The Uganda ProjectI was chit chatting with Mrs. Baranek at Novi Meadows one day when she casually began telling me about this AMAZING project she was working to complete with her students. Her students are 6th graders who were studying developing countries as part of a social studies unit. Mrs. Baranek began thinking about a "way to incorporate our curriculum with a service project that we had a direct connection to." She really wanted to make this happen, so, even though she had some reservations, was a bit nervous about how to go about bringing this idea to life, and knew she would need to guide learning that she had not facilitated in this way before, she went for it. Putting the Project Together![]() Thinking about how to make all this happen, she realized that she has a connection to a doctor who does work in other countries. This year, she knew he was going to Uganda and would have contact with students who are orphans as part of the Village to Village project. Mrs. Baranek brought this small connection to her students and they just "kind of brainstormed" together. "It took talking to the kids and talking to my teammates and other people for the ideas to really come out. That's the beauty of a group project like this is that you get the best ideas when you have more than one person sharing their ideas, and you work it out, and you talk about it... That really helped me get a clearer picture of what would be good for the kids," she said. The students came up with a lot of good ideas. One was to create games for the kids in Uganda that the students here designed in Tinkercad and printed using a 3D printer. "So then I tried to put them in charge as much as possible." Tinkercad, 3D Printing, and more![]() Although Mrs. Baranek had very little experience with Tinkercad, she jumped in, helping to identify the students who had experience with Tinkercad and then helping those students team up with one another to teach others with less experience. "It ended up being so collaborative.... there were kids up and down helping other kids... they were able to help each other." The students did more than design and print 3D projects. They also designed cards to make and send. Knowing that the kids in Uganda who would be receiving their gifts were experiencing a lot of challenges related to poverty and health-related issues, the students decided to design cards incorporating messages of hope and inspiration. They also collected and organized clothing, money, and toothbrushes for the students in Uganda. Novi students later decided to use the money they collected to purchase shoes for their partner classmates in Uganda. ![]() Mrs. Baranek let the students follow their interests and "everybody found a job that they wanted to do." "I let them choose what they wanted to do and I think that ended up working well," she says. Because the students had an authentic audience for their work, they cared very much about the quality of the design and of their writing. They worked very hard to write and rewrite the messages inside the cards. “They were very thoughtful about that,” said Mrs. Baranek. ![]() Outcomes Reflecting on the project, she said, "For me, it's a lot of letting go. It does work. It's okay to let go." She says that in the past she would have worried about her own expertise with some of the technology tools, etc. but she decided to jump in, giving the students voice, choice, and leadership—and was very pleased with the results. The students were very engaged. Even those who usually are not. There were students who “really shined during this project and who became leaders helping others..." Their “sense of ownership and engagement just really skyrocketed and then I saw a lot of that transfer to... more effort in class," she told me with enthusiasm. "That was wonderful to see. It just happened organically". What Did The Students Learn? "When the students started using Tinkercad, they had a lot of 'fails'—and that resulted in a lot of problem-solving, which resulted in a lot more collaboration, which resulted in students who were not usually leaders in the classroom stepping up and becoming leaders," says Mrs. Baranek. They learned to persevere, and because the project was meaningful to them, they paid a lot of attention to the quality of their work. They were very invested in trying again if things didn't work out, and staying with it to make a quality piece of work. I took some time one afternoon to talk with the students directly about their experience. They talked a lot about photographs of the students in Uganda that the doctor there had been able to share. They told me all about the project with a lot of enthusiasm in their voices. They listened to one another and reflected on the thoughts of their classmates. It was very clear that the project had really had an impact on these students. The conversation was intense, thoughtful, and passionate. The students started talking with me about the shoes that were purchased for the kids with the money that they sent, and they started talking about how far the kids walk and if there were thorns on the ground and how that could be a problem if you don't have shoes. They wondered aloud about what kinds of vegetation there is in Uganda, they had questions about the climate, and Ugandan student’s hairstyles. The students began asking questions about a water pump shown in a photograph and wondering about water quality, and illnesses like malaria.... They had a lot of wonderful questions. Some of the students have chosen to continue their experience through creating websites with their written reflections and ideas for other projects. They talked about the power of video and the power of photographs in capturing a little bit about the meaning of their project. And they began brainstorming how to share and market their ideas. “We all felt like it was a win-win situation. We learned about Tinkercad and other things at the same time we were helping the kids in Uganda," said one of the sixth-grade students. Mrs. Baranek added that she and her students also talked about cultural diffusion—the way that elements of culture can spread from one area to another—and that they will use this project in the future to talk about concepts of economy, government, and political stability or instability. They will also continue to use their Uganda project experience to learn more about developing countries, writing, design, technology, teamwork, leadership, perseverance, and service. Please watch this wonderful video Mrs. Baranek and her students created about their experience by clicking on the image below:
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November 2018
Gianna Mrozek
Technology Integration Specialist. gianna.mrozek (at) novik12.org Follow me on Twitter: @GiannaMrozek |