Launching Personal Projects with Inspire Citizens: Why, What, How?
What’s Happening in these Pictures?
Why:
Inspire Citizens works with students in co-designing learning journeys and experiences built around deeper purpose, empathy, awareness, transfer, and relevant community action in personal projects.
We acknowledge that reflections on the impacts set forth by these projects are worthwhile:
• Could refer to any aspect of having done the project: inquiry, action and/or reflection
• Could include progress made towards the learning goal
• Could include ways in which the student has grown as a learner, such as improvement in the ATL
skills or learner profile attributes
• Could include ways in which the student has gown or changed as a result of the project
And we also appreciate the aim of personal growth in these endeavors:
By undertaking a sustained, self-directed inquiry, students will:
• Explore an interest that is personally meaningful
• Take ownership of their learning by undertaking a self-directed inquiry
• Transfer and apply skills in pursuit of a learning goal and the creation of a product
• Recognize and evidence personal growth and development (PP Development Report, 2020)
However, we do believe that this criteria is too inward facing in our complex 2021-22 landscape. We see greater evidence of transformative learning and engagement through developing a greater sense of interdependence between the self and the diversity and complexities of nature and society.
In our work with schools and learners, we aim to be more explicit in highlighting the dynamic connections (similar to ikigai) of the internal hopes, needs, and passions of the learner with local and/or global community partners and external needs — nudging learners more towards a vocation that connects their talents and interests with the needs of others or the planet.
When linked to these enhanced community actions, students more clearly demonstrate the cognitive skills, dispositions, and knowledge needed to implement sustainable development and global citizenship in our volatile and uncertain world.
What:
We believe personal projects, embedded into part of a school or learning community should be able to answer the following question: How might our personal projects and our entire learning community be connected to bigger stories — about the world, our place in it, and how we aim to shape a better future?
How:
Launch your students into personal projects through resource banks connected to the the four following elements in our project ideation framework:
What are some of my talents, passions, skills, hobbies, and interests?
What are some things the world needs related to sustainable development, harmony with nature, doughnut economics, social justice, and humane technology?
What might be some actions I can take? What communities might I work with? How can I map those actions and assets?
What are some ways I can stay balanced and develop greater well-being during this project?
Following the ideation stage, work on connecting dots between elements of the framework. How might you pitch an idea that connects internal interests and needs, community needs, actions, partners, and well-being?
Once a throughline begins to emerge, students can begin to engage more deeply in the Empathy to Impact project and design system - helping monitor both transformative learning growth and the journey.
