Why Refugees?
Students take charge of meaningful projects when they understand their relevance. By exploring the topic of ‘refugees’, students are asked to engage with a topic they already know is important. There are constant refugee crises on the news, people are always talking about refugees, and it’s a topic crammed with difficult and controversial conundrums. |
While it's certainly a difficult topic to tackle, this iQuest asks students to be independent in drawing their own conclusions. Starting from an empathetic and constructive viewpoint, students will construct a foundational understanding about who refugees are and find out ways they can personally help newly arrived refugees at their school. This iQuest is designed to complement further engagement with the complex issues surrounding the topic of 'refugees' in higher education.
Target Audience:
This iQuest is aimed at grade 5 & 6 students working towards level 6 of the AusVELS curriculum.
This iQuest is aimed at grade 5 & 6 students working towards level 6 of the AusVELS curriculum.
Intended Unit Length:
5 weeks - This time frame is dependent on, and flexible to, how you want to implement it. While this iQuest has 5 tasks followed by summative student presentations, if you wanted to enrich it further by incorporating more learning domains it could be scheduled as a term-long unit.
5 weeks - This time frame is dependent on, and flexible to, how you want to implement it. While this iQuest has 5 tasks followed by summative student presentations, if you wanted to enrich it further by incorporating more learning domains it could be scheduled as a term-long unit.
AusVELS Links:
For this iQuest, we maintained a focus on the interdisciplinary domains of Design, Communication and Technology as well as Communication. This iQuest aims to meet the requirements of the below AusVELS curriculum areas.
Design, Creativity and Technology
Welcome Pack:
Within the AusVELS domain of D,C & T a vital step of learning is transforming ideas into creative and practical realities through designing, planning and producing a product that has relevance in a real life context. In this domain students should be posed with problems and should actively identify needs, wants, opportunities and areas for improvement. Furthermore in this domain, students need to combine their understanding of design and functionality with social and cultural issues.
Students will demonstrate this in the following ways:
AusVELS states that in this domain students need to be creative problem solvers both as individuals and as members of a team. Our iQuest allows students both those opportunities in the following ways:
Creativity in this domain can be described as applying imagination, lateral and critical thinking throughout the design and development processes.
Communication
Students need to develop the knowledge, skills and behaviours that empower them to respond to, make meaning of, and deconstruct a range of communication forms. Throughout the iQuest students will respond to and making meaning of a variety of aural, written and visual media, a key component of the communication domain.This will be demonstrated in the following ways:
In the communication domain, students develop a wide range of strategies for listening attentively and extracting meaning from different kinds of communication, and participate in a variety of formal interactive classroom situations.
Another major component of the communication discipline is effectively presenting information in a range of forms appropriate to their context, purpose and audience. Students will need to develop the knowledge skills, and behaviours to present information that is relevant, understandable and helpful for refugee students. They will need to make informed and critical decisions about the inclusion of specific information and how to best present it. Students will demonstrate their understanding of this by:
For this iQuest, we maintained a focus on the interdisciplinary domains of Design, Communication and Technology as well as Communication. This iQuest aims to meet the requirements of the below AusVELS curriculum areas.
Design, Creativity and Technology
Welcome Pack:
Within the AusVELS domain of D,C & T a vital step of learning is transforming ideas into creative and practical realities through designing, planning and producing a product that has relevance in a real life context. In this domain students should be posed with problems and should actively identify needs, wants, opportunities and areas for improvement. Furthermore in this domain, students need to combine their understanding of design and functionality with social and cultural issues.
Students will demonstrate this in the following ways:
- Student will create a product, the Welcome Pack, which will address the real-life context of refugees. The Welcome Pack will seek to address the problem of ‘how can we help support the needs of refugees as new arrivals within our school and community?’
- It provides an opportunity through which students develop a product that improves the lives of refugees based on their specific needs as new arrivals.
- Their design will specifically address a current and real-life social issue; supporting the needs of refugees within our community.
AusVELS states that in this domain students need to be creative problem solvers both as individuals and as members of a team. Our iQuest allows students both those opportunities in the following ways:
- Opportunities for individual and collective research will be completed. Students will go through a series of tasks to solve the problem of meeting the needs of refugees in our school and community.
- To do this, they will collect information, discuss, and evaluate it based on the needs of refugees, then as a team they will making decisions about this information to create and target their Welcome Pack at those needs.
Creativity in this domain can be described as applying imagination, lateral and critical thinking throughout the design and development processes.
- When developing their Welcome Pack students are given the freedom to think creatively about the way they will construct their Welcome Pack, there are no strict guidelines for this, only basic elements which must be included such as the information report, map and brochure - Tasks 4 & 5.
- Students will using elements of creativity, imagination and critical thinking when designing and creating the poster and brochure - Tasks 2 & 5.
Communication
Students need to develop the knowledge, skills and behaviours that empower them to respond to, make meaning of, and deconstruct a range of communication forms. Throughout the iQuest students will respond to and making meaning of a variety of aural, written and visual media, a key component of the communication domain.This will be demonstrated in the following ways:
- Task 1 - students will be responding to a variety of pictures and visual media in the forum discussion task. They will have to analyse and interpret what the pictures are trying to communicate and there relevance to our iQuest topic of refugees.
- Task 2 - students are given a scenario which they will respond to and make meaning of by packing a suitcase. Students have to consider different elements of the scenario, e.g. 'where you're going to go, what you will need just to survive and anything else that would be most important to you '. Students are then required to pack items in response to these considerations.
- Task 3 - students will be listening to a guest speaker. This task requires students to make meaning of and deconstruct the guest speakers aural presentation. Students have to deconstruct the information gained from the presentation to understand what needs aren't being met, in relation to Maslow's Hierarchy, for a refugee that has just arrived in Australia. They then have to use this information to target their Welcome Pack at meetings these needs.
In the communication domain, students develop a wide range of strategies for listening attentively and extracting meaning from different kinds of communication, and participate in a variety of formal interactive classroom situations.
- In Task 4, students will be listening attentively in a formal presentation by a refugee quest speaker. Students need to find relevant information from this presentation about things a refugee needed most upon their arrival in Australia and make their Welcome Pack targeted at some of these areas of need.
- Students will have an opportunity to interactively engage with the quest speaker by asking questions. To do this, prior to the incursion students develop a series of questions to ask the speaker about their experiences when they first arrived in Australia. Through this task students will need to develop specific questions tailored to this situation and their ability to do so will be extremely important for their welcome pack.
Another major component of the communication discipline is effectively presenting information in a range of forms appropriate to their context, purpose and audience. Students will need to develop the knowledge skills, and behaviours to present information that is relevant, understandable and helpful for refugee students. They will need to make informed and critical decisions about the inclusion of specific information and how to best present it. Students will demonstrate their understanding of this by:
- Designing and creating a poster, the purpose of which is to demonstrate understanding by communicating the relationship between Maslow's Hierarchy and the needs of refugees - Task 2.
- Writing an information report and creating and labelling a map, the purpose of which is to communicate information that will assist a refugee student (audience) in transitioning to the school (context) by providing all key information in both written and visual formats - Task 4.
- Designing and creating a brochure, the purpose of which is to provide important information about an organisation or service (context) available in the local community which will assist the refugee student (audience) to transition into their new life - Task 5.
Pedagogy and Structure:
This iQuest is a learning tool designed to develop skills associated with Communication and Design, Creativity & Technology curricula according to AusVELS' Interdisciplinary curriculum (state of Victoria, Australia).
By simply navigating through and reading each task, you will see that each one interrelates with the others in a narrative of learning. The developers of this iQuest have focussed on an interpretation of Katherine Mudoch's 'Inquiry' pedagogy. Discussions about learning are woven through the iQuest, and as students complete their learning journal, they are participating in a reflective process that is important for their overall mastery of the iQuest's outcomes.
This iQuest is a learning tool designed to develop skills associated with Communication and Design, Creativity & Technology curricula according to AusVELS' Interdisciplinary curriculum (state of Victoria, Australia).
By simply navigating through and reading each task, you will see that each one interrelates with the others in a narrative of learning. The developers of this iQuest have focussed on an interpretation of Katherine Mudoch's 'Inquiry' pedagogy. Discussions about learning are woven through the iQuest, and as students complete their learning journal, they are participating in a reflective process that is important for their overall mastery of the iQuest's outcomes.
- Tuning In: The introduction to this task engages students with the topic of 'refugees' by issuing a call to arms; to help refugees by creating a welcome pack. Students are further engaged and assessed by being given opportunities to communicate their prior knowledge. The image-response section of Task 1 gives students a chance to exhibit their prior and desired learning by asking questions in a collaborative on-line environment.
- Finding Out: The second half of Task 1, asks students to consider and respond to their peers' thinking about refugees and come to a consensus of terms and perspectives, drawing on new information from available definitions and at the same time clarifying and moderating. During Task 2, students begin shaping their prior understandings about refugees in an empathetic way. They put themselves in the shoes of a refugee and incidentally draw on new knowledge. By creating a poster based on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, students acquire new understandings by constructing physical graphic organiser about needs and how they relate to refugees.
- Sorting Out: Recording their learning progress during Tasks 1 & 2, students are actively sorting out new information inside a perspective based on their overarching questions: "Who are refugees and how can we help them?". This readies them for the next phase of inquiry and for Task 3.
- Going Further: During Task 3 students construct questions for a guest speaker, and in doing so make real connections between real-life and their learning. This distills and targets their thinking about inclusions for their Welcome Pack, and informs further research during the final two tasks. As they construct their information report and brochure students will have developed firm understandings about their purpose and audience.
- Making Conclusions: The design and production elements of Tasks 3 and 4 aides students in responding to and evaluating their learning over the course of the iQuest. The presentation of their Welcome Pack abstracts the learning process in a reflective way and allows students to view their learning as an ongoing process based on the iQuest's initial call-to-arms.
- Taking Action: At the conclusion of this iQuest, students have inquired about and connected with a topic in a very real-life way. Using learning process, students take action in regards to the needs of refugees through a continuing agenda given to every student, which is evident in the initial engagement and throughout every task.
Teacher Role:
As this is an inquiry-based unit of work, the role of the teacher ideally fits that framework also. Depending on any extra learning you may intend in your implementation of this iQuest, as it is, it largely directs students autonomously. The role of the teacher therefore, would be to enable students in the preparation of related materials and tools as well as providing guidance, for example helping frame discussions and engage students. Allowing the construction of learning to happen as naturally as possible will ensure utmost relevance and authenticity.
As this is an inquiry-based unit of work, the role of the teacher ideally fits that framework also. Depending on any extra learning you may intend in your implementation of this iQuest, as it is, it largely directs students autonomously. The role of the teacher therefore, would be to enable students in the preparation of related materials and tools as well as providing guidance, for example helping frame discussions and engage students. Allowing the construction of learning to happen as naturally as possible will ensure utmost relevance and authenticity.
Overarching question:
Who are refugees and how can we help them?
Sub-questions:
Who are refugees and how can we help them?
Sub-questions:
- How do refugees come to Australia?
- Why do refugees come to Australia?
- Definition – What makes you a refugee/asylum seeker?
- What things do refugees bring with them?
- What things do refugees need
- How can we support them in our community?
Challenge: Design a Welcome Pack for a refugee who has just arrived in our community/school. This can be a pack filled with physical items, or helpful hints for where to get help. E.g. map of local area, services, local shops, advocates,
Group work: This iQuest will require students working in teams of 3 to collaboratively build their Welcome Pack. Each task is multi-faceted and able to be broken up. An important aspect of the communication outcomes for this iQuest e.g. delegating and teamwork.
Group work: This iQuest will require students working in teams of 3 to collaboratively build their Welcome Pack. Each task is multi-faceted and able to be broken up. An important aspect of the communication outcomes for this iQuest e.g. delegating and teamwork.
iQuest Requirements
- Task 1 forum discussion: Student emails will need to be registered with www.whatwouldyoutake.weebly.com, including the creation of usernames and passwords, in order for full participation in this activity. This is a simple process you can access on Task 1's process page.
- Task 3 Interview with a refugee: To be able to complete this task, you will need to organise an incursion in advance for the interview with a refugee. This can be found on the resources page of this iQuest.
- As you students will be working in groups of 3, teachers may wish to organise groupings prior to starting the iQuest.
- Laptops/ computers
- Internet Access
- A printer
- A work station
- A whiteboard discussion area
- Coloured paper
- Scissors
- Pencils
- Textas
- Rulers