need to conduct research or talk to people in order to plan their project properly, for example, to find out why the action is significant or to talk through any challenges or sensitivities. Teachers should be available to guide students at this stage.

Step 2.

Using the idea developed and refined in Part B, groups should complete the Project Planning Tool. These should be printed and each group needs to fill in their own copy.

Some tips for supporting groups through the project planning phase:

ensure groups are allocating roles and dividing up the workload fairly
encourage all group members to contribute so that all students have ownership over their projects
remind students to be realistic and make the project achievable
advise students to consider possible challenges and obstacles - being prepared is a great way of ensuring the plan will be a success
encourage groups to keep communication lines open at all stages of project planning and actioning.

Part D: Execute the Project

After students have completed the planning process, allow time for students to action their projects. This could be done in one day or over a number of weeks to complete the project. The Project checklist can be used to help groups complete their project.

Consider the following tips when supporting students through the implementation phase of their projects:

remind students of the benefit of involving First Nations peoples in planning their projects
be clear about time allocation remind students how much time they have to complete the project and encourage students to be realistic about the task they have to complete in this time
keep communication high, making sure everyone has everything they need to complete the work they have been allocation, and that everyone knows what they should be doing
Talk to your principal, parents and staff about what the students are doing and how/why they are completing their projects.
Remind students to prepare for set-backs, and remind them that making change can be hard. Encourage them to continue even in the face of obstacles or challenges.

Reflection

1. A whole-school approach to reconciliation isn't just about what happens in the classroom or in the school - it must also involve the community. Give students the opportunity to present their learning in a public arena. This could mean hosting people from the local community at an exhibition where the process and final products of students' projects are displayed as posters. It could mean creating a newsletter about students' projects and distributing it to parents and community members. Another option could be producing and screening a two-minute film that documents students' projects.

2. Invite students to complete the project reflection and personal refection (available on the Student Worksheet). Each student should complete both sets of reflection questions independently.

Project reflection

How does our project contribute to reconciliation?
What impact did our project have?
Was our project a success? Why or why not?
What did I learn during the implementation of our project?
What parts of the project were the most successful and why?
What parts of the project were the least successful and why? How would we improve these parts?
How would we improve the project overall?
What challenges did we face and how did we overcome them?
How could we extend our project?
Does our project have a legacy?

Self reflection

What did I learn about reconciliation?
How did I work in the group?
What would I do differently next time?
What was the best part of working on this project and why?
What was the worst part and why?
What impact did I have?
What am I most proud of?

Finally, congratulate your students on their efforts and remind them to be proud of what they achieved, even if they didn't achieve all they hoped to. Making change is hard and efforts to make change should be acknowledged and celebrated.

Brave New Clan - Taking Action

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