Students, and people in general go through a difficult path in their academic lives filled with controversies. Overcoming those challenges requires a whole range of steps. To get through any endeavour it is crucial to have an intrinsic motivation, which is thought to be the most important denominator in the teaching process.
If there’s motivation, there’s a discussion about future goals. It is paramount to motivate students from the very early stage of their development to encourage them to become professionals in their respective fields.
Therefore motivating students is the most important factor in the field of pedagogy. Teachers do many activities in this direction, including collaborative tasks with fellow colleagues.
In the process our visions with teacher Murmani Surmava aligned, and we decided to do a project, the scope of which would supersede the process of one single subject and one single topic.
To fulfill the task we decided to author an eTwinning project and use the corresponding portal. Fortunately we were able to find like-minded teachers from a neighbouring country- Turkey.
Project idea stems from the information in ESL books about sustainable management of resources. It is very crucial to familiarize students with modern day challenges and help them find viable solutions to problems. Project touches upon the urgent need for sustainable water, soil, plant and waste management in order to instill optimal problem awareness and readiness to tackle them.
Project complies with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals as well.
Just as one of the greatest scientists in pedagogy, Dimitri Uznadze stated “Learning doesn't mean acquiring a particular set of knowledge about a particular happenstance, but it does mean developing certain skills and strengths in various directions' ' .
By saying it, he emphasized the importance of developing skills rather than memorising facts, which will equip students with necessary skills as the means of dealing with real-life problems in a competitive environment.
To our mind the project will have a positive effect on most of the metrics of Bloom’s taxonomy, 21-st century skills, The United Nations’ SDGs and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, namely developing high self-esteem, collaboration, communication, ICT, critical thinking and problem solving skills, e.i. higher order thinking skills in general.
In the beginning of the project focus groups were chosen according to their needs and interests, activities have been planned and implemented.
Cadets have been our main focus in the process, while teachers were merely facilitating and helping them if need be.
Through the topic of permaculture it has been decided to let other schools and students participate, therefore schools and students from Turkey have been invited to the project.
Many fun and engaging activities followed the initial steps, including:
Getting to know other students, schools, countries
Teaching their peers how to use Web 2 instruments to collaborate on creation of various e-products
Creating an avatar, a blog, a newsletter, an e-book
Planting and managing a small food garden within the perimeter of school to be able to observe the differences between traditional farming and permaculture methods.
Most of the activities involved practical work, including composting, cultivating various plants, creating and managing a food garden in the backyard of the school.
It was students' idea to run lab tests to determine the chemical makeup of store-bought vs permaculture crops, to introduce the results to a wider audience, to promote methods of permaculture and the use of bio-fertilizers.
It is important to note that most of our students are city-dwellers and this project proved to be even more interesting.
At the end of the project students presented their work with the means of PowerPoint Presentation, Padlet.com, Blogspot.com, Canva, Sli.do, Pixton.com just to name a few.
They created a school newspaper, a blog and an e-book.
Finally I would like to mention that project Permaculture was very interesting and motivating for students they were able to show their knowledge, learn collaboration and appreciation of other people’s opinions, sorting through information, synthesis and analysis of the data.
This project helped us, teachers as well. Showed us students’ strengths that we as teachers will use to further forge an effective collaboration with them in the teaching process.
