Goal: Give Peace a Chance

6 min read

Welcome to Cycle 7 of The 30 Goals Challenge: Make it Meaningful!

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” ~ T.S. Eliot

Goal: Give peace a chance. This goal was inspired by recent tragedies around the world, meeting the inspirational Mallory Fundora, and a project by Georgia Psarra.
Accomplish this goal: Have your students join a global project or start a project to spread peace. Students can also create and spread messages of peace through social media via a graphic, digital poster, or video. Try digital poster or graphic tools to create your projects, such as EduBuncee, FlowvellaSway, HaikuDeckAdobe Slate, Canva,  Visme, Smore, ThingLinkBiteslides, and EduGlogster. Spread messages through short videos created with Instagram, Magisto, Powtoon, Voicethread, iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, or WeVideo. Below, I have listed the steps to problem based learning and several resources.

Get your copy of The 30 Goals Challenge for Teachers or Learning to Go!​

Reflection

One of my favorite kids on social media is Kid President who spreads encouraging messages for other young learners to be awesome and make a positive impact on the world. I’m sure you’ve seen this inspiring video. I believe when our learners see this 8 year-old’s impact (the age he started), they are inspired to be a positive force. We need more of our students to care enough to be peace advocates. Our learners have the ability to transform their world by thinking of ideas to deal with world issues and spread these ideas on social media. Will you be the teacher to allow them the opportunity to transform the world or will you be like so many who put up obstacles or say it isn’t in the curriculum? I have heard way too many students say their principals and teachers failed them or made their road to transforming the world difficult. Students can both learn and spread peace. Below, are ideas to help you be a facilitator and support to your learners.

Steps to Problem Based Learning

  1. Problem
    1. Introduce the problem
      1. Make it a powerful story that strikes an emotional chord.
      2. Introduce the problem by showing a video, through a blog post, take them through a case study, analyze an infographic, or have them play an online game.  Scroll to Resources to discover games and other sites.
      3. At this point, give students their mission with guidelines. See my presentations and posts on sending students on learning missions. Keep it short and simple so students understand the task. You can include the solution product or leave that open and allow them to decide how to solve the problem.
    2. Give students time to reflect on the problem in pairs or groups. Find a variety of brainstorming tools here.
  2. Problem Research
    1. Students should learn about the problem through digital research. Some options for learning about the problem through primary sources include having students conduct interviews, create and distribute surveys, study a hashtag, or Skype with experts.
    2. Various online tools- http://pear.ly/bP38v
    3. Teach digital literacy, evaluation of online resources, bookmarking, curation, and annotation
  3. Solution
    1. You can give them the solution and guidelines when you introduce the problem. Examples may include, create a digital campaign or poster, make a Public Service Announcement (PSA), create an online game, create an ebook, organize an online project, create an advertisement, make a video, develop a product, design an app, host an event, create an infographic, or create a social network.
    2. Generating solutions- in pairs/groups, students brainstorm possible solutions and the steps involved in implementing the solution
    3. Implementation
  4. Presentation
    1. Students present the solution, reflect on the process of implementing the solution, and discuss it’s impact

Resources

Find a list of games, websites, and projects for learning about other cultures and researching world problems to help students create their messages of peace. Some of the projects may have expired, but you can get lesson ideas and see student examples:

​​​Earn a badge for completing this goal! 

BadgeNew to The 30 Goals Challenge? Each year, teachers worldwide aim to accomplish 1 to 30 goals that transform their teaching. Join the movement by accomplishing any goal from any of the cycles then letting us know through a blog reflection or status update on our Facebook community or on Twitter,@30GoalsEdu . At our official site, 30Goals.com, find all the goals, participant reflections, badges, and get your copy of The 30 Goals for Teachers: Small Steps to Transform Your Classroom workbook. ​

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